Eating 1 large cucumber, a bowlful of spinach, 2 apples and 2 medium carrots in one sitting can be the definition of impossible. But now, thanks to juicing, all of this can fit into one glass which can be gulped in less than 10 seconds.
Juice diets are the latest fad endorsed by the western world in the recent age. Miranda Kerr and Nicole Ritchie swear by the health benefits of the juice diet. Remember the sinister, gooey stuff Tony Stark kept drinking in Iron Man 2? It was supposed to be a chlorophyll detox to counter balance the radio-poisoning, which basically means a mashed up juice of all things green. In times when sitting down for a long dinner seems like a luxury, a tall glass of juice tends to make up for time as well as nourishment.
In regards to the machinery required, your usual blender should do the trick just fine. However, if you are serious about your juicing ambitions and want to extract the best out of the ingredients – with a significant punch to your credit card – it would be beneficial to invest in a masticating cold press. The press slowly crushes the fruit or vegetable and prevents the application of heat as is the case in blades and blenders. Thus, you end up with healthier and highly-enriched juices, with preserved colour and nutrients as compared to juices from blenders.
You absorb all the nutrients – Cooking, frying and boiling the ingredients, many-a-times, lead to the destruction of a majority of the vital anti-oxidants and amino acids. Juicing helps prevent this loss and fortifies your dietary intake with a well rounded ingestion of all necessary nutrients.
You end up eating many vegetables you never thought you would – Let’s face it, on any regular day, you wouldn’t even dream of eating a bowl of boiled and sautéed spinach or broccoli; no matter how nutritious it’ll prove to be. But now, all you got to do is throw together all of the infamous leafy veggies into the blender, add in the juice of half a lemon for zing or an apple for sweetness, and you won’t even recognize the ‘rabbit food’ anymore (as long as you ignore the slimy, gunky colour of the liquid).
Make sure you don’t waste the fiber – After you have extracted the juice from the blender, don’t simply throw away the pulp. You can incorporate this leftover fiber into muffins, soups and gravies. Juicing does increase your anti-oxidant intake, but you lose out on natural fibers which aid digestion. A completely juice-based diet will do more harm than good. It is meant to supplement your nutrition, not hamper it. So, unless you are working on a detox plan, make sure you fortify your diet with solid food too.
Eat the fruit, juice the veg – The one thing you need to keep in mind when it comes to juicing is to minimize your usage of fruit in juicing. It would seem absurd, but there is a sound reason behind it. Fruits are loaded with natural sugars like fructose linked to high blood sugar and weight gain. Hence, you have to be careful when you include fruits in your juicing recipes. Use them only to counter-act or enhance the taste of your recipe, not center the recipe on fruits. Fruit is best eaten whole where the natural fibers in them nullify, or atleast, balance the effect of fructose. Coconut water and lemon/lime juice are safe options as these are virtually void of any fat or excessive sugars.
Drink your juice right away – It is a very bad idea to juice large quantities at once and store it for consequent use. Under highly monitored conditions, vegetable juice can stay fresh for a maximum of 24 hours due to its unpasteurized nature. After this time span, the nutritional value declines steadily and the taste will also suffer. It is best consumed immediately.
Thus we see that, exploited in the right amount, juicing has many benefits on offer. These recipes can help you get started:
The ABC juice
1 apple
2 beets
3 large carrots
1 (1-inch) piece of ginger
Spinach or kale (optional)
1 apple
2 beets
3 large carrots
1 (1-inch) piece of ginger
Spinach or kale (optional)
Romaine Apple Juice
2 cups romaine lettuce hearts
2 green apples
1 orange
2 celery stalks
1/2 cucumber
2 cups romaine lettuce hearts
2 green apples
1 orange
2 celery stalks
1/2 cucumber
Green Juice
6 kale leaves
2 cups spinach
1/2 cucumber
4 celery stalks
2 apples
1 (1-inch) piece of ginger
6 kale leaves
2 cups spinach
1/2 cucumber
4 celery stalks
2 apples
1 (1-inch) piece of ginger
