Juliet White asked:


We all know the benefits of eating a healthy balanced diet and consuming more fruit and vegetables, but what many people don’t know is that vegetable juice helps to maintain the critical pH balance of the body.

But what’s so important about maintaining the body’s pH balance?

The Body’s pH

For the body to function properly and survive, it should be slightly alkaline (between 7 and 7.5) and have a balanced pH value. A balanced pH:

?Protects the body against damage from free radicals and prevents premature aging

?Helps the body maintain healthy cholesterol levels

?Keeps blood pressure at a healthy level

?Keeps insulin levels normal and prevents unhealthy weight gain

?Allows the heart to function properly

?Promotes energy production

?Keeps our immune system, digestive system, organs and bones healthy

As we get older, our bodies are affected by our busy and stressful lives, exposure to environmental toxins and the food we eat, all of which cause our bodies to become more acidic. Gradually, our bodies become less able to deal with this acidity and are no longer able to neutralize it properly. Suddenly, our bodies change from a childhood state of alkalinity to being excessively acidic.

An imbalanced and acidic pH level affects everything in the body because it affects cellular activity and can cause acidosis (toxic acid waste), which, in turn, can lead to health problems and disease.

Having an imbalanced, acidic body can cause:

?Low energy levels and fatigue

?Weight gain

?Premature and accelerated aging

?Heart disease – due to cardiovascular damage.

?Cancer

?Diabetes and insulin disorders

?Hormonal problems and imbalances

?Kidney, bladder and liver problems

?Digestive problems

?High blood pressure

?Immune problems

?Osteoporosis

?Osteoarthritis

?Neurological diseases

?Problems sleeping

How to Combat Excess Acidity

One easy way to combat this excess acidity and to restore a healthy, balanced pH level is to consume more alkaline foods, like vegetable juices.

As a guide, 75-80% of our diet should be made up of alkaline foods such as vegetables, fruit, quinoa, millet, buckwheat, almonds, soybeans, yogurt and whey. The average western diet of meat, pasta, rice, junk food, coffee, candies and cakes, is highly acidic and does not tend to be rich in alkaline foods, but you can change this dramatically by adding just a few glasses of vegetable juice to your daily diet. Vegetable juicing will allow you to make your diet, and your body, more alkaline and so protect you from the health problems associated with high acidity.

Vegetable Juicing Benefits

Not only will drinking raw vegetable juices reduce your body’s acidity and restore a healthy pH balance, you will also reap many other health benefits:

?A more nutritious diet – Raw vegetables are higher in nutrients than cooked vegetables and vegetable juice is a concentrated source of essential nutrients. These nutrients boost the immune system and help the body to function properly and stay healthy.

?Detoxification – Vegetable juice will help to detoxify your body, allowing the body to get rid of harmful waste products and toxins.

?Better digestion – The enzymes found in vegetable juices will aid digestion, by replenishing enzyme levels.

?A more varied diet – Juicing vegetables allows you to combine many different types of vegetables and to consume them in one drink.

?Quick use of nutrients – Vegetable juices are easy to digest and the nutrients from the vegetables can be used by the body’s cells within 10 minutes of drinking.

?A healthy digestive system – Research has shown that consuming up to one liter of vegetable juice per day can treat all manner of digestive problems.

To be able to juice a wide range of vegetables, you will need a top-quality, professional juicer such as the Omega 8005. A juicer like this will enable you to experiment with different vegetable combinations, enjoy delicious vegetable and fruit juices, and lead a healthy life.

Gray Rollins asked:


The Benefits of Raw Vegetables

We’ve been told since birth to eat our vegetables and yet far too few of us actually do it. Even when we do get around to eating our vegetables it’s only after we’ve cooked out most of the natural nutrients that our body is desperately craving.

Keep in mind, as you proceed, that while all raw vegetables are incredibly beneficial, raw green vegetables actually serve as the basis of nearly all life on this planet. That may sound a bit extreme to you, but stop and consider for a moment that almost every organism on this planet survives by either eating raw green vegetables or by eating an animal that eats raw green vegetables…they really are that important.

I know, you’ve probably eaten most of your vegetables cooked since you can remember. Simply put, just because something has “always” been done a certain way doesn’t mean that it’s the best way to do it. You will get a lot more out of your vegetables if you consume them raw.

