Juicing – Drink Your Veggies

If you follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram you already know that I got a juicer for Christmas.  I have one kinda like this one.

It was the gift that DH and I got for each other.  We got a Mac-Daddy Masticating version for maximum benefits.

I thought I’d write a bit about juicing just incase you are wondering why?

• Why would I liquefy my veggies?
• Why wouldn’t I want to turn them into a smoothie and swallow all the pulp too?
• Why not just eat a carrot & some kale?
• Why do we want to drink our food anyway?
• What do we have against chewing?

In case you didn’t know – live foods are very important to our health.

Another thing you may or may not know is – most of us don’t eat enough living foods.

What are living foods?

Live foods are foods that are alive not dead.  Fruit, vegetables, in their original form, fresh, as God made them – these are living foods.

Dead foods are frozen, canned, cooked, steamed or otherwise processed.  Most of the foods people eat in America today are dead.  Yes, I’m speaking to myself right now, too.  All the beautiful produce I canned last summer that I am feasting on now are pretty much dead.  They are far superior to the dead foods found at the supermarket – but they are still dead.

I believe that our immune systems are the foundation of our health.  If we have healthy immune systems, we can fight off the things that make us sick.  Not just the flu, but things like cancer as well.  Pretty much everyone has cancer in their bodies all the time.  It’s when the level of “cancer” gets too high that we get the diagnosis from the doctor.  Shutter.  When you have a healthy, immune system, your body can fight the cancer cells, repair and not “get cancer.”

The immune system gets it’s fuel from living foods.  

Unfortunately, there are some problems with this simple truth.

1. We don’t eat enough fresh (raw) fruits and vegetables
2. It’s hard to eat enough fresh (raw) fruits and vegetables
3. Some of us don’t like to eat fresh (raw) fruits and vegetables
4. Fruits and vegetables found in our world today are often flawed (think chemicals & GMOs & how far our food travels & how long our food is stored & how many nutrients are left in it when we finally consume it)

So, we should be eating lots of living foods, but we don’t, because it’s kinda a pain.

On top of the fact that it’s hard to eat them, eating them sometimes isn’t enough.  Unfortunately, munching on carrots and celery sticks most likely just isn’t going to cut it.  Our food today is nutritionally anemic.

“You Would Have To Eat 5 Apples Today To Get The Same Nutritional Value As An Apple From 1950.”  source

So if 5 is equal to 1 and I am supposed to consume 11 servings a day –

I actually need to consume 55 servings if I want it to be equivalent to the 11 servings my grandmother ate.

Crazytown.

This is why we got a juicer.

You may be very different from me.  Here’s the way I see it:

• We are all supposed to eat 11 servings of fruits and vegetables per day.
• I do not consume 11 servings of raw (or cooked) fruits and vegetables a day.
• I do not want to consume 11 servings of raw vegetables a day.
• The fruit and veggies today are not nearly as nutritious as they were 50 years ago.  It has to do with soil, farming and other things I know nothing about.  You Would Have To Eat 5 Apples Today To Get The Same Nutritional Value As An Apple From 1950.  source
• Raw is best.  When vegetables are cooked they lose much of their nutrition.  If you want the live enzymes, antibodies, antioxidants and healing goodness from food – it needs to be raw.
• Whey you drink fresh juice you are consuming all the good from the fruit and veggies without the bulk (the pulp).  This allows you to consume waaaaaaaaaay more fruits and vegetables that you could if you were eating them.
• I can cram fruits and veggies into my juicer and have juice in 5 minutes.
• I can drink 2 apples, 3 carrots, 3 stalks of celery and a sweet potato in 30 seconds.  That’s a lot of fruits & veggies.
• I am eating vegetables that I rarely eat because when I liquify them with an apple they taste good.  Yes, collard greens and kale, I am talking to you.
• I have more energy.
• I’m less bloated.
• I’m eliminating like crazy (how on earth do you talk about pooping on a blog without sounding like a weirdo?)  Juicing will make you regular – very regular.  Let’s leave it at that.  LOL
• I feel better.
• I LOOOOOOOOOVE the juice.

The Net-Net is that our food is a lot less nutritional that it was in 1950.  Add to that, we eat less food because we are less active than people were in 1950.  Back then many families still lived on farms and raised their own food.  They made butter.  They milked cows.  They grew gardens.  They were outdoors working.  They consumed many more calories than we do today because they needed to.  More calories means more food.  More food means more nutrition (if you are eating good foods).

So, their food was more nutritious AND they ate more of it.  No wonder we are all sick and diseased – right?

I am pretty vocal about my thoughts on health.  I want my body to be healthy and strong.  I want to live, not survive.  I want to eat everything, because I Love to eat.  Since I can’t eat bacon, lard and greasy cheeseburgers from the supermarket (because they will eventually kill me) I raise my own.  My bacon is nitrate free, MSG free and full of vitamins.  My cheeseburgers are fried in healthy lard (that I made) and dripping with CLA the cancer fighting wonderfat.  By raising my own food, I can eat it all and feel good about it.

Another creed I live by is that I would rather prevent than treat.

I take iodine, eat apricot seeds, swallow vitamins, and drink raw apple cider vinegar almost daily to be healthy.  Juicing fits nicely into my “prevention” world.  Nothing is for sure, we all know that.  I could die next week or next year.  But, I want to do what I can to give my body health.  If I do get sick, it won’t be because I was eating McDonalds, Hot Pockets or processed foods.

So juicing is a way for me to get LOTS of fresh, raw fruits and veggies into my body.

Juicing is easy & fast.

I will happily ‘drink’ foods that I don’t regularly eat (like ginger root and wheat grass).

Juicing gets a larger variety of raw foods into my diet.

Juicing makes collard greens taste good.

Maybe I’m wrong.  Do you have a juicer?  Do you blend instead?  Add your 2 cents in the comments below!

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Stay Healthy!

-Candi