5 Beet Juice Recipes You Can Make at Home

apple and beet juice


There are 3 types of fresh juice that serious juice enthusiasts hold in high esteem, these are leafy green juices, wheatgrass juice and beet juice. Beet juice is considered to have especially potent detoxification abilities because of its rich content of antioxidants and other nutrients that support the detoxification process. In fact, its detoxification abilities should not be underestimated. It is not uncommon for people to experience the symptoms of a detoxification such as headaches after drinking a glass of juice. If this is the case for you then reduce your dose and build up slowly.

Ok – so on to the recipes. Yay!

Oh, and one more thing, beet greens are totally edible and are actually very good for you. Juice the greens right along with your beets and add the power of green juice to your beet juice recipes. No need to peel the beets either if they are organic, just wash them well. The skin is an excellent source of antioxidants.


Apple and Beet Juice Recipe
2 beets
1 apple

Beet Cleanse Juice Recipes
2 beets
3 carrots
1/2 an apple
1/2 a cucumber
2 celery stalks
1″ slice of ginger

The All Red and Orange Juice
1/2 a sweet potato
1 carrot
1/2 red bell pepper
2 red beets
1 red apple

V8 Beet Blast
1 red beet
1 carrot
1 celery stalk
2 plum tomatoes
2 cups of parsley leaves with stems
1 jalapeño pepper, remove seeds and ribs
3 red radishes

Pineapple Beet Treat
2 beets
1/2 a cucumber
1 cup of pineapple flesh


What are the Health Benefits of Green Juice?

Green Juice Benefits

green juice benefitsI have been interested in and studied nutrition for many years, but had never got into juicing. After all, there are only so many changes you can make at a time! It wasn’t until I got a Jack LaLanne Power Juicer as a gift about 5 years ago, that I started to juice. The timing was perfect. It was only a few weeks later that my wife Veronica had two of her wisdom teeth out. These wisdom teeth were deeply embedded and had grown horizontally (not vertically!). The result was two weeks of liquid food only and serious pain killers. This was my crash course in juicing.

I have since learned, practiced and experimented a lot with juicing. Used different types of juice extractors, some are better for making green juice recipes than others, you can read more about this at best juicer for greens. As I learned more about juicing and nutrition, I came to understand that green juice is the healthiest of juice. “Going green” can apply to juicing too. So then, what is green juice?


What is green juice?

The answer to this is a simple one! Green juice is any juice that is made mostly with or completely with green vegetables to produce a juice that is – well – green in color! Some of the most used green vegetables for making green juice are:

  • Kale
  • Spinach
  • Collard greens
  • Green cabbage
  • Broccoli
  • Celery
  • Lettuce
  • Parsley
  • Wheatgrass


It is common to add a fruit such as an apple or a lemon, or sweeter vegetables like carrots and cucumber to the mix to make green juice a little more tasty.


What’s green juice got that other juices don’t?

This question is really at the foundation of the benefits of green juice, and is one that I asked myself when I first started to hear the buzz about this healthy colorful beverage. Are not all juices made equal? Are not wonderful colored juices such as pomegranate juice, blueberry juice, strawberry juice, carrot juice just as good as green juice? Isn’t variety the real key? These are all good questions, and the answer isn’t a simple yes or no. However, if someone were to ask the hypothetical question “if for some reason you were only allowed to drink one color of juice, what would it be?” – I would be forced to say green. Let me explain why. (Read our post Benefits of Juicing for a general idea of the health benefits of juicing)


The Sugar Factor

The first and foremost reason for me comes down to sugar. Green juice has minimal amounts of calories and sugar because green vegetables are low in calories and sugar. Other colored vegetables such as carrots and beets, tend to be sweeter and contain more calories and sugar. An 8oz glass of carrot juice contains about 15 grams of sugar. Fruit juice is even more sugary, and for that reason I keep my fresh fruit juice intake to a minimum. At most I drink a 4oz glass 3 times a week. The fact that juice loses its fiber, which is the component of fruits and vegetables that slows down the rate at which sugars are absorbed into the blood stream is also an important point to bring up. Fruit juice can cause blood sugar spikes, and if over done can increase the risk of health conditions that come with excess sugar intake. Here are a 146 reasons to cut down sugar intake. Also check out our post Is Fresh Fruit Juice Bad for You? However, don’t be scared off by this, within moderation fruit juice is fine, just be aware of the amount of sugars you are consuming in a day.


benefits of green juiceFor checking the amount of calories and sugar in juice I use My Fitness Pal Calorie Counter. This is the only place that I have found that provides calorie information for a variety of fresh-made fruit and vegetables juices, even including green juices such as cabbage juice, broccoli juice, kale juice and more. When searching use the words “raw” and “fresh” to find what you need. For example type “raw kale juice” or “fresh spinach juice”. Using this system you will find that most green juices contain zero sugar, or just a gram or 2 of sugar for an 8 ounce glass. Of course, this makes sense since the raw whole green vegetables contain very little sugar. We can drink lots of green juice and not be concerned.


