Juicing Book

For juicing recipes, are there any known combinations of fruits / vegetables that work synergistically to optimize nutrition? Combinations to avoid?

There is really no such thing as the perfect juice combination. Each juice combination needs to be customized to the individual person, their lifestyle, where they live, the time of year (winter, spring, summer, autumn), their age, their health condition, etc.

A person in a colder climate, as an example, will benefit from a little ginger, garlic, basil, etc as an example because these are warming vegetables.

Meanwhile, someone in a hot climate will benefit from carrots, cucumber, bok choy, etc because these are cooling vegetables.

A person with cancer would do best juicing some of the cabbage family, while someone who doesn't get much exercise would do best avoiding vegetables that are higher in oxalic acid because exercise is needed to help the body eliminate oxalic acid.

When it comes to synergy though, the nutrients within a vegetable will always work synergistically together. These is because the nutrients of a carrot, as an example, contain the beta carotene and all of the nutritional co–factors your body needs to utilize the beta–carotene in the carrot.

The best source of nutrition for our body is whole foods. Although juice is a processed food, it is derived from a whole food and contains all of the original ingredients. Thus when you juice a vegetable, you get all of the nutrients in a balanced way that the body wants and needs — unlike a vitamin which provides just an isolated nutrient.

But juice is missing the fiber due to the processing and we must always be cognizant of this. Since the fiber is missing, the digestion or assimilation of the nutrients in the juice we drink is exceptionally fast. When you eat a whole carrot, the body must break down the carrot and separate the juice (nutrition) from the fiber (bulk). Since juicing separates the juice (nutrition) from the fiber (bulk) for our body, it makes digestion easier for the body, but it also allows the nutrients to enter our body fast. However, not only do nutrients enter the body fast, but so does the sugar. Thus the reason why I encourage people to learn about responsible juicing.

Now, when it comes to juices to avoid, then yes, there are some things to be aware of.

Try to avoid excessively juicing fruits. We want to eat fruits more often and juice fruits as a treat. We want to be a vegetarian when we juice more than a fruitarian. Fruits are easily digested and generally speaking taste great, thus it is easier to eat fruits and in an ideal world, we would never need to juice anyway. If a person was getting all of the nutrition they needed, then juicing would not be needed nor would it be beneficial. But most people need extra nutrition due to poor diets and that's why many benefit from juicing. So try to eat more fruits than juice.

Avoid combining vegetables high in oxalic acid with those vegetables that are high in calcium. The calcium combines with the oxalic acid to form an indigestible compound.

You can read the page about spinach for more information on this.

Also avoid combining fruits with vegetables as the fruits and vegetables require different enzymes for digestion. The only exception to this rule are apples which have a more neutral effect. But saying that, we want to avoid juicing too many fruits anyway. In some situation, we need the flavor of the apple to help sweeten the taste of not so delicious vegetables. But we must try to minimize this and we also try to reduce and potentially even stop the need for apples mixed in with our juice as soon as we can.

We want to avoid storing juice. We want to drink the juice within 20 minutes of juicing. If it is not fresh, why even drink fresh juice? It defeats the whole purpose. After 20 minutes, the enzymes and vitamins begin to disappear due to oxidation.

We also want to avoid juicing multiple vegetables that are high in sugar. Usually vegetables that are grown below ground are high in sugar while those grown above ground are not. Example, carrots, parsnips and beets are all root crops that are high in sugar and so you would not want to juice all of these vegetables at the same time.

When it comes to juicing, always try to juice a few vegetables that you don't like. It's important to get a variety of vegetables and so juicing the exact same vegetables all the time is not good. We want to juice those vegetables that are not so pleasing to our taste buds.

Don't drink excessive amounts of juice. For general health and well being, only about 1 cup of juice is needed per day. Those who are ill might need more based on their individual situation, but we must always be aware that the difference between poison and medicine is in the dose.

Just because juice is made from whole vegetables, don't think it can't make your body go haywire. You can easily cause an imbalance in your body by juicing too much. For general health and well being, all we want to do is add extra nutrition to our body.

The difference between poison and medicine is in the dose.

Have you been wanting to do hatha yoga (stretching) but have found it either too difficult or you are not that flexible? If yes, and even if no, watch Jesse do some pure hatha yoga routines.

Unlike flow yoga, each pose in pure or traditional hatha yoga is held for a few minutes. While holding the pose, you focus the mind on the stretch. When you focus the mind, that's when you find silence.

Jesse is not flexible — never has been and probably never will be flexible like others. But it doesn't matter. In pure hatha yoga, how flexible you are makes no difference. It's all about loving the pose and focussing the mind on the stretch.

If you want to learn pure hatha yoga, now you can by following Jesse on a series of hatha yoga routines.

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