To Juice or Not to Juice… that is the question
in Blogs

Deciding to include a fresh, raw, pressed juice into your daily eating routine can come with great confusion as this popular health trend begins to gain momentum. Raw juicing has been heralded as the miraculous elixir for just about everything from promoting weight loss to preventing cancer… 

Now if you are someone who strictly follows the Banting trend right now, then juicing is a big no-no. However, if you are a raw vegan or religious vegetarian, then juicing gets the daily green light. From one extreme to the next, let’s try and find the middle ground here and YOU can decide whether juicing should be consumed daily or not.

The Pros:

  • - If you are struggling to get your daily dose of vegetables in each day then juicing is the best way to make up this shortfall. The juice is heaped with nutrients and vitamins that would otherwise be missed out on. You are also able to be adventurous with veggies and explore new varieties and types of veggies that you would not normally eat as you concoct your favourite potion. Juicing is also beneficial if you are a parent to picky eaters; getting the kids daily dose in comes with less shouting and more lip licking…
  • - The nutrients are readily available to your body for absorption - within around five minutes of consumption. The insoluble fibre is removed (your body normally has to work quiet hard to break this down), making the juice instantly digestible: almost like taking a superior quality multi-vitamin, only better!
  • - Helps eliminate wastage. The veggies that are looking a little limp in your fridge, that are not inspiring you to reach out and start tucking into them, can be juiced. There is nothing wrong with them and the result can be a delicious nutrient dense drink.

The Cons:

  • - You may not lose weight if you juice too much… Solid food makes you feel fuller. So if you were on a juice cleanse, you would need to drink so much more juice to feel satisfied. Also, the protein and fat content found in the raw, pressed veg juices is low and it’s the protein and fat that aids satiety.
  • - They could be too fruit dense and result in sugar swings. Even homemade juices can be high in naturally sugars if the fruit is too dominant. Think about it; there are about 10g of sugar in an apple, so that equals 10g of sugar times however many apples it takes to fill a glass…
  • - It can be expensive. You have to double or sometimes triple the amount of produce you normally buy than if you ate the food whole. And if you are careful about chemically tainted produce and opt for the organic range, this pushes the price up a little higher, especially if you are juicing for a family of four. Purchasing raw, pressed juices is not cheap either, nor is the equipment you use to make the juice.   
  • - You miss out on the fibre. It’s the fibre that helps with the absorption of sugar in the blood, which prevents sugar spikes.

For me personally, someone who just wants to be as healthy as possible and give my body the best nutrition around, my conclusion is as follows:

Try to have one vegetable dominant juice almost every day over and above the veggies you already consume (so you don’t lose out on the fibre). If the juice is higher in veggies than fruits, you’ll most likely avoid the sugar spikes. If you are prepared to make this commitment to yourself, buy a juicer. Purchasing raw juices every day will eventually be unaffordable and you’ll give it up. Although, it is a delicious treat when someone else makes the juice for you and you’re exposed to a new flavour!

To get started with your juicing, you may need to do the reverse of my conclusion. You need to train your taste buds for the juice, so I would suggest starting with a higher fruit ratio, and each week increasing the veggies a bit more until you have a 70 per cent veg and 30 per cent fruit ratio. This way, you will continue with the juicing as you’ll find it palatable, and you will really start enjoying it more. In fact, your body may start craving the juice eventually. 

I would begin with a simple carrot, orange and lemon juice and then move on to a beetroot, pineapple, lemon flavour. Once you are knocking these back comfortably, move on to a spinach, apple, lemon and ginger juice. Once you have this right, start increasing the vegetable variety to include celery, cucumber, carrots etc. Once you get to this point, you can begin experimenting till your hearts content…

For a delicious, super green juice recipe check out page 151 of our book Wholesome Nutrition.