In need of a Spring clean for your ENTIRE system?
If so, green juices are the way to go, because they’re easy to drink in large quantities and can be a delicious way to energise and hydrate your body on a CELLULAR LEVEL.
This energy and power, green detox juice is like rocket fuel for the body. It’s the best fuel you can put into it. Similar to the most expensive petrol at the petrol pump, green juice (when made correctly) is going to keep your body running at optimal performance, helping to give you enough energy to power you through your day.
Are Green Juices Healthy?
Yes, energising, green detox juices are very healthy, provided you actually use lots of green vegetables and not too many sugary/high carb veggies or fruits. You have to strike a balance between taste, and still having the most optimal health benefits.
Even if you hate leafy greens, you may find you love them in this juice recipe as their flavour will be masked by lots of lemons and fresh ginger. The secret to delicious, green juices is understanding to mask the bad flavours and bring out the good ones.
Wait, Aren’t Juices Sugary?
Juices can indeed be high sugar and spike your blood sugar if you prepare them with certain types of fruits and vegetables. Another secret is to use at least 80% very low sugar vegetables, such as leafy greens, celery, and cucumbers. Then if you need some sweetness, you can top it up with some apples, grapes, or other sweet fruits.
If you make sure your delicious, green detox juice is as high as possible with low-sugar fruits and vegetables, you should find they won’t spike you blood sugar or cause unintended weight gain.
You will find that after some time of juicing, and getting used to juices, your tastebuds will adjust and you won’t need to even use any sweet fruits anymore.
High and Low Sugar Fruits and Vegetables
Here’s a general guideline of which are the highest and lowest “sugar” fruits and vegetables. You will notice that even veggies that aren’t generally considered “sweet” can still actually be high sugar. This means they may indeed have a negative impact on your body when made without low-sugar vegetables to balance them out.
To be clear here, we are not suggesting that you should not eat high sugar fruits and vegetables as they are very healthy when eaten in their ‘whole’ form with their fibres intact. But, when juiced and fibres removed, they can cause a fast and high sugar spike, because it is the fibres that ordinarily slow the sugar release down.
You may be wondering why juices should be drunk over smoothies (smoothies that blend the whole fruit or vegetable), but we will explain more further down this article as to why juices have their place in a healing diet.
High-Sugar Fruits and Veggies List
- Pears
- Mangoes
- Pineapple
- Bananas
- Apples
- Grapes
- Oranges
- Grapefruit
- Carrots
- Beetroot
Low-Sugar Fruits and Veggies List
- Cucumbers
- Celery
- Leafy greens
- Coriander
- Parsley
- Sprouted seeds
- Lemons
- Berries
Which Is Healthier, Smoothies Or Juices?
This is a great question, and one that can be simply answered. Both smoothies and low-sugar, green juices are going to have a magnitude of health benefits and are a great way to get RAW nutrition into your system.
But they both a quite different and they both have a place in a healthy, plant based diet, especially one focused specifically on healing.
Smoothie Benefits
- Smoothies are usually blended with whole fruits and vegetables, even if they are still chopped up when you add them. This makes them faster and much easier to make.
- ALL the fibre can be kept in when you make a smoothie, unlike a juice where most fibre is removed in the process.
- The fibre in smoothies help to fill you up for longer because they give you a slower energy release.
- Smoothies are classed as a ‘whole’ food if you add only whole fruits and vegetables.
- You can lose weight when you incorporate smoothies into your diet as a meal replacement. This is dependent on whether you use creamy milks, nuts, seeds, or avocadoes in them, of course. If you use pure fruits and greens, you should shift some excess pounds when eaten regularly (check out these weight loss green smoothies for some great recipes).
Juice Benefits
- Removing the fibre from your fruits and vegetables means that their nutrients will hit your system faster, offering almost immediate energy and revitalisation.
- Removing your fruit and vegetable fibres means you can ingest 3-4 times more nutrients in one sitting. However, this does also mean you will be getting through a lot more produce and may be more expensive in the long run.
- Juicing is often used for healing for a couple of reasons: Firstly, it’s a great way to get lots of raw nutrients into your system, fast. Secondly, doing a 100% juice diet/detox effectively shuts down your digestive system enough that your body can concentrate on healing, and not be concerning itself with the continual breaking down and digesting of food that most people’s bodies are doing continuously without a break.
