Juicing vegetables for detox, weight loss or reducing inflammation is a wonderful plan of action. In saying this, there are a few reasons why juicing doesn’t work out for some people. Other than the obvious reality that each body is unique and there’s no one size fits all solution, juicing vegetables has proven to be quite beneficial to almost anyone who’s tried it.
Here are 4 secrets to successful vegetable juicing:
1. Juice organic vegetables as often as possible. Vegetables that are grown in nutrient rich soil and free of pesticides will offer up more nutrition and help you avoid dosing your body with toxins. If you are juicing non-organic veggies, wash them thoroughly and peel skins off of anything like cucumber.
2. When you’re choosing what type of recipe to create for a juice cleanse, or a daily detox juice recipe, go for the greens and leave the fruit out of the equation. Fruit is commonly found in juice recipes to sweeten the flavor, though it’s also an unfortunate downfall of many juice recipes out there if you’re going to turn the practice into a habit. Juiced fruits are stripped of the fiber that help the body regulate the sugar intake, which can spike insulin and cause a feeling of imbalance.
3. Use high-sugar vegetables sparingly. These include carrots, beets, parsnips, tomatoes and bell peppers. Higher-sugar vegetables or starches can be problematic for some people, especially when the fiber has been removed through the process of juicing. While many beneficial compounds can be found in foods like carrots and beets for healthy skin, a full juice cleanse with a high amount of these vegetables wouldn’t be ideal and depending on your constitution, leaving them out of your recipes could prove to render a much better outcome on your juicing journey.
4. Don’t go from eating junk straight to a juice cleanse. This is super hard on the body, and instead of making progress it can often create chaos. If you’re going to do a juice cleanse, consider easing your body into it naturally by starting with a food based cleanse like the Young and Raw 21 Day Raw Food Reset, that starts with 2 weeks of raw foods and gently cleansing recipes first, and then transitions into an optional 7 day juice cleanse. This way, your body has time to prepare rather than being shocked from such a drastic shift in diet.
5. Switch it up. If you’re used to one or two promising recipes that you’ve adjusted to, your body isn’t getting a wide array of nutrients from varying your vegetable intake. Now more than ever, our modern diets lack nutrients from wilder foods like bitter greens and vegetables that grow seasonally or in our local communities. Try dandelion greens, arugula, and ask your local farmers market reps what special veggies are in season this time of year. You never know, you just might find your next famous go-to juice recipe!
2 cups cucumber
2 ribs of celery
1 cup basil leaves
Small thumb sized piece of ginger root
1 cup radishes
1 cup cucumber
1 cup dandelion or arugula greens
This will be very bitter and not suitable for some taste buds – start slow if you’re not used to bitter greens and try the arugula first rather than the dandelion greens.)
2 cups cabbage (green or purple both work great)
Half of a lemon, peeled
small thumb sized piece of ginger root
1 rib celery
For inflammation, weight loss, liver detox
1 whole bok-choy
1 cup leafy greens of your choice (romaine is very mild in flavor, so is spinach)
1 lime, peeled
Give these juice recipes a try the next time you feel like you need to give your liver or kidneys a break, reduce inflammation, drop some water weight or even improve your energy naturally. Our bodies are quite resilient, though because of this it’s sometimes easy to forget to take extra care. Juicing is a great way to add more nutrients into your diet as well. If you plan to juice your vegetables ahead of time, only store them for up to 24 hours unless you have a really great juicer like the Norwalk. The other option is to store your juices in freezer safe glass jars and pull them out to thaw when you’re ready to enjoy them.
Do you have any favorite juice recipes? Share them in the comments below and lets get this veggie party started!
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