Juicing a Hassle? Find the Solution

Hello,

I found this article on Mercola.com and it talks about the importance of juicing and consumption of vegetables. This is especially prevalent on my blog because I spend a lot of time talking about the Berry Feast from Uri International, which is a non-pasteurized whole food organic drink. Just keep in mind while reading the article that the Berry Feast gives you everything necessary plus more than what is recommended for your daily diet. For more information on how you can live healthy and eat right, click the Berry Feast tab in the navigation bar.

Mercola.com
Reasons to Juice

There are three main reasons why you will want to consider incorporating vegetable juicing into your optimal health program:
Juicing helps you absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. This is important because most of us have impaired digestion 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.
Juicing allows you to consume an optimal amount of vegetables in an efficient manner. If you are a carb type, you should eat one pound of raw vegetables per 50 pounds of body weight per day. Some people may find eating that many vegetables difficult, but it can be easily accomplished with a quick glass of vegetable juice.

You can add a wider variety of vegetables in your diet. Many people eat the same vegetable salads every day. This violates the principle of regular food rotation and increases your chance of developing an allergy to a certain food. But with juicing, you can 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 cheap centrifugal juicers (like the Juiceman) break easily, produce low quality juice, and are very loud, which may contribute to hearing loss.
Many people initially think that juicing will be a real chore, but the majority are pleasantly surprised to find that it is much easier than they thought it would be.
This is partly because you should only start by juicing vegetables that you enjoy eating non-juiced. The juice should taste pleasant -- not make you feel nauseous.
It is very important to listen to your body when juicing. Your stomach should feel good all morning long. If it is churning or growling or generally making its presence known, you probably juiced something you should not be eating. Personally, I've noticed that I can't juice large amounts of cabbage, but if I spread it out, I do fine.

The health benefits of juicing are immense for adults and children.
Here are a few simple lessons to get you up and juicing quickly:

Lesson 1: Drink vegetable juice for breakfast.

Vegetable juice makes a great breakfast when balanced with some essential oils and a bit of chlorella.
Please remember that vegetable juice and fruit juices are two completely different substances in terms of nutrition. Ideally, you should avoid fruit juices due to their high sugar content. Although vegetable juice is processed, it doesn't raise insulin levels like fruit juice. The only exceptions would be carrot and beet juice (and most vegetables that grow underground), which function similarly to fruit juice.

Lesson 2: Get ready to juice!

Step 1: Now that you're ready for the benefits of vegetable juice, you need to know what to juice. I recommend starting out with these vegetables, as they are the easiest to digest:

Celery
Fennel (anise)
Cucumbers
These three aren't as nutrient dense as the dark green vegetables, which should be avoided if you are a protein type (except for spinach). Once you get used to the 3 vegetables listed above, you can start adding the more nutritionally valuable, but less palatable, vegetables into your juice.
Vegetables to avoid include carrots and beets. Most people who juice usually use carrots. The reason they taste so good is that they are full of sugar. I would definitely avoid all vegetables that grow underground to avoid an increase in your insulin levels.
If you are healthy, you can add about one pound of carrots or beets per week. I do believe that the deep, intense colors of these foods provide additional benefits for many that are just not available in the green vegetables listed above.

Step 2: When you've acclimatized yourself to juicing, you can start adding these vegetables:

Red leaf lettuce
Green Leaf lettuce
Romaine lettuce
Endive
Escarole
Spinach
Step 3: After you're used to these, then go to the next step:

Cabbage
Chinese Cabbage
Bok Choy
An interesting side note: Cabbage juice is one of the most healing nutrients for ulcer repair as it is a huge source of vitamin U.

Step 4: When you're ready, move on to adding herbs to your juicing. Herbs also make wonderful combinations, and here are two that work exceptionally well:

Parsley
Cilantro
You need to be cautious with cilantro, as many cannot tolerate it well. If you are new to juicing, hold off on the cilantro. These are more challenging to consume, but they are highly beneficial.

Step 5: The last step: Only use one or two of these leaves, as they are very bitter:

Kale
Collard Greens
Dandelion Greens
Mustard Greens (bitter)
When purchasing collard greens, find a store that sells the leaves still attached to the main stalk. If they are cut off, the vegetable rapidly loses many of its valuable nutrients.