Juicing & Smoothies For Dummies
Overview
Lose weight and feel great with juicing and smoothies
For those of us who don't have time to cut up or cook fruits and vegetables with every meal, juices and smoothies are a fast and easy way to consume them at home or on the go. Packed with over 100 recipes, Juicing & Smoothies For Dummies covers the most up-to-date information on incorporating this healthy lifestyle into your everyday routine. From how to safely cleanse the body of toxins to the hottest ingredients to bolster juices and smoothies—including chia seeds, coconut oil, hemp seeds, bee pollen, and more—it arms you with everything you need to sip your way to a healthier, happier you.
There are many health benefits to drinking freshly juiced fruits and vegetables. These tasty and nutrition-packed beverages can help protect you against cardiovascular disease, cancer, cellular damage, and various inflammatory diseases,
such as rheumatoid arthritis. Plus, it's great for weight loss because juices and smoothies have hunger-reducing properties, on top of being filling. In this friendly and accessible guide, you'll find expert guidance on how to use juices and smoothies to reap all of these excellent rewards, while getting the recommended daily amount of fruits and vegetables—in a glass!
- Concoct more than 120 juicing and smoothie recipes using the hottest, most nutritious ingredients
- Find the best juicers and blenders for the job
- Ward off colds and migraines, promote longevity, and shed pounds
- Get a month's worth of grocery items to have on hand to make healthy juices and smoothies in minutes
Whether you want to lose weight, cleanse, or simply add more healthy fruits and veggies to your diet, Juicing & Smoothies For Dummies makes it easy.
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About The Author
Pat Crocker is a professional home economist specializing in herbs and healthy foods. She has been growing, photographing, teaching, and writing about herbs, food, and healthy diets for more than two decades. Pat lectures at international conventions and is a seasoned television and radio guest.
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juicing & smoothies for dummies
CHEAT SHEET
Juices and juice smoothies can be nutritious and delicious additions to your diet, and you don't need to go to a smoothie shop to get them. With very little equipment and time, you can make your own juices and smoothies at home.First, you need to know the difference between juices and smoothies. Then you need to know the benefits of juices and smoothies.
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Juicing & Smoothies
Antioxidants found in plant foods stop free radicals from doing their damage, but you have to eat enough of them in order for them to work their magic. The best antioxidants are found in the pigments that give plants their color. Here is a list of the very best antioxidant fruit and vegetables.
Choose one or two from this list to use as an ingredient in a smoothie or juice or eat them fresh in salads or as a snack — just be sure to get lots of them every single day!
Juicing & Smoothies
Here are the ten most frequently asked questions about juicing and smoothies. The answers to these questions help to shorten your learning curve about the why and the how of all the exciting ways to increase health by incorporating these life-enhancing drinks into your diet.
What are the benefits of juices and smoothies?
Juicing & Smoothies
Here is a list of the top ten juice and smoothie ingredients for boosting immunity that may be main ingredients or easily added to smoothies and juices.Antioxidant black fruits©iStockphoto.com/ra3rn
All antioxidants, especially black fruits, such as black plums and blackberries, are powerful tools that work to protect your cells from damage so that viruses can’t find an easy way to infect cells.
Knowing your level of engagement in the process of juicing is critical to matching the type of juicers available to your lifestyle, your health needs, and your expectations about convenience, so ask yourself the following questions and keep your answers in mind as you read about the types of machines available and their advantages or disadvantages.
The Dead Sea Scrolls have revealed that mashing pomegranate and figs for "profound strength and subtle form" was practiced from before 150 b.c. This is perhaps the first record of man's attempt to separate the vital juices from fruits and vegetables for their healing benefits.
Throughout the ages, herbalists and other health practitioners have grated or ground fresh herbs and soft fruits and pressed the juice along with the healing, active constituents from them.
Around the turn of the 20th century, soda fountain jerks were hand-tossing stainless steel cups of creamy milkshakes from milk, ice cream, and flavored syrups. But the fruit smoothie hadn’t even been thought of yet, nor was it possible until Fred Waring marketed Steve Poplawski’s new invention, which came to be known as a blender.
Setting your own personal health goals is an excellent way to put a focus on diet, physical activity, and mental attitude. A good place to start with your diet is to honestly answer the questions in this section and measure your answers against the facts from health experts. This points out any discrepancy between what’s ideal and where you are right now, and it can help you to take the steps you need to have a healthy life.
You probably want to jump right in with juicing — after all, you’re charged up about doing something positive for your health! But rein in your enthusiasm (not for long, just at the beginning) and let your taste buds, digestive system, liver, kidneys, colon, and the rest of your body acclimate to this new and exciting diet.