“So the essence of green juice benefits is you get all the goodness of antioxidants, enzymes, vitamins and minerals, without the concern of overdoing it with sugar. Green juice is just pure concentrated liquid nutrition – pure health benefits”



The Chlorophyll Factor

Green vegetables are green because of the chlorophyll they contain. The darker green they are the more chlorophyll they contain. Kale and spinach are therefore greater sources of chlorophyll than celery. It is the benefits of abundant chlorophyll content then that are unique to green juice, and these benefits are powerful. Here are some known benefits:

  • Wound Healing. Research dating back to the 1940’s discovered that chlorophyllin (a component of chlorophyll) helps wounds to heal faster.
  • Powerful Antioxidant. Chlorophyll and chlorophyllin are both potent antioxidants that have anti-cancer properties and help prevent our cells from oxidative damage.
  • Detoxification. Chlorophyll attaches to toxins, especially heavy metals, and removes them safely from the body. Chlorophyll also cleanses the liver by protecting it from cancer-causing cells.
  • Blood Building. The chlorophyll molecule is almost identical to that of the heme part of our red blood cells. Although not yet confirmed, chlorophyll is believed to help increase red blood cell count, and may help with anemia.
  • Alkalizing. One of the most potent benefits of chlorophyll is its alkalizing effect on the body. Because of its chlorophyll content, green juice is one of the most alkalizing foods that we can consume. The benefits of reducing the amount of acid in the body (given that over acidity is an epidemic) cannot be understated. The more acidic the body, the more prone it is to illness and disease. Acidity is a breeding ground for bad health.



The Everything Else Factor

Just because green juice is green because of the chlorophyll it contains, doesn’t mean that is the only antioxidant it contains. The list of antioxidants in green juice are mind-blowing. You will be receiving the antioxidant benefits of beta-carotene, sulphorane, vitamin C, vitamin E, lutein, zeazanthin, kaempferol, quercetin, and many others with long unpronounceable names. In addition to this your green juice is a great source of many trace minerals, including calcium and magnesium, and a great source of vitamin K and living enzymes.

This all adds up to one of the most nutrient dense health promoting drinks that exist. Yep, juice of other colors are important too to get a diversity of antioxidants and other nutrients, but if there is one juice that contains more nutrients than all others, it is a juice that come in the darkest green.
🙂

Happy Juicing
Darren

Sources:
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/phytochemicals/chlorophylls/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/542432-does-chlorophyll-cleanse-the-blood/

Is Fresh Fruit Juice Bad for You?

is fruit juice good for youOk deep breath! There are several facets to this. The answer to the question “is fresh fruit juice bad for you?” is not a yes or no answer. If I was asked if processed fruit juice you buy at the store is bad for you? I would be bold enough to say yes – in most cases it is just flavored sugar water. But, fresh fruit juice – it’s a different story…

The Good
The upside to drinking fresh fruit juice is the nutrition it contains. It is loaded with antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. It is therefore, generally speaking, great for boosting the immune system, great for detox, has anti-inflammatory properties and promotes overall good health. More specifically studies show that pomegranate may help reduce arterial clogging, grape juice helps reduce blood clot formations, apple juice can lower cholesterol and cranberry juice helps prevent the occurrence of urinary tract infections. So far so good.

The Bad
The problem with fresh fruit juice is the sugar it contains. Too much sugar in the diet is a key risk for developing diabetes, is a risk for heart disease too, promotes the growth of unhealthy gut flora, and can increase inflammation in the body. The laundry list for the negative effects of excess sugar consumption doesn’t stop there either. Before that scares you into ever drinking fruit juice again, the emphasis here is on Too Much sugar. Taken in moderation, fresh fruit juice provides the above mentioned benefits for health and more.

The Balance
is fresh fruit juice bad for youWhat is a recommended amount of fruit juice to drink per day? As it stands there are no official guidelines for fruit juice, but there are guidelines for the amount of sugar we should consume. The American Heart Association (AHA) were the first to put out guidelines in 2011:

” Women should consume no more than 100 calories (about 25 grams) of added sugars per day. Most men should consume no more than 150 calories (about 37.5 grams) each day. That’s about six teaspoons of added sugar a day for women and nine for men. “

It is very easy to reach and exceed these sugar-intake guideline if we are not keeping an eye on the processed foods that we are eating. So we really need to be observant about what the rest of our diet looks like when drinking fresh fruit juice because the average 8oz glass contains between 25g to 30g of sugar!

  • 8oz of fresh apple juice contains 27g of sugar (110 calories)
  • 8oz of fresh orange juice contains 20g of sugar (112 calories)


Our Recommendations
Drink vegetable juice mostly. And mostly green vegetable juice. Most vegetables are considerably lower in sugar content than fruits. Green vegetables, such as broccoli, cabbage, kale and spinach are extremely low in calories and sugar, but absolutely brimming in antioxidants and other healthy nutrition. Green juice is just all health benefits. Even the more sweet of vegetables, such as carrots are lower in sugar than fruits, with the average 8oz glass providing 15g of sugar.

