A very important factor of Juicing is the difference between the juices of fruits versus that of vegetables. This is often missed in much of the material I’ve seen out there and it’s a critical point if you’re looking for your greater wellness. Many people juice foods to get the best taste possible. For me that would be a smoothie with a lot of ice cream. Not very nutritious! No, the critical factor is to not mix your vegetables and fruits in the same drink! Let’s look at the specific reasons for this.
Fresh fruit juices are used to detoxify our system; they are the cleansers of the human system. Vegetables are very different as they are the builders of our body and their purpose is to feed our body. Vegetables are regenerators and build healthy cells. Vegetables are used to replace old cells with new healthy cells as they heal our body. Experts believe you do not mix these purposes but use the fruit or the vegetable for their specific purpose in terms of your goals.
In addition to the above we do not mix fruits and vegetables because they digest differently. I should say, that in a juice format, they absorb into our system differently with the fruit being quicker than the vegetable, in most cases. For this reason we do not juice fruits very much at all and juice vegetables on a regular basis. We take advantage of the fiber when we eat raw fruit whole. The fiber will clean the colon and the vegetable juice will work its healing abilities to our advantage.
Another reason we do not juice fruits on a regular basis is that they are too high in natural sugar. And, as just noted, we can get a good amount of fiber from raw fruits. Also, raw fruits digest rather quickly and easily, we just need to chew them thoroughly and we have a winner.
Eating fruits such as apples and pears provide us another advantage because they contain pectin. The pectin, when chewed in fruit is more easily obtained than when it is juiced. These fruits, apples and pears, have a digestive aid that helps the regulation of our body.
Some dark leafy greens that taste great with carrots include spinach, parsley, and kale. Lettuce is good also but choose the darkest green possible, for their high nutrient value. We like to mix in a high quality powdered Barleygreen into our vegetable juice. This adds even more of the highest nutrients available, which are also in that dark green category.
On occasion we will indeed juice fruit, smoothies taste great! But, as a general rule we want to focus on juicing vegetables and eat fruit whole.
So smoothies are one area where we juice fruit and melons may be another exception but we would be using these as snacks or for a desert 2 or 3 times a week. Melons are exceptionally beneficial to our greater wellness. Melons of various varieties can be mixed or juiced together, but do not mix melons with other types of fruits and of course, do not juice any vegetables with any melon. If you have organic melons you can juice the whole melon, rind and all.
Another exception or two have to do with taste when using fruit with vegetables but certain fruits only. The major exception is the apple. We will often use an apple or two with deep green juices to improve the taste without problems. Or, we may use a squeeze, or a portion of, a lemon or a lime to make a given vegetable juice more palatable.
We can also use a number of vegetables in our juice mix to enhance taste. For example, to improve taste while adding more and different vitamins and nutrients we will often use celery, cucumber, cabbage and beets, all of which make the mix more tasty.