Start giving your kids juices and smoothies now, and you'll establish habits that will last them a lifetime. Infancy and childhood are times of rapid cell division and growth. Requirements for all nutrients are higher during this stage of life than at any other developmental phase.
In fact, a baby is expected to triple its birth weight and increase its length and head size by 50 percent by the end of the first year of life.
It’s a myth that organic foods don’t need to be washed. Think about that turnip pushing its pointy head up through the soil. If that turnip is lucky enough to be growing in organic soil, that soil is bursting with microbes, bacteria, and other helpful soil organisms. And that turnip will pass through several hands (perhaps even be sneezed on) before it finds its way to your grocery cart.
Always, always, always clean your juicer or blender immediately after you use it — as soon as the drink has been poured into glasses and before you sit down to enjoy it.
The natural sugars in fruits and vegetables can make cleaning the equipment a nightmare if you wait — they're sticky and cause the smaller particles of liquid and other ingredients to adhere (like glue) to the lid, the container, the blades, and any utensil or surface that the mixture has been spilled on or otherwise touched.
Brief periods of drinking only fresh fruit and/or vegetable juices and plenty of pure water can be a healthy way to give your digestive system a complete rest so that your body can do the toxin elimination and organ repair work it's designed to do. Juice fasts are healthy because
Your cells are being nourished, not starved.
Juicing & Smoothies
If you want to experience high-level wellness, your body must be able to clear away internal debris and be toxin-free. But toxins are everywhere: in the water, in the soil, in the air, and in the foods we eat. Even the normal metabolic functions that go on inside your body create waste. Eating organic food and avoiding processed and refined foods helps, but for people living in this fast-paced, stress-filled, modern society, regular juice cleansing and detoxing has become a necessary part of a healthy way of life.
Cooking with fresh homemade juice is a flavorful way to reduce calories and fat in recipes and add sweet or tart tones to vegetables, beans, meat, and fish dishes. Cooking with juice isn’t better than drinking fresh, raw juice (or eating fresh, raw fruits or vegetables).
Some of the B vitamins and vitamin C will be lost during cooking, but many of the other antioxidants and anti-inflammatory phytonutrients will survive the heat, just as they do when you cook fruits or vegetables.
Juicing & Smoothies
If you’re making your health a top priority now, you’re not alone. Trends toward healthier options in all areas are peaking, with the biggest population bulge, the Baby Boomers, reaching 50 or older. And these trends are filtering down to younger generations as well, so that juicing and smoothies have become a significant part of a healthy daily diet.
Both juices and smoothies are incredibly good for your body, taste great, and can be enjoyed any time. But if you think that smoothies and juices are the same, you don’t know how these healthy drinks are made and what ingredients are used to make them. In this section, I fill you in.
Juices and smoothies are made mostly of fruit and vegetables, so you may be interested to know the components that make up these foods.
Juicing & Smoothies
Sometimes you may just crave a treat or you want something to mark a special occasion or to celebrate an important event. Dessert smoothies are sweet treats that fit those requirements perfectly — they’re served in tiny portions, once in a while. The reason people love them is that they’re rich in cream, ice cream, sweetened syrups like butterscotch and chocolate, nuts, sweetened dried fruit, and other forbidden ingredients.
Juicing & Smoothies
The message is clear: For a healthy body, eat a whole-food diet that consists of fresh organic fruits, vegetables, lentils, legumes, herbs, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and small amounts of meat and low-fat dairy products. Using fresh, organic vegetables and fruits in juices and smoothies helps to increase the number of servings of fresh fruits and vegetables in your daily diet.
Juicing & Smoothies
Juices and smoothies should always be an integrated part of a balanced diet. Having said that, you can start to control the amount of calories and the portions of foods you consume within a balanced diet by drinking a juice or smoothie for one meal in your day on an occasional basis.
Keeping a food log and knowing the total calories you consume each day is a pretty good exercise for anyone serious about losing weight.
Juicing & Smoothies
Opting to make your own smoothies and juices means that you’re making a fresh start. Commercial juices and smoothies, whether purchased at your grocery store or at a juice bar, are still better for you than junk food and soft drinks, but making your own allows you to be in total control of what goes into the drink.
Blenders are so ubiquitous that people sometimes forget that there are different features that make each make and model unique. If you plan to make smoothies daily, you’ll want to keep the blender on top of the counter, so height, size, and appearance will be a consideration in addition to the features outlined here.
You want to find a juicer brand that has as many of the features you want within your budget. Here are some features to consider before you make your final purchase decision.
Simplicity: Easy to assemble and use, easy to clean
If you want to enjoy health benefits from juicing, but you aren't passionate, keeping it simple is the best route.
