When you simply don’t have time to sit down and eat a LARGE bowl of spinach and other veggies, drinking 16 ounces of green juice is a great alternative.
95% of the phytonutrients – vitamins and enzymes our bodies need for optimal health are in the juice of raw fruits and vegetables.
We still need the fiber in those plants, so I strongly recommend you also drink green smoothies and of course eating the whole foods themselves regularly.
But juicing greens is a great way to get a high dose of health benefits in addition to your smoothies and whole food meals.
When you drink fresh green juice, you are getting a highly concentrated dose of important vitamins, minerals and enzymes that hit your bloodstream immediately allowing your body to absorb all of these nutrients while giving your digestive system a much needed rest.
To get the optimal nutritional value you will want to drink your green juice right after the greens have been juiced. If you store the fresh juice in a tightly sealed glass container in the fridge and drink it within 8 hours, you’re good to go. The reason for this is as soon as the juice hits the air, oxidation happens. This process takes away the nutrients in your juice bit by bit.
Be careful about buying those green drinks that are bottled at the store. Unless they come fresh out of the juicing machine that day, they are likely pasteurized which kills all the good nutrients.
I recommend juicing first thing in the morning and drinking your green juice on an empty stomach and then again two hours after and before meals later in the day. This helps your body to absorb all those nutrients.
Tips on how to make juicing greens a part of YOUR healthy regimen:
- Get a good quality juicer. (I recommend Breville – easy to clean and efficient to use).
- Keep the juicer out on the kitchen counter in easy reach and plain view.
- Create a routine of stopping in the grocery every couple of days to pick up fresh, organic produce to juice.
- Add lemon to your juicing – it offsets the bitter of some of the greens.
- Buy a set of pantry jars. Sterilize and keep on hand for storing your extra juice for an afternoon pick-me-up.
- Allow the cleaning of your juicer to be a mindfulness practice rather than a drudgery.
See my video on juicing vs. blending here!
Recipes to get you started:
Green Ginger Juice
- 1 cucumber
- 1 small green apple
- 1 small pear
- 8 leaves of kale
- 1/2 lemon
- 1 inch of fresh ginger
Popeye Juice
- 1 cucumber
- 4 cups of spinach
- 1 lemon
- 1 small red apple
- 1 pear
- 1 lemon wedge
Green Mean Machine
- 1/2 lemon
- 4 cups spinach
- 1 cucumber
- 2 stalks celery
- 1 large green apple
Happy Juicing!
