So how does juicing benefit our bodies?

When we juice, we are providing our bodies with high quality vitamins and minerals straight from the source, as fresh as you can get it – without additives and not pasteurized like what you get in the supermarkets. This is probably the best medicine you can provide yourself to boost your immune system and maintain good health. I tend to make a lot of green juices or smoothies. Green juices fill you with a huge amount of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, enzymes, protein and much more.

Here are some more benefits of juicing:

• Meet your daily requirement – Standard requirement for fruit and vegetables is five servings per day. Not everyone is able to meet this requirement, so the best way to achieve this is to juice your fruits and vegetables. You’ll actually get more than the recommended intake into your system.

• Detoxifies the liver – Our liver works hard to remove waste and toxins from the body naturally. With the amount of toxins we deal with in our systems and environment on a daily basis, we need to help our liver keep us clean. We can achieve this by juicing which enables us get the vitamins and minerals needed to aid the detoxification process. Nutrients that aid this detox process are vitamin C, E, B, beta-carotene which are high antioxidants and potent liver cleansers. A lot of these nutrients can be found in citrus fruits, spinach, broccoli etc.

• Aids digestion – Juicing helps the digestive system function more effectively. This is because the nutrients in fresh juice from raw fruits and vegetables are more easily absorbed than when you eat whole foods. This way the digestive systems are not over worked trying to digest whole foods.

• Alkalize your system – When you juice vegetables, they alkalize your system balancing your body’s PH level (your body is less acidic). Some of the benefits you get from this are improved brain function, heart function, slowing down the aging process and your body is healthier which means you’re less likely to get sick with diseases. If your body is acidic, it is more likely to breed diseases.

• Improves skin, hair, and nails – You get a lot of the antioxidants vitamins C and E from juicing, which neutralize free radicals in the body thereby improving skin health and protecting it from sun exposure. Including vegetables like kale and spinach in your juice provides a high level of vitamin B2 which helps improve skin problems, hair loss and cracked lips.

• Increases energy levels – As your body gets more detoxified and alkalized, it is more able to utilize all the nutrients you are feeding it which will make you feel better. When you feel better and good about yourself, you are more energized and ready to take on anything. The increase in vitamins and minerals you get from juicing is responsible for promoting health and also improving energy levels.

• Improves immune system – The antioxidants from fruits and vegetables which include vitamins A, C and E, amongst others are essential for healthy immune system. As you juice more often, you get more of these antioxidants on a daily basis – you are improving your immune system which helps your body to be more equipped to fight against diseases.

• Aids weight loss – Vegetable juices have high detoxifying properties which help cleanse the system of waste materials and toxins – this leads to weight loss. Fruits and vegetables are also high in fibre which helps regulate your colon and help the body process food more quickly. This in turn helps you lose weight quickly.

Taken from Healthy Living the blog of Gloria Halim, author of Healing Foods Healthy Foods* available from Amazon

*Affiliate link