Recently, juicing has gained increased attention. For many of us, it may even appear as a recent fad. Increase in raw vegetables has many health benefits and juicing is the easiest way to incorporate them into our daily regime.
Health benefits of vegetables:
- Vegetables are alkalizing foods. When consumed in raw form, they provide the right health at a cellular level. The alkalizing effects of vegetables ensure they act as great companions to other acid residue food groups such as wheat and non-veg.
- Raw vegetables are easily digested, thus creating lower digestive load for your body.
- They have the necessary enzymes, minerals and vitamins and act as your natural vitamins supplement.
- They are rich in fibre and bodybuilding materials.
Why Juice your Vegetables?
When we juice the vegetables, it’s a high degree of concentrated raw foods for you. Our bodies function very well on higher quotient of raw foods, and vegetable juices are an easy way to achieve that.
Reasons to add vegetable juices in your daily routine:
- A great way to add more raw foods to your routine, it breaks monotony and adds variety.
- Acts as a natural vitamin supplement.
- Hydrates you internally by improving cellular hydration.
- Provides the necessary enzymes and aids in digestion.
- Good for constipation and weight loss.
- Easy to carry as opposed to a salad.
- Easy for those who have dental issues especially for elderly.
- Especially useful for days when fasting as it is easier to digest.
Ideal vegetable juice mix:
- Use fresh seasonal vegetables like carrots, gourds, cucumber etc.
- Use seasonal food like amla (in winter), mango (in summer) or lemons (all year round) for a sour taste. This also helps do away with the need to add salt or sugar to your juice.
- Use herbs like mint, coriander, basil, ginger, curry or betel leaves for flavour.
- Do not add salt or sugar to your juices.
The above ingredients could be blended and juiced. Refer to this video for a practical demonstration of different kinds of juices.
How to drink a vegetable juice?
Initially, you could do more diluted juices by adding some water. As you get accustomed to the new regimen, you could progress towards making more pulpy juices by retaining more fibre.
How much of pulp is left behind in the juice also depends on the juicer? If you do not like pulp in your juice, you can have strained the juice again using a sieve. Do not throw away the strained fibre and use it in rotis or tikkis.
Tips for incorporating juices in your daily regimen:
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- Incorporate juices slowly and steadily into your routine; this is not a replacement for having whole veggies.
- Listen to your body. If you do not like the taste – it’s time to reinvent, try different combinations or different flavours and go easy. Allow the body time to adjust.
- Keep a varied profile on your plate. Make sure, you have diverse, seasonal veggies.
- Start with simple, mono-juices If you feel some indigestion, do not add green leafy vegetables. Examples would be ash gourd juice, tomato juice with some celery or Cucumber with Tomato.
- Do not add any fruits in your veg juice: Fruits are best had alone and if possible in whole form. Do not mix them with vegetables while juicing as they both need different enzyme profile to digest.
- Dilute your juices: If you are using a juicer addition of water is not required, but if a mixer is used a small amount of water may be added with the vegetable. Slowly progress to more pulpy vegetables.
- Relook at the time you are having juices: Juices are best had at around noon. You could either have it 30 minutes before your meal or 2 hours after your lunch.
- Look at the combos: Cabbage, Pak Choy, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, or Beetroots in excess may cause indigestion. Definitely do not juice onions and garlic.
- Wheatgrass juicing: Wheatgrass is also a strong detoxifier, therefore add only 100-150ml.
Flip sides:
- Initially go slow till your gut microbes are adjusted to the new regimen.
- Once juiced the process of ‘degeneration’ has already begun. So, have it fresh.
- So source it well or best make it at home and consume it within 15-20 minutes after juicing.
Our Take:
We believe, the benefits of juicing far outweigh not juicing at all! So it is a good practice to adopt especially if facing health issues, as the body in that state demands more alkalizing foods.
Chew your juice, eat that fibre – that’s when the real benefit begins!
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Wellcure
09:53 AM | 01-10-2019
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