Why Juicing?

Eric Bakker N.D.May 1, 2022

After having worked with many patients I am absolutely convinced that juicing can be one of the most successful nutritional options, it can give a person a radiant, energetic life, and truly optimal digestive function leading to excellent health. Juicing may not agree with some people with certain kinds of digestive problems, but with others it will be fine, so it may be a case of trial and error for you.

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Eric Bakker Naturopath » Recipes » Why Juicing?

Because Juice is Good For You

When you’re green inside, you’re clean inside. Dr. Bernard Jensen

After having worked with many patients I am absolutely convinced that juicing can be one of the most successful nutritional options, it can give a person a radiant, energetic life, and truly optimal digestive function leading to excellent health. Juicing may not agree with some people with certain kinds of digestive problems, but with others it will be fine, so it may be a case of trial and error for you.

I’m not there to assist you with your particular case so I’d recommend you give it a try, particularly as you improve. Here are some of the main reasons why juicing is so good:

  1. Juicing is so good because all those valuable and sensitive micronutrients locked in your fresh foods become damaged and even destroyed when you heat up foods, and juicing every day ensures you lose virtually none of these nutrients. As soon as you heat up food and process it in any way you begin to alter the shape and chemical composition.
  2. You may well have heard that we all need to eat between five to eight servings of fruit and vegetables daily if we want to maintain optimal health, and what easier way to achieve this than by juicing. Daily juicing is the easiest way to guarantee than you will take in your daily quota.
  3. Nutrients are more easily absorbed from juices as opposed to eating them cooked. Many people reading this will have an impaired digestive system, and consuming vegetable and fruit juices allows your body to more easily access all those critical minerals, trace elements and other nutritional factors.
  4. You eat a larger variety of vegetables and fruits by juicing them. It is a fact that most of us tend to eat the same vegetables and fruits, by juicing you eat a much larger selection and therefore increase your chances of getting all those important nutrients you wouldn’t otherwise consume. Eating the same vegetables and fruits violates the principle of food rotation and increases your chance of developing an allergy or intolerance to a certain food.

Keep an open mind and don’t think that juicing is not for you because you have a gut problem, or yeast infection,  because you have been told or read online that you should strictly avoid all fruits and limit many vegetable juices because the yeast will thrive of the sugars in juices. Can you imagine what the cells of your body experience once you start to drink fresh juice every day?

You will be absolutely amazed at the difference it can make to any underlying chronic health complaint you may well have had forever, regardless of whether it is diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure or a chronic candida yeast infection.


Avoid 100 percent fruit juice – too much sugar

When some folks hear of the word “juice”, they immediately think of a glass of fresh sweet orange or grape juice. These juices are full of sugar and contain little to no fibre generally. Some people switch soda drinks for orange juice and believe they are doing themselves a healthy favour, when in fact they have swapped one sweet drink for another. Consider mixing vegetable juice (80%) with fruit juice (20%) for a healthier drink.

Faster Uptake by Your Bloodstream
When you drink fresh vegetable and fruit juices you are greatly reducing the digestive process that normally occur when you consume whole food. The vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and enzymes of fresh juice are easily transported across the intestine walls into the bloodstream, where they become available for use by the body.

Need to Improve Energy Levels, Reduce Ageing, Lose Weight?
Fresh vegetable and fruit juices have been proven to contribute to overall good health.  People who juice regularly have more energy and stamina, and improved immune function, which will mean fewer colds.  Juicing has also been shown to have a positive effect on cardiovascular health, blood pressure, and the ageing process itself. It can also be very important in any weight loss program.

Is A Typical Western Diet Dangerous To Your Health?
Most people who eat the typical diet are consuming too many overcooked and processed foods that are high in fat, calories, sugar and salt.  In addition, these foods contain food additives, preservatives, and artificial colours and flavours. Fresh juices are a way for you to get the good nutrition you need without the calories, fat, or additives.  Natural juices are certainly far more healthful that the liquids we often consume, like soft drinks, coffee, tea or alcoholic beverages.

Even bottled, canned, or concentrated juices cannot match the nutrient value of freshly prepared juices.  Most canned or bottled juices have been pasteurised which destroys many of the nutrients in juices.  Often preservatives and artificial colours are added.

Health Tip: Don’t throw away that fibre!

