Hey, guys, Dr. Axe here.
Today I want to talk about juicing and cleansing your body.
You know it's good about every several months or at least once a year to do a very good
cleanse and on a regular basis to be juicing vegetables.
The reason why I am such a huge fan of juicing is it can lead to great health benefits.
Juicing can cause your energy levels to go way up.
It can cause your body to start detoxing heavy metals, environmental pollutants, bad bacteria
in your system and also just give your body a chance to heal and rest.
When you're not eating solid foods that actually gives your digestive tract a chance to rest,
which is very good for your body.
And so, when I get a question from a lot of patients asking, "Dr. Axe, how often do you
juice vegetables or what vegetables are the best to be juicing on a regular basis?"
My answer is all of them are good.
If that's a vegetable, typically it's a good thing to be juicing.
And I want to talk about some things that I juice on a pretty regular basis, and then
actually use my juicer here and actually make some juice.
Now Juicers can range in price.
You can find them as cheap as a hundred dollars.
There are some that are around maybe five thousand dollar juicers.
This juicer here is a Breville 800 and I believe the cost is around three or four hundred dollars,
very, very, good juicer.
And you want to actually, typically spend at least a couple hundred dollars on a juicer
and get something that is actually going to be able to get most of the juice out so it's
good to go on Amazon.com, actually look at the reviews and see which juicers are the
best.
This one, though, for the price, the Breville 800 is a very, very good juicer.
Champion is also a very good juicer, Olympian, there are several good brands out there, but
let me talk about some of the things that I like to juice and why.
One, these are carrots.
Carrots are great because they are packed with beta-carotene and beta-carotene is an
antioxidant that gives the carrot its orange color.
Carrots are very, very good for your eyes and for your skin.
In fact, recent studies have shown that if you're consuming alpha a beta-carotene-rich
foods, like bell peppers and carrots, it can actually keep you from getting a sunburn and
actually darkens the color of your skin, gives you more of a coppery color, and again carrots
are great.
So we'll juice them in a minute.
Another thing I love is cucumbers.
Now I used to watch in the movies and wonder why women would put cucumbers on their face
and eyes as a mask and I was like, "Why would they do that?"
Well, I've done research over the past years and I've known for a while that silica is
very high in cucumber and silica is great for your skin and eyes, which is a nutrient
very high in cucumber so cucumbers are great.
Next thing you'll see here, a great thing to juice, is celery.
Celery is packed with electrolytes and organically bound sodium.
And so, again, it's a very high source of electrolytes in good, clean water there in
the celery.
Bell peppers are amazing.
Bell peppers are packed with antioxidants.
They are very, very good for your skin and for your hair, for your nails, for your eyes,
but again bell peppers, red, orange, yellow, any color, green are all good for you, but
the colored ones are the best.
Now I don't suggest you juice a lot of fruits because I have talked to people before who
have juiced and they've done basically pure pineapple and watermelon.
I'm not saying, hey, if you're very active juicing fruits on occasion and taking them
while you're working out, that's okay.
But with fruit, you do have to be careful of sugar consumption because it can cause
you to gain weight or, if you're a diabetic, you've got to be careful because of blood
sugar levels.
So I typically don't juice a lot of fruits.
When I do juice fruit, the two most common things I will use, number one, I will use
lemon.
I will use lemon very often in juicing because it very often doesn't have much sugar, if
any at all, and it's packed with vitamin C. And so again, when I do juice, I will use
lemons when I am using fruit.
Or the next most common fruit I will use are green apples, giving a nice tart flavor, a
little bit of sweetness is a good option.
So again, I'll use apples, green apples, Granny Smith apples on occasion as well.
And last thing, the king of them all, kale.
I will also do some green leafy vegetables like spinach, kale, chard, collard greens,
turnip greens.
These are packed with vitamin K, calcium and magnesium.
Kale is really the king of the vegetable kingdom so again we'll use some kale here as well.
So let me get started here juicing.
Another question that I commonly get, "Should I use a Blendtec, or Vitamix, or a juicer?
Which is better?"
It's not that one is better than the other.
It's that they have different benefits, but I will tell you this.
The things I like about a juicer is you are getting a super high concentration of nutrients
because the fiber's being taken out.
You typically couldn't eat all of these things in one sitting, but when you are juicing it,
you can get a drink that is packed with vitamins and minerals, antioxidants and water, and
it's very easily digestible.
So again, if you're sick, looking to get well, or you're looking to really get healthy, juicing
is a great option.
I'll tell you I can notice when someone is juicing.
A lot of times you'll notice your skin will actually be glowing.
It's pretty incredible so, again, if you can juice on a regular basis, it's great.
So when I'm starting this juicer, I'm going to get this started right here, we're going
to make some juice and then I'll let you know how the finished product is.
All right.
The juice is ready to go here and I'm going to try some of it.
But again, juicing is such a great way to get healthy.
I typically juice it just depends on the week.
Sometimes it's once a week.
Sometimes it's two times a day.
On average, though, I'll juice about three to four times a week and feel great.
Now I know a lot of people are coffee drinkers and you'll drink coffee to get energy, but
I'll tell you my energy goes through the roof when I'm juicing vegetables.
So I challenge you this week, if you're a coffee drinker, or you've never juiced before,
get a juicer, start juicing in the mornings, maybe even do a juice fast for a day.
And I get that question a lot, "Hey, what should we do to cleanse my body?"
The best way to cleanse and heal is doing a juice fast where you do juice for every
meal for a day, anywhere from one day to 14 days is what I recommend or once a day or
fasting for breakfast and just doing vegetable juice every day for breakfast is another great
thing to do.
So start juicing if you want to start losing weight, getting rid of excess water, boosting
your energy levels and getting in the best shape of your life.
Hey, thanks for watching another episode.
This is Dr. Axe saying, "Juice for Health."