Juicing For Health

If you own a juicer, then give yourself a major pat on the back. If you do not own a juicer (and I rank among those, so I'll be saving up some cash), then invest in one. A decent juicer will cost around the $150-$200 mark, with some more high-end juicers costing a bit more.

A proper juicer takes your fruit and vegetables, and simply extracts from them the juice, separating that from the rest of the produce (which will be referring to as the "pulp"). For this functional reason, I do not count home blenders as juicers, as most blenders typically do not separate the juice from the pulp.

Drinking fresh fruit and vegetable juice - from your own produce - is one of the easiest, most effective ways to get a solid nutritional intake. While you can just simply eat apples, carrots, bananas and the like, there are advantages to juicing rather than simply eating them:

• Juice takes less time to be worked through your body
• You can gain multiple minerals and vitamins from a single juice comprised of combinations of fruit and vegetables, and is more effective than trying to eat a similar plateload of them.
• Because your body is having to work less in extracting what it needs from juice, the body absorbs more of the minerals than if it were not juice

And here's one of the real perks of juicing: After you've downed your juice combo, the leftover pulp can be used either for baking or for composting. Why? Because - hopefully - fruit and vegetables are being juiced, the pulp still has some nutrients within, which can be reaped by making pulp muffins and cakes. Or you can take the pulp and slap it in your garden as a form of compost, thereby not only giving your garden nutrients from the pulp, but your garden will absorb these nutrients into the soil, making for quite an effective - and easy - fertiliser.

If you do not own or have access to a juicer, I would recommend saving up for one. Preferably, buy a juicer with a motor that runs at least 1000 Watts. In any juicer, the motor is the most important component, and the motor will be performing a lot of work juicing all kinds of fruit and vegetables, and some are definitely harder than others (for example, lettuce versus carrots). A juicer with a low motor output (less than about 800 Watts) will break down quicker over time.

However, if you do have a juicer on hand, feel free to sample this simple recipe. If you feel the need for a healthy energy spike, with a bodily detox on the side, try this on for size...

SUPER ENERGY DETOX BLITZ
1 lemon
2 radish
1 beet
1 slice Spanish onion
2 sweet potato
1 celery
2 Tbs. cider vinegar

Happy juicing, and I will let you know the day I get my hands on one myself :)