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Why You Should Juice
Super Food of the Week: Fresh Juice!
Do you have a juicer collecting dust in your pantry? It may be time to dust it off and give it a whirl! I just recently started juicing and absolutely love it. Juicing allows you to pack more fruits and vegetables into your day thus helping your health. I know it can be a pain to clean and cut your fruits and veggies, but there are so many advantages to juicing fresh:
- More absorption: When you drink your fruits and vegetables you absorb up to 80% more of the nutrients. Fruits and vegetables are absorbed almost immediately, especially in juice forms. Solid foods take longer.
- You don’t have to read a food label: One huge advantage to juicing is that you do not need to read a food label. As long as it is fresh produce, it will be rich in vitamins, minerals, enzymes and other nutrients. Fruits and veggies are high in nutrients and fairly low in calories.
- Juicing does not destroy nutrients: Unlike cooking, juicing does destroy the nutrients contained in fruits and vegetables. You can extract a lot of the nutrients to get an extremely nutrient dense glass of the best nutrition.
- More fruits and vegetables daily: Juicing allows you to get at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables daily!
- Good for your organs: Juicing your fruit reduces the amount of work your digestive organs have to do and has been shown to increase the health of the liver, kidneys, etc. Good organ function leads to better immunity and overall better long term health. It not only helps with digestion, but also elimination!
- Fruits and vegetables have a high availability: Bioavailability is a term used to describe the degree to or rate at which nutrients and other substances are digested, absorbed, and become available to the body. Fruits and vegetables have a very high bioavailability requiring little time to which the body can use the nutrients. Other types of food take longer.
- Synergistic effect is disrupted when foods are processed: Many nutrients depend on other nutrients in order to function optimally in the body. Juicing is one of the best ways of ensuring synergistic nutritional benefits of fruits and vegetables. This is disrupted when foods are processed.
If you’ve never tried juicing, give it a try. You can find inexpensive juicers that have easy cleanup. Start with carrots, apples, pears, celery, beets, broccoli, and oranges. Check out this picture of my son getting in on the action!
Your body will thank you.