I specifically used the word “consume” because, in reality, you get the same benefits from raw green vegetable juice as you do from eating them whole and usually you get it faster. This is because raw vegetable juice takes less internal work to digest and is absorbed into the body almost instantly.

It seems that most people only know that they should eat vegetables because they remember mom telling them to; very few people seem to have a grasp on the amazing nutritional value of vegetables.

Raw vegetables are extremely rich in minerals, vitamins, trace elements, enzymes and natural sugars. All of these are things that your body needs to function properly and the raw veggies will help stabilize and normalize your natural bodily functions. They actually help pretty much ALL of your natural bodily functions operate.

You’ve probably heard about the necessity of vitamins and nutrients to your overall health your entire life, but the concept of enzymes may be new to you. Basically, the enzymes in raw vegetables help your body digest food. This is one of the reasons that green vegetables are sometimes considered “nature’s laxative,” because they get your stomach working properly.

The average American diet is actually comprised of quite a few foods that are incredibly difficult for our bodies to digest properly. When we aren’t digesting properly, the food sits in our stomach longer than it should and we miss out on any nutritional value it did possess.

Okay, so at this point, you may have started to become convinced about the necessity of vegetables…but why raw?

All of our cooking methods have been shown in scientific studies to reduce the amount of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes in vegetables. Of the cooking methods, steaming has been shown to retain the largest amount of vitamin content although it still reduces it.

Vegetables begin losing their valuable nutritional elements as soon as they are plucked, pulled or picked from the ground. For this reason, the additional loss of nutrients during cooking would be a smaller problem if we grew our own vegetables and cooked them the same day we harvested them.

However, most of us don’t live that way. The largest majority of us purchase our vegetables at the grocery store after they’ve been shipped hundreds or thousands of miles. During that time, the nutritional value has been seeping out of them.

Finally, to make matters worse, repeated studies have shown that commercially grown vegetables, right out of the ground, aren’t as rich in nutrients as they were 50 years ago. One large contributing factor to this is that farmers have found so many ways to make their crops grow faster that we aren’t receiving the full benefit of naturally mature vegetables.

It is admittedly extreme, but not that extreme, to state that any vegetable you get from the grocery store and then cook at home probably has the nutritional value of cardboard by the time it hits your stomach.

Start eating (or drinking) raw vegetables as soon as you can. Whenever possible, grow them yourself or purchase them from local farmer’s markets.

Darrell Miller asked:

The majority of people know that eating five servings of fruits and vegetables a day is very important. Also, by eating fruits and vegetables of a variety of different colors, one can get the best all-around health benefits. Each different color fruit and vegetables contains unique health components that are essential to our health. Fruits and vegetables are very important to our health because they are whole foods, created by nature, that are rich in a large amount of nutrients. The processed foods that we so commonly eat, can never compare to the health benefits provided by strawberries or broccoli, which have fiber, vitamins, and enzymes built right in. The phrase “eating a rainbow” of fruits and vegetables is a simple way of remembering to get as much color variety in your diet as possible, so that you can maximize your intake of a broad range of nutrients. The colors of fruits and vegetables are a small clue as to what vitamins and nutrients are included. By getting a variety of different colored fruits and vegetables, you are guaranteed a diverse amount of essential vitamins and minerals.

