This article is all about juicing. Whether you are juicing for general health, juicing for weight loss, or juicing to fight a specific illness, you will find tips here that can help. These tips will help you to select the best tools, the best fruits, the freshest vegetables, and just generally make your juicing experience rewarding.
If you are diabetes or otherwise sensitive to sugar in your diet, be careful with juicing. Many fruit juices will be very high in sugar, resulting in a spike in your blood sugar levels, especially if you drink juice on an empty stomach. Try diluting your juices with water to reduce this issue.
Try to use locally-grown fruits and vegetables in your juicing. The best option is to use produce that you’ve grown yourself. Every mile that a piece of fruit needs to be transported to get to you increases the carbon footprint of your glass of juice. It also increases the chance of your produce becoming contaminated with bacteria or chemicals.
If you are making juice for health reasons, choose a dark green vegetable for the base of your juice. Your goal should be for the juice to approximately somewhere around 50-75% of the broccoli, spinach, or other in order maximize the health benefits. Use the rest of the recipe for sweet fruit to give it more flavor.
Drink your juice soon after making it if you are looking to benefit from the health benefits. Juice starts to lose its benefits as soon as it comes out of the fruit or veggie. The longer you let it sit, the more it will lose, so go ahead and drink it as soon as possible to be able to let your body enjoy all the nutrients.
When attempting a juice-only diet, it can be helpful to remove all processed foods from your house first. Having a box of crackers, a jar of peanut butter, or some candy bars staring you in the face while you can only have juice is an easy way to cut your diet tragically short.
Start gradually with vegetables. Start by adding bits of vegetables to your fruit juices and work your way up to full vegetable drinks. Vegetables are more nutritious than fruits as a group but not as tasty sometimes. Adding more veggies to your drinks will make your taste buds ready to get that superior nutritional value.
Don’t just make fresh juice, keep the choices fresh as well. When you go to the farmer’s market, produce stand or grocery store, look for new fruits or vegetables you haven’t tried before. Not only will you bring much needed variety to your juicing, but also discover new and exciting produce to add to your meals.
Juicing will lead you to more ingredients than just produce! Try spices like cayenne or cinnamon, or nutrition-packed additions like spirulina. You can even put a little honey and yogurt in once in a while for a sweet, smooth treat. Make sure to use only non-fat, unsweetened dairy to keep the resulting produce healthy.
If you suffer from diabetes or hypoglycemia, stick to juicing only vegetables until you have spoken with your physician. Drinking fruit juice may cause your blood sugar to spike. It is important to monitor how much fruit you are juicing in your mixes to allow for your medical needs. Vegetable juices don’t carry the same concerns. They safely supply nutrients without the sugar bump in the bloodstream.
Once you have your juicing materials, they should be of good quality if you want good quality juice, it is of utmost importance that you know how to function your juicer to it’s fullest extent. If you delve into making juice before you really know what you are doing, you will just be wasting your juicing materials.
I’d highly recommend buying a juicer with a brand name over one that you don’t recognize the name of. Brand name juicers are more likely to last a long time, and will usually have a warranty or guarantee to back their claims up. Smaller companies can be fly-by-night, and you tend to get what you pay for.
When you get really serious about juicing you may wish to purchase a smaller second fridge just for your produce. This will leave you room in your main fridge for solid foods and condiments. If you get really serious, you may be able to move your solid foods to the smaller fridge! That’s probably a healthier way to live.
A good juicing tip is to start with simple ingredients if you’ve never juiced before. A lot of people start juicing for the health benefits but if you start using really healthy ingredients right off the bat, you might find that the taste is just too bitter for you.
Juicing is a great way to treat acne from the inside out. Try including foods like apricots, carrots, grapefruit, mango, pumpkin, strawberries, or watercress, as they all include the best vitamins and nutrients to battle the causes of pimples. They also taste great, so it’s a far more enjoyable way to treat your skin than smelly chemical creams.
Constipation can easily be treated with juicing. To relieve constipation make juice with grapes, cabbage, lettuce, parsnips, and papayas. If you are always constipated, consuming juice everyday can keep you moving your bowels.
Do not get too extreme with your juicing! You don’t have to go overboard with the ingredients when you are putting together a healthy juice drink. Choose a few, perhaps just 2 or 3, of your favorite vegetables and some apple to sweeten it up. Use the same number of fruit for a refreshing treat. When you put together a fruit or vegetable drink with a few different varieties, it will taste wonderful, with each separate flavor shining through.
As we stated in the beginning of this article, our purpose here was to share with you the many aspects of juicing. We hope that the tips we have provided will serve useful on your juicing journey. Remember to start with the right tools, pick the best produce, and over all have fun. You will see the health benefits of juicing before you know it.