- When you make green detox juice, it also allows you to eat large quantities of greens, which contain the vitamins and minerals vital to healing.
What Greens Can I Use In a Green Detox Juice
Depending on your particular juicer, you should be able to use most greens (especially if they’re chopped up small).
Here’s a list of good greens to use (it’s a good idea to alternate your greens in your juices so that you can get the best array of nutrients):-
- Spinach
- Kale
- Green cabbage
- Sprouts
- Cavelo Nero
- Swiss chard
- Parsley
- Coriander
Other fruits and veggies that juice well:-
- Cucumber
- Celery (only if you have a very high quality juicer)
- Carrots
- Beetroot
- Ginger
- Turmeric root
- Lemons
- Apples
- Pears (can be quite fibrous and cloudy in a juice)
- Grapefruit
- Oranges
- Mango
- Pineapple
- Grapes
Of course, there may be other fruits and vegetables you can juice, but these are the main ones that juice easily.
You may find that very fibrous fruits and veggies, or veggies that are stringy (such as celery), may clog up your blender. Very high quality blenders are designed to deal with such issues, but go slowly with your own to see what it can handle.
Health Benefits Of Green Juice
There are a magnitude of health benefits in powerful, green detoxifying juices. It goes without saying that they are highly nutritious, but over time (and some instantly) you may notice the following benefits to your health.
It should also go without saying that for the most optimal amount of benefits, you will need to be juicing alongside a high plant based diet. If you carry on eating the Standard American Diet (Dubbed The SAD Diet), your results will be minimal.
It’s obviously way better to drink green juice than to not, regardless of diet.
- Higher energy levels
- Gorgeous, glowing skin
- Sparkling eyes
- Weight loss
- Less muscle aches after exercise/more energy to do exercise
- Hydration on a cellular level due to high intake of electrolytes
- Clearing up of any skin problems
- Gradual reversal of many chronic disease when drunk alongside a high raw diet.
- Happiness (you will start to bubble with excitement and joy for no apparent reason when you start detoxifying with green juices.
- Potential spiritual awakening/enlightenment for long-term users.
Energy & Detox, Green Power Juice (This Is ROCKET FUEL!!)
Equipment
- Good quality, non-heat producing juicer
- Chopping board
- Jug
- Chopping knife
- Strainer such as a sieve or tea strainer (optional)
Ingredients
- 2 extra large cucumbers or 3 smaller.
- 1 punnet grapes green, black, or red.
- 3 lemons
- 3-4 large handfuls greens kale, spinach, green cabbage, or Swiss chard are good.
- 2 large handfuls fresh coriander
- 2 large handfuls fresh parsley
- Extra greens such as microgreens or sprouts optional
- 3 thumb-size pieces fresh ginger
Instructions
- Chop your veggies up into the size that your specific blender will take. Some blenders only have a small chute, so smaller chopping is required. Remove all seeds.
- You can leave the skins on everything, except the lemons. To prepare the lemons, use a sharp knife to peel the yellow skin and as much as the white off as you can. Don't get overly fussy with the white pith as it's harmless and will not hurt your juicer or smoothie taste. Cut the lemon in half and remove all seeds.
- It is recommended to roughly chop your leafy greens up to prevent their fibres blocking up your juicer. However, as mentioned before, this is highly dependent on your juicer quality. Newer, more expensive juicers, may even be able to handle whole fruits with seeds. Check your juicer's specific instructions.
- You're now ready to juice!
- Begin your juicing by adding some harder fruits, such as apples and cucumber to get it going. The idea is to add handfuls of different fruits and vegetables in turn, as this will help get the most nutrients from them. For instance, adding some hard apple, before and after, some greens will help squeeze as much juice out of the dryer greens as possible.
- Keep going until you have juiced everything. You may need to stop intermittently to empty your juice jug into something larger. It is also a good idea to strain your finished juice once or twice with a tea strainer or sieve if you like it really smooth. This can make a world of difference to the finished result, especially in older, or cheaper juicers.
- Store you juice for up to 48 hours in glass containers in your fridge.
Video
Thanks for visiting ZestForever today!
We hope you LOVE this energising and healing, green detox juice recipe as much as we do.
Try and drink a glass of greens juice daily and see and feel the benefits for yourself over time.
Please feel free to share this amazing recipe with your friends via your social media channels.
Let’s get the world healthy, one juice at a time!
