WHAT IS GREEN JUICE?

Green juice is a mixture of the juice made of mainly green vegetables, with optional fruit, herbs and other superfoods by your choice.

You’ll use a juicer to make good green juice.  Alternatively, you can use pre-made green juice powder.

A good juicer can effectively extract multiple nutrients from vegetables and fruit.  The juice provides so many nutrients which are hard to get by eating everyday food. You have to prepare and eat lots of food to have the same amount of nutrients.

While juicing is a great idea, if you don’t have the time to prepare all the vegetables, you can opt for powder, add water and enjoy the same.

Why Green Juice?

The green juice provides many benefits to your skin.  One important benefit is that green juice contains very rich antioxidants. These antioxidants help shield your skin from harmful toxins that cause acne or sun damage to your skin.

The nutrients from green juice help your body to effectively flush out toxins and provide the essentials to have healthy skin so that you can stay away from acne to anti-aging.

Green juice may be the most convenient way to have all those vitamins, minerals, chlorophyll and antioxidants all taken in a natural way.  A well-made green juice is full of detox-boosting properties and is the best way to satisfy your needs to have sufficient consumption of greens.

Is it good to drink green juice every day?

Vegetables and fruits are arguably the healthiest foods for human beings which are filled with hundreds of nutrients that benefit your body. These nutrients and disease-fighting elements in fruits and vegetables can help keep our body healthy and balanced.

Many studies have found that a diet with a high volume of vegetables and fruits connect to lower chance of getting sick and premature death.  In particular, green juices are found to be one of the best ways to enhance your immune system because of the abundant nutrition in it.

Drinking green juice every day may be the most convenient and effective way to boost your immune system with the wonderful nutrients.  Fresh organic green juices supply the body with lots of instant vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and antioxidants.

Your body needs these nutrients every day.  In order to effectively extract these nutrients from the vegetables and fruits, it is essential to juice them.  The juicing process breaks up the cell walls and then release the valuable nutrients inside. That makes the nutrients be able to be digested and absorbed by the body.

Health Benefits of Green Juice

Green juice has so many benefits to your body.  We will list the most significant ones below.

It Alkalizes the Body

There are many factors that are important to our body to make the system work properly.  The important factors are like hydration, nutrients, and the PH value. PH stands for “potential of hydrogen.”  It is a measurement of hydrogen ions in a particular solution. The more ions, the more acidic is the solution, and vice versa.

The pH scale ranges from 0 to 14. A pH of higher than 7 is alkalizing, a pH less than 7 is acidic, and a pH of 7 is considered neutral.

What is the significance of PH value?  Our bodies are designed to operate well within a very narrow range of PH value, which is around 7.36.   It can’t be too acidic. It can’t be too alkaline. It needs to be just right to keep you healthy.

Your body has natural balance systems that keep it within the right PH range. But the drink you take and the food you eat can affect the PH value in your body and in your blood.

The blood pH basically does not fluctuate very much, and it should not.  In perspective, if your pH drops to 6.9 you may be in a coma.  At 6.8, it can be life-threatening (same if your pH rises to 7.8).

In order for blood to effectively carry oxygen and other vital nutrients, the PH needs to be in the right range. This slightly alkaline at 7.36 is maintained by the work of kidneys. Our kidney filters out excessive acids in our system and releases it in urine. Our bodies contain alkaline reserves.  When it gets too acid, our bodies fight to re-balance.

However, during the re-balance, our bodies have to pull buffering minerals to maintain PH value.  This can trigger many problems including weak bones, fatigue, stiff joints, and digestive issues.

Drinking green juice every day is the easiest way to helps maintain alkalinity. Green juice is loaded with live enzymes, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytonutrients, and flavonoids.  Juices that are rich in these elements will provide alkalizing to the blood and reduce acidity.

Provide Daily Energy

Many people feel a lack of energy.  While some caffeinated drinks like tea and coffee are the most convenient choices, those are not the best remedies for the real reason you’re tired.

Research shows that estimated 9 out of 10 people are lacking in key vitamins and minerals.  When your body doesn’t have the required nutrients, it simply won’t work the way it should, and that makes you feel tired.

In the sense of providing requisite nutrients, green juices may be the best remedy.  It can provide instant lift in energy.  Judita Wignall wrote the book Going Raw.  She said, "chlorophyll, the green pigment in plants, helps oxygenate the blood, creating increased brain function and physical energy."

Green juice gives the refreshing feeling and the boost of energy from its nutrients.

Delay Premature Aging

Antioxidants are a key element of wellness of your body.  This precious ingredient exists in vegetables, fruits, and herbs.  It is one of the major reasons that you should eat more vegetables, fruits, and herbs.