When eating red fruits and vegetables including tomatoes, berries, peppers, and radishes, you take in nutrients such as lycopene, ellagic acid, Quercetin, and Hesperidin, to name a few. These nutrients reduce the risk of prostate cancer, lower blood pressure, reduce tumor growth and LDL cholesterol levels, scavenge harmful free-radicals, and support join tissue in arthritis cases. Carrots, Yams, Squash, Papayas, and other orange and yellow fruits and vegetables contain beta-carotene, zeaxanthin, flavonoids, lycopene, potassium, and vitamin C. These nutrients reduce age-related macula degeneration and the risk of prostate cancer, lower LDL cholesterol and blood pressure, promote collagen formation and healthy joints, fight harmful free radicals, encourage alkaline balance, and work with magnesium and calcium to build healthy bones. White fruits and vegetables, including mushrooms, white tea, flaxseed, and pumpkin, contain nutrients such as beta-glucans, EGCG, SDG, and lignans that provide powerful immune boosting activity. These nutrients also activate natural killer B and T cells, reduce the risk of colon, breast, and prostate cancers, and balance hormone levels, reducing the risk of hormone-related cancers. Wheat grass, barley grass, oat grass, kale, spinach, cabbage, alfalfa sprouts, mustard greens, and collard greens are all examples of green vegetables that contain chlorophyll, fiber, lutein, zeaxanthin, calcium, folate, vitamin C, calcium, and Beta-carotene. The nutrients found in these vegetables reduce cancer risks, lower blood pressure and LDL cholesterol levels, normalize digestion time, support retinal health and vision, fight harmful free-radicals, and boost immune system activity. Blue and purple fruits and vegetables such as blueberries, pomegranates, grapes, elderberries, eggplant, and prunes contain nutrients which include lutein, zeaxanthin, resveratrol, vitamin C, fiber, flavonoids, ellagic acid, and quercetin. Similar to the previous nutrients, these nutrients support retinal health, lower LDL cholesterol, boost immune system activity, support healthy digestion, improve calcium and other mineral absorption, fight inflammation, reduce tumor growth, act as an anticarcinogens in the digestive tract, and limit the activity of cancer cells.

These nutrients that are found in the above-listed fruits and vegetables can have a significant impact on our health. Quercetin, which is found in apples, onions and other citrus fruits, not only prevents LDL cholesterol oxidation, but also helps the body cope with allergens and other lung and breathing problems. Ellagic acid, which is mainly found in raspberries, strawberries, pomegranates, and walnuts, has been proven in many clinical studies to act as an antioxidant and anticarcinogens in the gastrointestinal tract. This nutrient also has been proven to have an anti-proliferative effect on cancer cells, because it decreases their ATP production. The best-known of the carotenoids, beta-carotene, is converted into vitamin A upon entering the liver. Although being known for its positive effects on eyesight, it has also been proven to decrease cholesterol levels in the liver. Clinical studies have proven that lycopene, mainly found in tomatoes, may decrease the risk of prostate cancer, as well as protect against heart disease. Lutein, which is found in blueberries and members of the squash family, is important for healthy eyes. However, it does support your heart too, helping to prevent against coronary artery disease.

Along with the above stated nutrients, there are even more nutrients found in fruits and vegetables that provide a great deal of support to our body. Almost everyone has heard of vitamin C, which keeps our immune system strong; speeds wound healing, and promote strong muscles and joints. This nutrient is scattered throughout the spectrum of fruits, but commonly associated with oranges and other citrus fruits. Potassium, which is the nutrient most Americans are deficient in, does great things for our hearts, and lowers blood pressure. Another good food component many people don’t get enough of if fiber, found in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Flavonoids, which include anthocyanins, flavones, isoflavones, proantocyanidins, quercetin and more, are found almost everywhere. They are responsible for the colors in the skins of fruits and vegetables and help to stop the growth of tumor cells and potent antioxidants. They also can reduce inflammation. Beta-glucan, found in mushrooms, stabilizes and balances the body’s immune system by supporting white blood cells. EGCG is found in tea and has been shown to reduce the risk of colon and ****** cancer. It boosts the immune system and encourages T-cell formation, which defends our body against sickness and disease. Lastly, bioflavonoids, which are found in citrus fruits, are considered a companion to vitamin C because they extend the value of it in the body. These nutrients have the capabilities to lower cholesterol levels and support joint collagen in arthritis cases.

The number one excuse for not eating the required five servings of fruits and vegetables each day is they are too expensive. However, as compared to the amount of money spent on prepackaged, processed, and fast foods, most fruits and vegetables (with the exception of those that are not in season) are not all that expensive. Because frozen fruits and vegetables retain the majority of their nutritional value, they can be an excellent alternative when certain foods are out of season. Someone who is not able to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables each day can also drink fruit and vegetable drinks in their place. Although this shouldn’t become a habit, fruit and vegetable drink mixes can be an excellent substitute when you’re rushed or traveling. The need for fruits and vegetables in our diet is growing rapidly with the type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and high cholesterol, hypertension that result from the “Typical American Diet” of fatty meats, processed sugars, and refined grains. Great fruit drink Mixes and vegetable mixes can be found at your local health food store or internet health food store.