30 JUL 2019: I was at a dinner party recently (my birthday dinner party, if you must know) and we got on to talking about juice. It made me realize that juice has come a long way from the days of Sunny D, a “juice” who’s ingredient list includes: “water, high fructose corn syrup and less than 2% concentrated juices”.

Yikes. Thankfully, today’s juice can have a whole bunch of kale, a zucchini, a couple of carrots, a beet, an apple, half a lemon and a knob of ginger – all into one glass.

Pretty amazing, isn’t it?

But despite the almost unbelievable amount of vegetables that can go into them, the concept of juicing has sparked controversy.

Some say juicing has completely revolutionized their lives, while others say that fibre is way too important to be removing it from our food, and are concerned about blood sugar regulation.

Before you can decide where you land with all off this, let’s dig into both sides.

When juicing a vegetable, the juicer extracts the fibrous pulp and releases the liquid contained within the food. This liquid contains the nutrients and basically all of the goods the food has to offer (besides the fibre of course).

When we’re enjoying some nice rabbit food, roughage, salad, or whatever you want to call it, our bodies need to play the role of the juicer to break past the fibre and access the nutrients trapped within.

This means two things.

First, if you’re juicing fruit specifically there is no digestive effort required, and as a result the nutrients and fruit sugars are absorbed more or less all at once. So, a fresh pressed juice made from fruit can be too much to handle for someone who is unable to appropriately regulate their blood sugar. We’re much better off eating the fruit whole because the act of getting past the fibre takes time, and the natural fruit sugars are absorbed through our intestines at a slower rate.

Second, it means that, in order for our bodies to access these nutrients, we have to have the digestive power to get through the fibre in the first place. Fibre is indigestible in the body by nature, that’s what makes it so beneficial at keeping things moving. Its bulkiness is what helps to clean out the ol’ pipes if you know what I mean. You can eat all the spinach in the world, but if your digestive system is not functioning well then the reality is, the majority of the calcium, iron and all the other beneficial nutrients will just pass right through you.

Unfortunately, for nearly all of us, rising stress levels mean poorer digestive function. The old adage of “you are what you eat” has now been updated to “you are what you absorb”.

If you focus on juicing a lot of nutritious dark green leafy veggies, that cold press juice will be the best multivitamin you could ever take. It’s all natural and nutritionally balanced because it’s coming directly from whole foods. This can be an invaluable tool in achieving and maintaining good health.

You always want to prioritize veggies over fruit, but understand you can balance the nutrition with an apple or carrot or two because you won’t be getting any nutrition at all if you can’t bear the taste to drink it in the first place. If you have to start sweeter, eventually reduce the sweeter ingredients until your taste buds adjust. And if making it at home, you’ll want to drink it as soon after juicing as possible. The now exposed nutrients are more vulnerable and will decrease with time.

As for juice cleanses, I don’t recommend doing them for more than one or two days at a time, and they should be supervised by your health professional. Any drastic change is hard on your system and can cause some pretty unpleasant side effects. I like to view green juice as a supplement to your diet, and not a replacement. Real food, especially when it’s juiced is some pretty powerful stuff. But it can also be pretty fun too when you know what you’re doing. How’s a green juice with some added lime and mint leaves!? I mean, superfood mojitos anyone!?

Stay cool this summer with this easy juice recipe filled with lots of hydrating foods. Cheers to that!

4 leaves Romaine Lettuce

4 leaves Kale (any variety)

2 stalks Celery

1 Lemon

1 Apple (any variety)

1/2 Large Cucumber

1 inch knob Fresh Ginger Root

8 ounces Filtered Water

Run all the ingredients through a juicer and enjoy!