Antioxidants offer one significant benefit to your body cells.  It protects your body cells from damage from oxidation, which is the main cause of physical aging.

In addition, research has proved that oxidation can trigger diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.  Antioxidants reduce the level of oxidation and so to reduce the chance of getting ill.

The best source for antioxidants is found in fruits and veggies.  Imperial College London conducted an analysis of many scientific studies.  It found powerful protection against a range of diseases when 10 portions of fruits and vegetables were taken every day. 1

This protective benefits primarily comes from the antioxidants from vegetables and fruits. Green juices give you multiple servings of nutritious superfoods to boost your antioxidant intake.

Soothe inflammation

Green juice is your best friend when it comes to fighting inflammation.  It has lots of ingredients come from anti-inflammatory and alkaline forming greens and vegetables.

The green juice is powerful in its ability to reduce inflammation, pain, and disease. 2

Protect internal organs

Green juice can offer significant help on our overall health and well-being. Even though you don’t feel it, your internal organs are affected everyday environment from mood to energy levels, brain function, pollution, hormone balance, sleep and chronic diseases… The list goes on and on.

Various vegetable and fruit have many different nutrients that are beneficial to your organ, such as brain, liver, lung, etc..   Take sufficient amount of these nutrients to enhance the health of your internal organs.

Reverse bone loss

As we get older our body begins to lose its capacity to repair bones and fractures, so we start to experience bone loss at some point.

We want to have healthy bones and it would be good to reverse this process. This situation can be minimized by having a healthy diet which includes important minerals and vitamins.

These minerals and compounds that support bone buildings can be found in certain fruits and vegetables.  For example, vitamin D is needed to facilitate the absorption of calcium in the body. Collagen works with calcium to ensure that your bones and muscle are flexible enough to withstand injuries.

Drinking the right green juice provides the minerals you need in the bone building.

Reduce risk cardiovascular disease

Studies 3 showed that fruit and vegetable juices affect cardiovascular risk factors, such as lowering blood pressure and improving blood lipid profiles.

These beneficial factors are derived from the juice’s antioxidant effects, inhibition of platelet aggregation, anti-inflammatory effects, and prevention of hyperhomocysteinemia.

A mixture of juices may be a great way to improve cardiovascular health because they contain a variety of vitamins and minerals and polyphenols from different fruits and vegetables. These ingredients can provide benefit to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Help prevent chronic disease

According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, chronic diseases are now the major health issues.  The main causes of these chronic diseases are two fold: Eating nutrient-deficient foods, and being over-exposed to toxins.

As the causes of the problem suggest, the way to deal with it is to get rid of toxins as much as you can and increase taking more healthy food with required nutrients.

No matter how careful you are, your body is constantly exposed to toxins. These elements can be found in food, drinking water, the air you breathe, and in chemicals in your house.

The toxins can put a huge burden on your liver as it is the liver’s job to handle toxins. Green juices help because many of the ingredients help to support a healthy liver.

By consuming a green juice every day, you can make your liver stronger to fight against the toxins you’re exposed to on a daily basis.

Vegetables and fruits contain many phytochemicals your body can take advantage to heal and nourish your cells.  It greatly help to prevent chronic diseases.

Support Immune System

Green juices are one of the best ways to support a healthy immune system because they are packed full of nutrition.

Much like a car needs gas, oil, and lubricants, your immune system needs specific nutrients to run properly. Nutrients that must be constantly replenished. If they aren’t, things stop working.

Your immune system is supported by a range of nutrients.  Take zinc as an example, the deficiencies of zinc can make you significantly more vulnerable to catch a cold or flu. 4  Vitamin C is also necessary to help keep your immune system healthy. Drinking a green juice every day is a smart way to provide the nutrients your immune system needs.

Improve Gut Health

Green juice contains abundant digestive enzymes and prebiotics. All these substances can dramatically improve the health of your gut.

Green juice has a high concentration of antioxidants and polyphenols, and these elements help fight against leaky gut.   You need a great number of leafy greens. To most people, it is hard to obtain so much simply by eating fruits and vegetables. Juicing ensures you’re getting an abundance of phytonutrients and antioxidants to protect you from inflammation in your gut.

Bioavailable Nutrients

Just because you take vitamins, it doesn’t mean that you absorb 100 percent of those you take. The body is able to use only a portion of the nutrient.

It is called the principle called bioavailability. Vita­mins, minerals and various phytochemicals (including carotenoids) all have very different bioavailability.  For example, our bodies utilize on average only about 5 percent of the manganese we take.

