One of the best things I have ever introduced into my diet was fresh vegetable juicing. Recently I purchased a new juice machine so that I could get a wide range of vegetables to help detoxify my skin. For over 20 years I have suffered with Psoriasis, an autoimmune disease that causes cells to build up on the surface of your skin, leading to thick, unsightly scaly patches that are very itchy and often painful. This type of disease leads to vitamin and mineral deficiency and I needed to find a way to increase my intake of green leafy vegetables in order to detoxify my skin. Almost every health authority recommends that we get 6-8 servings of vegetables and fruits per day, yet most people are lucky to get half that. One easy way to virtually guarantee that you will reach your daily target for vegetables, is juicing. However, you need to be cautious with fruit juices, especially if you are over-weight or diabetic, as these foods have a high sugar and fructose content that can cause more problems. The exception to this rule would be lemons and limes, which have virtually none of the offending sugar and fructose levels that cause most of the metabolic complications. Also lemons and limes are amazing at eliminating the bitter taste of the dark, deep green leafy vegetables that provide most of the benefits of juicing, for example Kale.

The Quickest & Easiest Way To Get More Veggies In Your Diet

Firstly, juicing helps you absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. This is important because most of us have impaired digestion (leaky gut syndrome) http://chriskresser.com/could-a-leaky-gut-be-making-you-fat as a result of making less-than-optimal food choices over many years. This limits your body's ability to absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. Juicing will help to "pre-digest" them for you, so you will receive most of the nutrition, rather than having it go down the toilet.

Secondly, juicing allows you to consume an optimal amount of vegetables in an efficient manner. Some people may find eating that many different vegetables difficult and time consuming. For others it is more to do with the taste. They are not used to the bitter taste with vegetables as they are so conditioned to the addictive salty and sugar based processed foods. This is easily overcome with a quick glass of vegetable juice and can dramatically enhance the flavour of the drink. This enables you to consume a wider variety of vegetables in your diet.

Lastly those who do eat vegetables tend to eat the exact same varieties every day. This violates the principle of regular food rotation and increases the chance of developing an allergy or food-intolerance from over-exposure to a certain food. It also means you are missing out on other vitamins and minerals that are found in other varieties of vegetables. Once again, with juicing this problem is overcome as you can easily juice a wide variety of vegetables that you may not normally enjoy eating whole.

If you are new to juicing, I recommend a mid-priced juicer. The cheaper versions can break easily, produce low-quality juice, and don't last very long. 

Vegetable Juice is Not a Complete Meal

It is important to note that vegetable juice has very little protein and virtually no fat, so by itself, it is not really a complete food. This is where people can set themselves up for future problems with food cravings as their body is flooded with a huge sugar rush. When the blood sugars begin to crash is when your body will send strong signals to eat more sugar to correct the crash. Proteins and fats help to suppress the blood sugar rise and maintain the body's insulin and energy at a more stable level.

When your body is craving a food, three regions of your brain, which are related to emotion, memory and reward are activated. Sugar, which is one of the most common food cravings, is also one of the most addictive food ingredients, as it triggers production of your brain's natural opioids, a key to the addiction process. Your brain essentially becomes addicted to its own opioids as it would to morphine or heroin. Many researchers conclude that refined sugar may be even more addictive than cocaine -- one of the most addictive substances currently known.

Read this article - Prevent food cravings and speed up your metabolism to see more on this.

Always remember that juicing should be used in addition to your regular meals, not in place of one. Unless you are undergoing some special fasting or detoxification program suggested by a health physician for a specific time it is not wise to use juicing as a meal replacement. 

Getting Started

My tip for you is to start by juicing vegetables that you enjoy eating non-juiced. The juice should taste pleasant -- not make you feel nauseous, or leave you hungry or craving sugars. I like to add ginger to my juices for flavour and an added kick! The health benefits of ginger include improved cardiovascular health and lowering cholesterol levels. 

Another interesting food I like to add is spirulina! This is one of nature’s richest health foods and a great way to boost your immune system. The proteins in spirulina are of a highly digestible type meaning the net protein utilisation is very high (between 53 and 61 percent). Studies confirm a very high "protein efficiency ratio" for spirulina, meaning your body will be able to efficiently use these amino acids. Studies also confirm that GLA — a powerful anti-inflammatory — is rarely this high in any food and normally has to be synthesized by your body from linoleic acid. GLA is a precursor to important biochemicals such as prostaglandins, leukotrienes and thromboxanes, which serve as chemical mediators for inflammatory and immune reactions. Spirulina has about the same calcium, phosphorus and magnesium content as milk, with a vitamin E level comparable to wheat germ.

Another great addition is coconut that provides you with an excellent source of fat to add to the juice that helps to balance the snack.

Make sure you drink your vegetable juice right away, or store it very carefully. Vegetable juice is highly perishable so it's best to drink all of your juice immediately.

My Favourite Vegetable Juice Cleanser

My all-time favourite juice is one I found in Doug Kauffman's book called "The Fungus Link". He found that this type of vegetable and fruit juice concoction was a great way to kill off fungal infections in the body and assist the body's digestive system in restoring balance between good and bad bacteria.

I aim to drink this 2-3 times per week and feel great each time for doing it. 

• Celery
• Green Apple
• Ginger
• Beetroot
• Cucumber
• Carrot
• Apple Cider Vinegar

If you have any type of skin problem or digestive issue I encourage you to drink this as often as you can and limit your consumption of sugars and grains. 

Additional Resources To Help You

There is a lot of other things you will need to do to improve your overall health and this article has only looked at one piece of the puzzle. For more help putting together a complete plan I do suggest grabbing a copy of our special reports shown below for improving heart health and nutrition. Click on the image below of the report you require.

Summary

There are many reasons to consider incorporating vegetable juicing into your health plan. Whether you use it as an occasional cleanse, or as a way to start the day it is a fantastic way to help you absorb all the nutrients from your vegetables. This is important because most people have impaired digestion as a result of eating too much processed foods and sugars over many years, limiting their ability to absorb all of the nutrients in whole, raw vegetables. Juicing helps "pre-digest" them, so they don't lose any of this valuable nutrition. Lastly it is a great way to get a wider of variety of vegetables into your diet which helps to boost your immune system and improve overall health vitality.

If you do need specific help with setting up an exercise and nutrition program please feel free to reach out to me for help by clicking the image below and we can set you up a free consultation to discuss how to get you started.