The Health Benefits of Juicing

Last Updated on August 15, 2020 by Ellen Christian

The health benefits of juicing are only one reason to juice.  Honestly, juicing your own fruits and vegetables results in a juice that tastes so much better than anything you’ll buy in the store. When I shop, I am limited to a dozen or so different flavors of juices.  Many contain artificial colors, sweeteners or preservatives that I would rather not eat. The juices are bottled in manufacturing plants using fruits and vegetables that I don’t know the origin or quality of. Unless I buy organic juice, I have no idea what pesticides have been sprayed on them while they were growing. I’d rather start with my own local, farm fresh produce when I juice as often as possible.

The Health Benefits of Juicing

• Juicing allows you to absorb all of the nutrients in the fruits and vegetables you juice. Most of us cannot absorb all the nutrients from fruits and vegetables that we eat.  Juicing helps to pre-digest them for you so you receive more nutrition from what you eat.
• Juicing makes it easy to eat the number of servings of fruits and vegetables that are recommended.   I know that I almost never get the recommended daily allowance of fruits and vegetables. I have good intentions but it doesn’t happen.
• Juice allows you to use fruits and vegetables you may not enjoy eating separately.  I’m not really fond of tomatoes raw but juicing them with other vegetables into a vegetable juice is delicious.
• Heat used to process the juice you purchase in the grocery store kills live enzymes.  Juicing at home preserves the most live enzymes possible.
• Making your own juices means you can make any combination of fruits or vegetables that you choose so you are not limited by what you find in the store. This makes juice more enjoyable and it’s more likely you will drink it and enjoy the health benefits.

There are several different ways to juice.  The most common are the cold press juicer and the centrifugal juicer.  The centrifugal juicer uses fast-spinning, heat-generating blades to pulverize produce into juice. Cold press juicers  compress fruits and vegetables to extract the juice from each.  Cold press juicers, like the NutriPro, will yield more fresh juice with more nutrients than centrifugal juicers. The NutriPro uses a single pressing auger in the processing bowl to first crush, then compress, as much juice as possible from your favorite produce.  the NutriPro will also make soy and nut milks, nut butters and sorbet!

I received a Bella NutriPro Cold Press Juicer to try.  I’ve wanted a juicer for quite a while so I was really excited about this.  I admit to being a total newbie when it comes to juicing. I have several friends who do it and I know it’s super healthy.   Basically, once you assemble the juicer, you push the fruits and vegetables into the chamber.  The single juicing screw crushes, then compresses and then squeezes out the juice.  The fruits and vegetables you add should be in one to two inch chunks that have been washed.

The juice that is produced comes out of the juice spout into a handled cup.  You can choose to strain it for no pulp or leave the pulp in.

The parts of the fruits and veggies that aren’t used come out another spout into a different cup.  You can discard the pulp and leftovers  that aren’t used  or some of it will work well in breads, sauces, muffins, soup stocks depending on what you’re juicing.  My recommendation… add it to your garden compost. The juicer comes with all of the pieces that you need, a recipe booklet, instruction book and a handy wheel that shows you what types of fruits and vegetables combine the best & what nutrients you get from each. This is perfect for someone who is new to juicing. I have no idea what types of vegetables and fruits will combine well to make a juice that will taste good.

I was really impressed with the Bella NutriPro Cold Press Juicer.  It is very easy to put together, take apart and to clean up afterwards. It literally took me less than three minutes to remove the parts, toss them in hot soapy water and set them out to dry.  I love that there are no sharp blades to cut my hands on. I really like how quiet the Bella NutriPro Cold Press Juicer is as well.  I have friends with juicers and they can be so noisy!

I made a delicious carrot juice out of apples, carrots, and lemon.  I feel a cold coming on and this is a super way to easily get Vitamin C into my diet.  I could really taste the melding of the different flavors when I tried the juice. It really tastes so much better than juice that you buy at the grocery store.  We always have tons of produce leftover in the summer that we cannot cook up quick enough. Juicing it is a great way to make sure it doesn’t go to waste. Plus, the kids HATE zucchini and refuse to eat it.  I can easily hide it in a fruit juice and they’ll drink it down with no questions asked.

Have you ever tried juicing before? What are your favorite fruit and vegetable combinations?