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The Health Benefits of Juicing2007-09-03If God wanted us to fly, he would have given us wings. But God gave us a brain instead, so just incase we wanted to fly, we could build wings. If God wanted us to juice he would have given us teeth. Oh, he did give us teeth; I guess he wants us to juice. However; he still gave us a brain, so we could build juicers and blenders. Our teeth perform the same function as a juicer, in that they grind up food, so the juices can be extracted. Our body needs both the pulp and the juice of the food. For most of the history of man, we mainly used our teeth and a few crude tools to process our food before it was digested. Back then, life was simple and they had no alternative to wholesome minimally processed foods. But, now for the past 100 years our lifestyles and diets have changed a lot from that of our ancestors. Not that the type of food has changed, but the way we process it has changed. Now we do have alternatives to simple minimally processed foods. The worst of our food is called junk food, because most of the good stuff (that is in whole foods) has been processed out. Not only do they process out the good stuff, a lot of the time they process in bad stuff. This junk food or more highly processed food tastes better then minimally processed food (by corporate design – maximize taste / minimize cost). So, we tend to crave the more highly processed foods to the exclusion of simple and wholesome foods. Overtime we start depleting ourselves of the things our bodies need to operate properly and in most cases giving our bodies things it can’t process. Slowly but surely our energy levels fall and we get sick more and more frequently. The negative aspects of junk food or highly processed food have been written about for years and any book store would have lots of books on the topic. Juicers and other kitchen equipment, (like blenders, nut and seed grinders) make it much easier to process wholesome foods without detracting in any significant way from the nutritional value. We can also mix different wholesome things and make tasty foods for ourselves. Hopefully, the more we eat nutritious foods, the less inclined we will be to consume the less nutritious things that eventually deplete our bodies. Some say that there is a point where one’s illness is so bad that juicing alone is not the way to heal. I agree, one must use common sense if you are going to use juicing to heal yourself from a bad illness. Here again, the book stores are full of books with testimonials about juicing for health. I have my own testimonials, but the ones in the book stores are so much better. I have healed myself twice from strep throat by just juicing and resting. Others have been near death and used juicing as the main vehicle for restoring health to their bodies. I mainly juice for general health and energy. Others have just juiced to clear up their complexion or deal with added stress in their lives. I believe that juicing and eating wholesome foods does help one deal with work place stress, student life in general, improving stamina, and/or having a healthier pregnancy. But, I do like to reflect back upon my ancient ancestors and ask myself “would they have eaten ten pounds of carrots at one sitting. I don’t think so, because they would have had to chew it all and our teeth are not designed for that much chewing. So let’s use common sense and use moderation. I think that if the palms of one’s hands start to turn orange, one has had enough carrots for awhile. Juicing should only be the beginning of a healthy lifestyle. There is so much to learn about living healthy. Most of it can be learned from books so it won’t be that expensive. Before one has a part of their body removed, please give a healthier lifestyle a chance. If one can find a medical doctor that also knows the importance of nutrition and desires to put the body back into balance before cutting something out one has found gold. The robustness of youth allows us to put off the consequences of a poor lifestyle and poor choices, but eventually we all pay the price for our decisions. My wife and I have slowly been moving into a healthier life style for decades. But we didn’t start soon enough or learn fast enough. In hind sight, I wish we would have known how to eat more healthy before our children were born. Then perhaps my wife’s teeth would not have cracked after the 2 or 3rd child, due to calcium depletion. It takes a lot of calcium to build a baby. My wife was also anemic during our child bearing years. Juicing can also provide the right kind of iron. Having babies and growing children both require a lot of nutrition. Making a nutritious juice is more of an art than a science. It does not have to be just fruit or vegetable juice. There are a huge number of things that can be mixed together. Then given that everything can be mixed in different proportions, the number of mixtures is infinite. When I was in high school, I was in wrestling. I remember being tired all the time due to the hard physical workouts. One day my friend and I started making what we called the “raspy drink”. This consisted of a blender filled three-quarters full of orange juice, 2 raw eggs, 3 or 4 heaping table spoons of dried liver powder and an assortment of nutritional pills (kelp, oils, alfalfa, etc.) from my friend’s cupboard. It tasted really bad (something only a real man could drink), that is why we called it the ”raspy drink”. But while I was drinking that raspy drink I was much less tired, even during wrestling. I don’t necessarily recommend this drink, it is the thought of being creative that I want to get across. When one goes shopping, should one shop for food or for nutrition? Juicing is an excellent way to get the benefits of raw foods when one might not ordinarily be inclined to eat raw food. Raw foods have more nutritional value than processed foods. I’ve heard people say “I either pay for healthy food or I pay the doctor”. A juicer helps one unlock the nutrition in ordinary food, and reduce the need to visit the doctor. |