Juicing & Smoothies
Your digestive system, especially your liver, is important to maintaining overall health and, specifically, to maintaining optimal body weight. That's because the liver is the primary organ for filtering out pollutants and chemicals from your food and, just as important, metabolizes fat. Detoxifying and cleansing the liver makes it more efficient so that nutrients are absorbed, waste and toxins are cleared, and fat is burned more effectively.
Juicing & Smoothies
Freezing fruits and vegetables when they’re at their peak is one of the easiest ways to preserve them for use in juices and smoothies later. If you grow or pick your own or purchase fruits and vegetables when in season and in quantity, you can save a considerable amount of money in the winter, when the same produce is being transported from warm climates.
Juicing & Smoothies
You already know that juicing and smoothies will deliver concentrated vitamins and minerals, as well as some protein, carbohydrate, and fat, depending on the ingredients you choose to add. And you know that those nutrients pass directly into your blood from fruit and vegetable juices because the fiber has been removed.
Juicing & Smoothies
Juices and smoothies can affect your hormones by creating a healthy balance. For both men and women, too little testosterone, which declines by an average of 10 percent per decade, lessens sexual vitality. The predominantly female hormones — progesterone and estrogen — also affect sexual desire in women, so deficiencies result in lower libido.
Juicing & Smoothies
Most people think of milk as the best source of calcium — and milk is a good source: One 8-ounce glass of 2 percent milk supplies 120 mg of it. But for people who are lactose intolerant, who don’t drink a lot of milk, or who can’t digest cheese, there are excellent calcium-rich ingredients to add to smoothies or to stir into juices.
Juicing & Smoothies
Freezing fruits and vegetables when they’re at their peak is one of the easiest ways to preserve them for use later. If you grow or pick your own or purchase fruits and vegetables when in season and in quantity, you can save a considerable amount of money in the winter, when the same produce is being transported from warm climates.
The first time you try to juice cabbage or lettuce leaves, green grasses, or herbs, unless your juicer can handle grasses, you’ll find that they jam in the basket and make a mess. Cut cabbage into wedges, and it’ll pass through the juicing basket easily.
If you don’t want to add too much strong cabbage taste to a juice, but you have a few large outer leaves that you want to combine with other ingredients, the best way to get the most out of the leaves is to roll them into a tight, long cylindrical shape and guide them through the feed tube using celery stalks, carrots, or apple wedges.
In order for a juice fast to be effective, you need to do it right. Here, you are taken through each phase of a juice fast, starting in the weeks leading up to it.
A few weeks before the juice fast
Start a few weeks in advance by mentally preparing for a juice fast. Take some personal downtime while juice fasting; for example, choose to do it over a long weekend.
Fresh, whole foods from juices and smoothies provide the same nutritional benefits to Fido and Fluffy as they do to you. Chemicals and empty-calorie foods have nothing in them to build bones and muscle and maintain your pet’s eyes, ears, internal organs, and coat. Pets thrive on fresh vegetables and fruits; organic chicken, lamb, or beef; and legumes and whole grains, such as brown rice, oatmeal, barley, or millet.
Juicing & Smoothies
Juices and juice smoothies can be nutritious and delicious additions to your diet, and you don't need to go to a smoothie shop to get them. With very little equipment and time, you can make your own juices and smoothies at home.First, you need to know the difference between juices and smoothies. Then you need to know the benefits of juices and smoothies.
Juicing & Smoothies
There’s a certain lifestyle that goes along with juicing and smoothies. If done right, these foods can lead to a healthier you. Juices and smoothies are drinkable whole foods. They’re liquid and, therefore, drinkable because:
A juice machine has pressed or spun the water along with the nutrients out of them.
The powerful blades of a blender have broken down the carbohydrate and fiber so much that they’re liquidized and easily swallowed.
Juicing & Smoothies
One advantage of juices and smoothies is the antioxidants that come packed in each glass. How can you tell if a food is high in antioxidants? Many antioxidants, which are powerful phytonutrients, are found in the pigments (the components that give plants their color) of the skin. Look for brightly colored fruits and vegetables and eat a variety of colors every day.
Juicing & Smoothies
Making smoothies and juices from enzyme- and antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables means that you’re releasing these virtual sponges into your body. Antioxidants and enzymes work together on the inside of cells to protect against free radicals, and antioxidants also circulate through the blood to neutralize free radicals outside the cell structures.
Juicing & Smoothies
Fruit smoothies and juices provide the best energy for recharging your batteries if you’re an active person. An active person’s metabolic rate (the amount of energy you burn while at rest) burns hotter and faster than that of an inactive person. Increasing activity requires the body to burn more calories, which come from excess body fat or from the food you consume.
