The crazy good benefits of juicing (why we do it)

The benefits of juicing provide our body with a whole food, pure, and nutrient dense source of vitamins and minerals that our body can readily utilize.

When done properly, juicing can provide several important nutritional benefits. Experts universally recommend that our diet should include six to eight servings of fruits and vegetables every day. Some of us try to eat that much, but most of us don’t often succeed.

And, except for a morning glass of juice and a banana, apple or some other type of fruit we snack on during the day, most of the produce we do consume has been cooked. The heat used during cooking can damage or destroy several of the most important nutrients in produce.

Juicing makes it much easier to consume the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables. And, because the produce is juiced while it’s still raw, juicing also prevents the loss of nutrients that can arise from cooking or heating the food.

Here are some of the benefits of juicing

• Very few of us actually manage to fit the targeted six to eight servings of fruits and vegetables into our meals every day. Juicing daily virtually guarantees success in reaching that goal because it’s so easy to drink two or three glasses of freshly prepared juice.

• Juicing facilitates a more varied, interesting, nutritionally balanced diet. Many of us tend to eat only a few different fruits and veggies. For example, a lot of people don’t branch out much farther than peas, green beans, lettuce and carrots as far as vegetables are concerned. They just don’t enjoy eating any others. Juicing lets you enjoy a wide variety of veggies even though you don’t like eating those same vegetables whole. Juicing a lot of different vegetables keeps you from becoming bored with the same old foods, and it gives you a more comprehensive, balanced blend of essential nutrients too.

• Fresh, raw produce is definitely more nutritious than its cooked counterparts, because none of the nutrients in raw produce have been destroyed by heat. Juicing raw fruits and veggies preserves all their vitamins, minerals, enzymes and natural goodness.

• Although eating whole raw produce is much more nutritious than eating cooked or processed foods, eating enough raw hard vegetables to satisfy your daily nutritional requirements would cause excessive wear and tear on your teeth and jaws. Imagine how tired your jaws would be if you ate two or three pounds of raw carrots every day! Drinking a couple of glasses of freshly prepared carrot juice every day will give you the same health benefits but be much easier on you physically. Juicing is much less tiring and much more efficient than eating large quantities of raw vegetables every day.

• Juicing helps your body absorb and metabolize all the beneficial nutrients in fresh produce. Juice is liquid, fruits and vegetables are solid. Freshly prepared fruit or vegetable juice contains the same types and amounts of nutrients as the whole produce it’s prepared from, but those nutrients are easier to absorb and metabolize when they’re already in liquid form. It might sound a bit odd, but in a way juicing helps “pre-digest” whole fruits and veggies. Your body will be able to take advantage of more of the wholesomeness of fruits and vegetables when they’ve been juiced than when you eat them whole.

To ensure that your body receives all the nutrients it requires, use juicing to supplement your meals, not replace them unless you are doing a juice fast (here the aim is different, you are focused on cleansing). Try drinking a glass of freshly prepared juice along with your regular meal or as a mid-morning, mid-afternoon or evening snack.

It’s also important to drink your juice as soon as possible after juicing because the nutrients in the juice are highly perishable. If you can’t drink your juice immediately, store and refrigerate it promptly and properly. Depending on the type of juicer you use, freshly prepared, properly stored juice will retain most of its nutrients for 24 to 72 hours.

So as you can see, the benefits of juicing reach far beyond just "a good drink." There's a science to it, and it's a far superior way to get the nutrients your body needs to function at it's highest level!

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