Green juices, on the other hand, contain natural vitamins and minerals in their most bioavailable form. Those are more easily to be absorbed. Your body simply gets more out of a green juice than it does a standard factory made multivitamin.  The concentrated food nutrients of green juice are more bioavailable (easier for the body to recognize and use) than many nutritional supplements

Eight Top Juice Ingredients For Healthy & Beautiful Skin

Here we suggest seven great choices you can add to your daily green juice to have a beauty boost.

Kale

Kale is known as a superfood.  It is a nutritional powerhouse and benefits your health in many ways. Kale can be eaten in raw or cooked.  It can be in salads, soups, or smoothies. One cup of kale has zero fat and is high in vitamins and antioxidants.

Kale is an excellent source of many nutritions, such as vitamins A, C, E, B1, B2, calcium, beta-carotene, phosphorous, iron, magnesium, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

Kale’s concentration of these major nutrients gives your skin’s health and appearance a boost.  The healthy balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids keep your body healthy and beautiful.

Kale helps the repair and maintenance of the skin, and the omega-3 fatty acids add to its anti-inflammatory properties.

Beets

Beets are full of nutrients that are essential for healthy, glowing skin! Beets are anti-inflammatory veggies that are rich in iron, potassium, niacin, copper and vitamin C.

Some of the nutrients in beets will decrease after longer cooking times.  Therefore, the way to get better benefits from beets is to eat them raw, either as juice or simply blend them in a salad.

Beet juice can also be used as a base for fruit and vegetable juice cocktails or smoothies.

Carrots

Carrots have a tremendous amount of vitamin A in the form of beta-carotene.  The best benefits of carrots are in their beta-carotene.  Beta-carotene is a powerful antioxidant that prevents cells from degenerating.   

Vitamin A, in general, helps your body to maintain healthy vision, bones, and teeth.

According to the USDA Nutrient Data, carrots are also a good source of antioxidants, potassium, vitamin C, K, B6, sodium, phosphorus, and niacin.

It helps the body produce collagen, 5  which is essential for skin elasticity.  It helps prevent skin wrinkles, and so it will slow the appearances of aging.

Ginger

Ginger has been found to have powerful healing properties. It possesses a broad range of anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. It also contains powerful antioxidants such as gingerols and zingerones.

Ginger might even be able to help you lost a little weight.  It appears to temporarily increase the metabolic process in your body.  That way your body gets to burn fat a little faster. So ginger may give a boost to the metabolic rate to facilitate fat burning.

Ginger is a powerful ingredient that can be added to any juice to increase the health benefits.

Watercress

Watercress is a vegetable that assists in clearing and improving your complexion. It is full of antioxidants and great for anti-aging.

Watercress can help to protect against harmful rays from the sun due to the presence of vitamin C and vitamin A that act as powerful antioxidants to fight against free radicals that lead to wrinkles.

The high fiber in watercress also help improve digestive function, and chlorophyll contains those enzymes that help aid absorption of nutrients, as well as balancing the gut flora.

Lemons

Lemons are powerful citrus fruits that are effective both as a food and medicine.  This wonderful fruit contains abundant vitamin C, citric acid, and B vitamins. A whole raw lemon contains more than 100 percent of the recommended daily vitamin C intake, and it has only 22 calories. Studies have shown that the polyphenols in lemon 6 help to prevent weight gain.  

Lemons have so many benefits.  Lemon help clear your skin, cleanse kidneys, and it also facilitates in eliminating toxins.

Parsley

Parsley is a popular source of minerals such as potassium, calcium, iron, and magnesium. Potassium helps control heart rate and blood pressure by reducing the effects of sodium.

Additionally, the herb is also rich in many antioxidant vitamins, including vitamin A, β-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E, lutein, and cryptoxanthin.

The herb has high levels of vitamin-K and folates, which can improve skin elasticity and speed up the wound-healing process.

Turmeric

Turmeric has been shown to help reduce inflammation and treat indigestion.  It contains ample anti-inflammatory properties. It helps work wonders on condition-riddled skin. It can also help reduce redness from blemishes and calm skin conditions like eczema.

Turmeric is great in fighting acne because it is a natural antiseptic which helps to keep bacteria from spreading.   Turmeric also protects your skin against sun damage & aging.  Research shows that turmeric has the ability to improve the appearance of fine lines on your face and those brown spots caused by sun damage.

References

1. http://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/177778/eating-more-fruits-vegetables-prevent-millions/

2. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002822308021998

3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5372571/

4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9701160

5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collagen#Collagen_I_formation

6. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2581754/