It is still a great idea to drink fruit juice, but keep the portions controlled. Stick with no more than an a 4oz glass per day, that provide an average of 12g to 15g of sugar a serving. This still leaves some leeway room for a little more sugar from other foods in the day without breaking the AHA guidelines.

Fresh fruit juice provides nutritional diversity to vegetable juice, providing certain nutrients, antioxidants and health benefits that you may not find with vegetables. We just need to be smart about how much we drink, and then we get the benefits and none of the negative effects of excess sugar consumption.






How Long Can I Store Fresh-made Juice?

storing juiceIf you have searched the net to find out if you can store fresh juice, then you may have bumped into a few people claiming you must drink the juice right away or otherwise you lose all the nutrition and benefits. This isn’t exactly true. The truth is that drinking the juice as fresh as possible is always best, but storing your juice properly is still an effective way of gaining the benefits of juice, especially if it otherwise means no juice. However, as with all stored foods, there is a time limit.


How long you can store your juice totally depends on the type of juicer you are using, but before we get more into those details lets look at how juice must be stored, regardless of juicer-type.

  • It is very important that juice is stored in an air-tight container. Filling the container to the brim is best, this will reduce any excess air in the vessel. Alternatively there are tools that pump the excess air out of containers.
  • Keep the juice refrigerated. This keeps the juice cool and in the dark, 2 important factors for preserving fresh-made juice.


Which Juicer – How Long?

If you are not clear on the difference between a centrifugal juice extractor and a masticating juicer, then check out our post explaining this – Best Juicer. For a quick and limited reference – all Breville juice machines and Jack LaLanne juicer machines are centrifugal juicers. The Hurom Slow Juicer, Omega 8005 and 8006 Juicers are all masticating machines.

Centrifugal juice machines are fast-running machines that produce some heat and friction that creates some oxidation. The result of this is that the juice does not store as long as it does with the slower more deliberate juicing mechanism of a masticating juicer. The absolute maximum time for storing a juice made with a centrifugal machine is 24 hours, providing the above mentioned storing methods are adhered to. Even so, 24 hours is a maximum. After about 8 hours the juice will start to taste a little different as it starts to lose its freshness. Personally I aim for drinking a juice from a centrifugal machine within 12 hours provided that I cannot drink it immediately.

Masticating juice extractors create very little heat, and they don’t cause much oxidation as a result, which increases the shelf-life of the juice it produces. Provided the juice is stored as outlined above, then the juice will last for up to 48 hours.


Additional Tips and Advice

  • Add some lemon juice or lime juice to a recipe, if it doesn’t already contain some. These two citrus fruits help preserve the juice.
  • Cabbage juice does not last long. Any recipe with cabbage juice should not be stored for longer than a few hours. Or else – taste the difference!!!
  • If it is practical, consider freezing juice as a Popsicle and eat it later. May not be the tastiest thing for a green juice, but fruit juices can make a tasty healthy treat.



How to do a Lemon Juice Cleanse?

lemon juice cleanseAre you interested in following the lemon juice detox plan, also known as the master cleanse? If so, follow the instructions below to guide you through this popular detox plan that has helped many people flush toxins from their bodies.

1) Talk to your doctor. Any detox diet plan is a serious matter that you need to consult with your doctor about. Even though a lemon detox diet plan is made up of 100 percent natural ingredients, you still need to hear what your physician recommends. Keep in mind that reactions to a detoxification diet plan can vary. Your doctor’s view can help you determine whether or not this detox diet plan is suitable for your body. You also need to understand the potential risks involved with this detox diet.

2) Preparing for the diet. It is important to prepare yourself physically, emotionally and mentally. Keep in mind that after beginning a lemon detox diet plan you’ll experience physical changes that may be strange to you. You can do that by steadily decreasing your intake of junk food before you begin your diet plan. This way, one’s body won’t be too surprised by the new changes in diet.

3) Gather the ingredients. Purchase all necessary ingredients. For the lemon detox diet you will need lemon juice (fresh squeezed), purified water, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. Before collecting the ingredients, keep in mind that the diet is a 100 percent all-natural diet. What this means is that you shouldn’t replace any ingredients with artificial ones. For instance, don’t substitute all-natural lemon juice with concentrated lemon juice.

4) The lemon detox diet recipe. Once you’ve collected all of the ingredients, it’s time to get the recipe ready.


Lemon detox diet ingredients (1 serving)
8 oz. purified water
2 tbsp. of organic lemon juice (fresh squeezed, approx. 1/2 a lemon)
2 tbsp. Grade B organic maple syrup
1/10th of tsp. of cayenne pepper
Optional – ground ginger, to taste



Get 4 oz. of water and mix it with the lemon juice and add 2 tbsp. of grade B organic maple syrup. Add 1/10th of tsp. of cayenne pepper. You may also use a little ground ginger. After adding all of the ingredients, mix and then add an additional 4 oz. of purified water. You need to take this beverage 8 to 10 time a day.

The recommended time for the lemon detox diet is 10 days. Should you want to exceed the 10 days standard time, you must do so under a doctor’s supervision. However, you may still do it for a shorter time. This is good for people trying it out for the very first time.