It is often difficult to eat enough fruits and vegetables every day to meet our daily nutritional requirements. A healthy diet requires 6-8 servings of vegetables and fruit every day. With juicing, you can consume several servings in a single glass of a well-prepared vegetable juice. Fresh juices are a very valuable source of nutrients and they are also easy to digest. The key is juicing at home, instead of buying processed juice at the store.

The minerals, enzymes and vitamins in fresh juices are often damaged or destroyed during the preservation processes, such as pasteurization. Juices preserved by pasteurization are heated up to high temperatures in order to destroy any microbes therein. As a result of the heat, some of the nutrients and natural enzymes in the juice become denatured. Hence, to derive the full health benefits of juicing, juicing at home and drinking it fresh is the way to go. Juicing is a method commonly used to separate the juice from fruits, vegetables, pulp and fibers. It is an easy way to meet the nutritional needs of our body and it also helps the body to easily digest essential nutrients, and especially those found in vegetables. There are no major investments in equipment necessary, all you need to get started is a juicer.

Types Of Juicers

There are different types of juicers available all with a wide range of price tags.

• A high-end kneader juicer is employed in literally releasing the juice from the fiber.
• A centrifugal juicer will be unable to break down the fiber in the fruits and thus, the fiber instead remains within the pulp and its potential nutrients are lost in the process.
• Masticating juicers are generally considered the best choice for deriving the maximum health benefits of juicing.

Using Juicing To Cleanse the Body

Juicing is an excellent way to cleanse the body and get rid of toxins. Some of these toxins build up in the body due to poor dietary choices, alcohol or substance abuse, stress etc. There are quite a few techniques for cleansing the body with juice. Some juice diets work for the body as a whole while some others are for specific bodily organs like the kidneys, colon etc.The best time to consume the juice is in the morning, preferably before breakfast. It must be stated here that these juices are not replacements for your regular meals, and they should be combined with an exercise routine and healthy eating habits. When embarking on a cleansing diet, it is recommended that juicers should drink about two liters of water daily and abstain from alcohol, nicotine, sugar, dairy or caffeine.You can adopt a 7 day cleansing diet whereby different juices are ingested over a period of 7 days along with fresh fruit and vegetables.

It is also very important to cleanse and detoxify the kidneys. When food is processed within the body, the toxins are transferred to the kidneys for further processing and elimination from the body.

If the level of toxic substances within the kidneys and liver become abnormally high, it could result in urinary tract infections. Hence, the need to cleanse the kidneys of toxins.

Strawberries, pumpkins and seeds of parsley have all proven to be effective in cleansing the kidneys. Apart from these, there are other herbs that can serve the same purpose .e g. birch tea (tea made with birch bark). Grape juice and cranberry juice are both helpful in kidney detoxification as well.The colon needs to be cleansed of toxic matter too and this can be achieved by juicing with papaya, pear, beetroot, bananas, carrots, lemon, and peaches.

Caution

It is rarely a good idea to fast from eating a variety of whole foods for long periods of time. If you are going to do a juicing fast for cleansing make it short and sweet. Also, make sure to check with your doctor to be sure that there are no medical issues that can interfere or be hindered by a juicing cleanse, safety first! If you really want to do it right, then consult a nutritionist that can help guide you to the proper and safe methods of cleansing with juice.