I bought my first compact Braun juicer 29 years ago back in Hungary after finishing my studies at the Academy of Music. I remember this occasion well for a few reasons.
One that I invested one of my first pays into my first juicer, two that juicing became a life long habit. Just the other day I bought a second juicer, a cold press slow juicer to gain even more benefits from juicing.
While vegetable juice is nothing new, with the likes of V8 and carrot juice doing the rounds for years, green juicing uses large quantities of leafy veg and brassicas such as kale, spinach, chard and broccoli. The other main difference between (fresh) green juice and traditional vegetable drinks is the technique - cold-pressing, where the juice is extracted by a method of crushing and pressing. Traditional centrifugal juicers use fast-spinning blades that heat up as they whir, thus, cold-press converts say, oxidising and therefore destroying some of the nutrients in the juice. Clare Neill from juice company Radiance Cleanse says juice from a centrifugal machine "oxidises faster because so much air has gone through the juice while it's being made."
Green juice is surprisingly filling. To gain the most benefit., always juice in the morning on empty stomach and drink daily at least 0.5 litre to see positive changes.
Some of my friends drank it mid-afternoon and found that it alleviated 4pm snack cravings. Try to experiment with spinach, spring greens, asian vegetables. Almost everything can be juiced. The more variety, the better.
I feel healthier and more energetic on days when I juice. If I am too busy to juice or travel and don't find a juice bar, I get this very special thirst that nothing else just green juice can satisfy!
The biggest stumbling block is the cost of the equipment. Is using a standard $250 plus juicer worth doing? "Definitely – 100%. Just drink it straight away, rather than storing it in the fridge, and bear in mind "they're not as good at juicing leafy greens, so you'll need to juice more to get the same volume."
Getting started with juicing is easy. You don't need to start with an expensive slow juicer, although they are better and their price is worth because you don't need that much fruit or vegetable to get the juice. The juice contains more nutrition and antioxidants when you use cold press slow juicer. However, getting started with juicing is the main thing! Start juicing your favourite fruits then start adding vegetables. There are plenty of websites with excellent recipes and advice on juicing.
So is drinking a glass of green juice as good as eating the vegetables? Not quite. Registered dietician Iona Taylor says: "You'll get the vitamins and minerals but not the fibre. And the soluble fibre in vegetables is really good for your cholesterol and blood pressure." There is a potential way around this problem. Edgson suggests avoiding both standard centrifugal AND cold-press juicers, and using a powerful blender instead: "When you pulverise or blend with a Vitamix or similar blender, you get the benefits of the fibre as well. The blades go through everything."
Green juice seems an easy way to add more leafy veg to our diets. "You can put a lot more in a juice than you could sit and eat," says Edgson.
Juicing or blending has different purpose and benefits. Juicing gets nutrients quickly to your cells and is light on the digestive system. Blending keeps fibre but makes it harder to digest.
Both Edgson and Taylor say there are some people who should approach green juice with a little caution. Edgson checks clients aren't on anti-depressants or blood-thinning medication such as Warfarin, and is also "a little wary when women are in the first trimester of pregnancy." This is because "many of the ingredients that go into a green juice speed up detoxification through the liver," she says. "I don't want to exacerbate the moving through the system of those medications faster than they are designed to do."
The top benefits of juicing: 1. You get top nutrients 2. Quick absorption 3. Get to enjoy a variety of tastes 4. Give your system a rest with juice fasts and detoxification 5. It's fun and adventurous. 6. You will look and feel great and experience incredible energy and great skin!
So now you've found an affordable compromise, the new green juicing habit is here to stay. Celery and cucumber to go, please.
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