You think you’re making a healthy choice by slurping up that healthy-sounding, creamy drink from a fast-food outlet or popular smoothie bar. If the drink has low-fat milk or fresh juice, fresh fruit, and ice, you can likely go ahead and enjoy.
But if it’s made from ice cream, powdered cream, sugars (glucose, fructose, corn syrup, or molasses), or any other of the high-calorie ingredients, you may be in for a shock at the calories and chemicals that are lurking in that iced refresher.
You start to really enjoy the taste, the benefits, the energy, and the vitality that juicing can give and you think, "Why not save time and effort by making a day's (or a few days') worth of juice?" It's a great idea — and you're not the first person to have it.
The only problem is, vitamins B2, B6, E, and, to a degree, C are all sensitive to light.
Juicing & Smoothies
It’s never too late to get your kids started drinking juices and smoothies, so don’t worry if you have teenagers today and you’ve never juiced or made smoothies before. Start today!
For teenagers, protein and energy are essential, but everything from vitamins A and C for skin and calcium and phosphorous for bone growth is important to maintaining an equilibrium as hormones and outside stresses take their toll.
Although the water or juice of mainly fruits has been enjoyed for centuries, it wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that two men began to look at raw juice as a medical cure. Called the Roshåft Kur, or raw juice cure, it was revolutionary at the time, and its developers, Dr. Max Bircher-Benner and Dr.
Smoothies are the darlings of the healthy-drink world. They taste divine; they can be as nutritious as a salad and as satisfying as a light lunch; they’re so easy to make, drink, and clean up after; and they enrich the diet without adding too many calories or unwanted fat. Who wouldn’t want to savor them?
Beyond the basics of fruit and fruit juice ingredients, smoothies are exciting in their range of possibilities and are limited only by your imagination.
Juicing has many, almost too many, benefits to list. And you may find that some benefits you just can’t know until you experience them. If you get into the habit of making and consuming fresh juices twice a day, you’ll sense the juice instantly release nourishment into your bloodstream. © Maridav / Shutterstock.
Like their healthy juice counterparts, smoothies may be made from a wide array of organic, fresh fruits and vegetables. But smoothies are different from juices in two important ways: First, they’re made from the whole fruit or vegetable, so they keep the pure water, nutrients, and the fiber. Secondly, so many more natural and healthy ingredients like oats, nuts, seeds, herbs, and other natural supplements may be blended with smoothies.
Simply moving to a whole-foods diet and adding one or two fruit and vegetable juices to your daily routine will go a long way toward flushing your systems and tissues.
The following table lists some juice and smoothie combinations and the organs they target. Combine three or four fruits and/or vegetables with 1/2 teaspoon dried herb in a juice or smoothie and vary the combinations each time.
Unlike juices, smoothies retain all the fiber of whole raw fruits and vegetables. Eating fiber is one of the easiest and least expensive ways to prevent disease because it helps the body to eliminate waste materials and deadly toxins. Benefits of smoothies include the following:
Improved digestion and elimination: Fiber is the one key factor in the body’s ability to eliminate waste on a regular basis.
Juices are bursting with pure nutrients that bypass your digestive organs and go right to your bloodstream and your cells to start repairing and healing. They’re high in antioxidants that scour your insides to find and destroy free radicals, those destructive molecules that weaken your immune system and set you up for disease.
There are a few fruits and vegetables that simply can’t be forced into giving up their precious liquids. A juicing machine or juice extractor removes the juice or liquid from fruits or vegetables by force. And because the machine is doing the squeezing and separating of the pulp and juice, you can juice many hard fruits and vegetables that you couldn’t juice by hand.
Juicing & Smoothies
If you're focused on your health, it stands to reason that you want to start with the finest produce so that you get the highest-quality vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. Don't compromise. Get the freshest fruits and vegetables you can find. Here's how:
Shop for organic produce. There's a reason why certified organic food production is growing all over the world.
Juicing & Smoothies
Smoothies and juices are pure nutrients in a glass. They’re both loaded with nutrients, give you an energy boost, and taste fabulous. But they’re not the same thing. The difference lie in the machines used to make each drink:
Juice: To make fresh homemade fruit or vegetable juice, you need a juice extractor. Juice is the water and most of the nutrients that have been separated from the fibrous pulp in fruits and vegetables.
These limited-function juicers may be manual (hand-cranked) or electric. They're designed to juice wheatgrass and other grasses, herbs, sprouts, and leafy greens. They also handle very soft fruit like berries, grapes, and kiwifruit.
Here are the advantages of wheatgrass juicers:
They're simple to use.
They're one-purpose machines that are good at extracting juice from grass, greens, and soft fruits.
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