Juicing

Q. I’m confused about juicing, and I hope you can clear things up for me. Some people say it’s good to juice and others say it’s not healthy at all. What’s the truth?

A. I personally think juicing is very important for long term success on the raw food diet. More specifically, vegetable juicing and predominately leafy greens. Fruit juice is far too sweet with all the fiber removed and can be quite a sugar rush to the system which is not healthy. On the other hand green juice is low glycemic and loaded with bio-available minerals that are required for thousands of metabolic functions and with the fiber removed are easily assimilated in the form of juice.

Other than a few fruits, vegetables are the main source of highly alkaline minerals on a raw food diet. And alkaline minerals are critical to good health and therefore success on the raw food diet. When we eat salads it is very difficult for us to chew long enough to extract the juices from them. Most of the time we swallow our food when there is still a large percentage of juice yet to be extracted so do not receive the full nutritional value. Even if we put an extra effort into this endeavor it is extremely hard to liquefy our greens before swallowing.

It’s true there are some juicers better than others at extracting juice and preserving nutrients, but I believe any green juicing is better than none at all. In my opinion consuming green juices daily is perhaps the most important part of the raw food diet and particularly for those that are just starting out.