Fresh fruit and vegetable juices are a wonderful source of nutrition. They are great for healthy people and can be life saving for those who are ill. Once you get started drinking fresh juices, you will experience some of the most delightful flavors a person could ever begin to imagine!  Fruit juices contain nutrients that are in a form that need no digestion so they are ready for immediate absorption and assimilation into the body, which is why they are so wonderful for people who are fighting serious illnesses.

When considering juice, the freshness of one’s juice is vitally important. The best thing to do whenever possible is to make the juice and drink it on the spot! The reason is because it quickly loses its nutritional value after being squeezed. This is one of the reasons why store-bought juice (even “naked” juice) is not going to do for you what freshly squeezed juices will do. Canned and bottled juices that are pasteurized have had all their enzymes destroyed through processing, and in addition, usually have sugar added, so they would not be good choices. If you cannot drink your juice immediately after squeezing it, store it in an air tight jar in the refrigerator and consume it as soon as possible. Some health practitioners estimate that the enzymes in the juices are destroyed within a few minutes up to an hour or so after juicing.  Fresh juices should be consumed on a daily basis.

Vegetable Juice

Vegetable juices are the builders of the body.

The very best tasting vegetable juice, and probably the easiest one for beginners to start with, is carrot juice. It is also a good base for other juices. It is very sweet, something that may have escaped one’s notice until he quits eating (refined) sugar!  Sugar ruins the taste buds, but once it has been removed from the diet, then the subtle flavors of natural foods burst forth as in a symphony. Do not worry about your skin turning yellow. This will not happen unless you consume a lot of carrot juice, and even then, it is not a harmful condition; in fact, it is a good thing! Contrary to popular opinion, it isn’t the beta carotene in the juice that turns the skin an orange color. It is the toxins and old bile being released from the body through the skin which gives it this yellow or orange cast. Once these toxins have been removed, the skin will return to its normal color no matter how much carrot juice one consumes. Think about it, has anyone ever turned brown from drinking too much coffee or coke?

Cabbage juice is another excellent health drink, but the flavor is not that great so it might be better mixed with carrot juice. Some tastes may need developing! Beet juice makes a very red and tasty juice. A word of warning: do not be alarmed when you use the “sanitation unit” after you have ingested beet juice. You are not bleeding to death. If you experience a red color in the stool or urine, it is most likely from the red in the beets. One healthy concoction to try is a combination of carrot, spinach, beet and dandelion juice. Depending on the proportions of each vegetable used, you will get a slightly different flavor, but it is delicious.

Fruit Juice

Fruit juices are the cleansers of the body.

With regard to fruit juices, some alternative health practitioners have commented that because of the naturally occurring high sugar content of natural fruit juices, they should either be diluted with distilled water, consumed in small amounts, or taken together with their fiber, such as one would get by blending a fruit in the VitaMix. Others have commented that the energy saved by not having to process the fiber goes toward the healing and repairing of the body. Dr. Walker (who lived to be 118 years of age) believed that when a food is juiced and the fiber is separated out, most of the toxins are eliminated with the fiber. The reader will have to make up his own mind. I tend to think that when someone who speaks on the subject of health lives to be 118 years old and dies disease free, he probably knows what he is talking about. In any event, when in doubt, variety is usually a wise route.

Copyright © 2009 Jayne Baer.  All rights reserved.