Only one cup of freshly juiced carrots contains the nutrients in found in an amazing four cups of raw, chopped carrots.  Did you know that two cups of mixed vegetable juice gives your body the same amount of live enzymes, vitamins, and minerals that are available in two large vegetable salads?

Not only are the same amounts of nutrients available, they are available in a form that is much more easily digested and assimilated. If you drink juice you then have to get your fibre elsewhere so why not blend everything together – the juice and extracted pulp and eat whole foods like nature intended?

The problem I have with vegetable juicing is that many people who juice, throw the valuable fibre away. They just drink the juice and don’t consume the fibre, and that doesn’t make sense to me.


 Why Have Fibre AND Juice?

Here are 4 good reasons:

  1. Your blood sugar will be more stable. If you drink straight juice then the sugars get into the bloodstream too quickly, rapidly raising your blood sugar and causing other problems the body has to then deal with, such as high insulin and cortisol.  It can be counter-productive and do more damage than good. The fibre allows the nutrients to enter the blood stream at the right amount, just like nature intended because it created the juice and fiber at the same time. Juicing may even cause your blood sugar to rise rapidly like drinking soda. This is especially the case if you drink carrot juice made from those fancy new hybrid carrots or apples, bred to taste sweeter. Yes, many fruits and vegetables are hybridised to contain more sugar for increased consumption with their unnaturally high sugar content. I believe the real reason many love to drink carrot; apple or orange juice is because they are in fact satisfying their craving for sugar. They may be in the erroneous belief that giving up that chocolate bar for a glass of carrot juice is a healthy choice, when in fact they are just trading sugars to feed their addiction. Whole foods slow down the digestive process as well as the assimilation of vital nutrients that helps to prevent low blood sugar. Diabetics for example should avoid juices with no fibre, and will feel much better when they include fibre in their diets.
  2. Fibre is your intestinal broom. The second reason is that all that pulp or fibre inside the fruits and vegetables you juice acts like an intestinal broom inside your digestive tract.  And this fibre is a critical part of the whole digestive process.  Without the fibre, the system slows down and can even come to a grinding halt causing constipation. Fibre is also essential for many other reasons; for example, beneficial bacteria require fibre to thrive.
  3. Whole foods are best consumed. It makes sense to eat whole foods, because this is exactly what nature intended us to eat. Whole foods like fruits and vegetables contain water, minerals, vitamins, and many other phytonutrients in addition to plenty of fibre.
  4. Juices containing fibre satisfy you for longer. When you drink juices containing fibre, you will find that they satisfy your appetite longer than juices containing no fibre. This can result in an improved appetite and reduction in foods consumed that will lead to improved weight control.

Drink The Juice Of Vegetables And Fruits You Actually Enjoy Eating

When I first started juicing I read a few books that were written by people who were juicing fanatics. I started to experiment with many different types of fruit and vegetable juices and in different combinations. I now tell patients to juice the vegetables they actually like to eat, and with experience they can start to juice the vegetables they don’t generally like to eat, and these are often the stronger tasting or bitter vegetables.

You will generally keep eating and drinking things you like the most, and tend to avoid those things you like the least, but it is the things you like the least that your body seems to need the most. The bitter vegetables stimulate your digestion and are required by most people; especially those with yeast infections, and people with rampant and chronic yeast infections most always favour the sweeter foods. Sweeter juices can promote the proliferation of yeasts in the body, but only when drunk in excess.

Remember to listen to your body, and if you start to feel nauseous or your stomach starts to make all kinds of sounds after you have had your juice then you may have taken a vegetable or fruit in that you shouldn’t have. Before you decide that it’s not for you, try diluting the juice with water and try different juice combinations. Experience will soon tell you what suits your taste as well as your digestion and what doesn’t, and with experimentation you will discover over time that you will soon work out what suits and what doesn’t in terms of your yeast infection.

For example, drinking too much alcohol will soon make you realise that are going to feel pretty bad, and intelligent drinkers will know their limits. Intelligent folk who juice regularly will soon work out what kind of juices they can tolerate, how much juice they can drink and when and what the best juices for them are. Unlike alcohol, vegetable and fruit juices are actually good for you and never let anyone tell you that juices make a yeast infection worse unless you drink straight orange juice or other high sugar containing fruit juices on a regular basis.

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