From hippie-inspired trends to celebrity fads, juicing has seeped its way into the diet and weight loss world as a movement. But, without taking the word of an A-list actor or a new-age naturopath, let the benefits speak for themselves!
There’s plenty a reason why cold-pressed juice is taking the world by storm – here are our top 11!
Benefits of Cold Pressed Juice
11 cold pressed juice benefits that will have you juicing every day!
- Higher absorption of nutrients
- Helps meet your daily recommended needs
- Aids weight loss efforts
- Reduces produce waste
- Reduces risk of premature death
- Helps lift depression
- May delay Alzheimer’s disease
- Promotes heart health
- Lowers risk of Type 2 Diabetes
- Gets kids involved in their health
- Helps protect your unborn baby
1. Higher Absorption of Nutrients
Why is cold pressed juice better than smoothies? While smoothies are an excellent meal option, juicing is also an excellent option for cleanses and also for incorporating into your daily diet. While they’re consistently being compared, they’re actually unique in their own way. The two extraction processes affects the nutrient levels in produce differently.
On that note, juicing removes the soluble fiber for increased absorption of specific phytonutrients and enzymes typically inaccessible in the fiber matrix of produce. This allows for maximum nutrient delivery to the body, whereas consuming whole fruits and vegetables can prevent nutrient absorption for some people. But, both juicing and smoothies are important to a healthy diet. Why pick one when you can do both? It’s been proven that they both have nutrient importance in the human diet!
2. Meet Your Daily Recommended Needs
The gap between recommended nutrient needs and actual intake in the American diet is now the widest it’s ever been in history. Most people don’t get their recommended intake of fruits and vegetables, and this has been the trend for a decade!
Juicing allows for individuals to meet and even exceed their daily recommended intake in just a few glasses. Think of it as a ton of salad in a few gulps! Now that’s a way to get your nutrition in!
3. Weight Loss
Many know that weight loss is a lovely benefit of juicing. It’s a win-win situation when you juice because you’ve reduced your caloric intake without depriving your body of nutrients.
All systems in the human body are being fed the nutrients it needs to function at its best allowing the metabolism to drop the excess fat without feeling starved. Juicing and weight loss, here we come!
4. Reduce Produce Waste
If you’re an average person anywhere in the world, you’re actually discarding 1 in every 4 calories in the trash! In the USA alone, 30-40 percent of food is dumped a month – that’s more than 20 pounds per person! Quit wasting and juice it instead!
That limp looking carrot in the fridge, the soft-skinned apple in the fruit bowl – juice it all! It might not look so great, but nutrient levels do change in produce over time. Overripe blackberries have way more anthocyanin pigments than when fresh! A tomato harvested and put on shelf at the store might not yet had the chance to develop all the Vitamin C it should by the time it reaches your counter. Letting it sit for a few days – ah, it’s perfect for the juicer!
5. Reduce Risk of Premature Death
Let the Grim Reaper wait another day with every serving of fruits and vegetables you consume. While it can be difficult to eat that amount of whole produce in a day, juicing gives you the option to meet and exceed it! A study was done to show that getting in at least seven servings of fruits and vegetables decreases your risk of premature death by 42 percent!
Vege lovers can decrease their risk of dying from cancer by 25 percent and risks of dying from stroke or heart disease by 31 percent! That’s some astonishing statistics from a few apples a day to keep the doctor away! Another study shows even more benefits for the circulatory, respiratory and digestive systems.
6. Lift Depression
While mental disorders are complex conditions, raw fruits and vegetables can help to inhibit depression and reduce psychological distress. While studies show that habits like smoking and a sedentary lifestyle can attenuate the benefits of consuming produce, juicing and eating healthy is better than nothing!
With those habits aside, just the introduction of more veges into the diet via juicing can protect against depressive symptoms and stress. Many diets recommended for treating depression often follow the same types of foods suggested for a post juice cleanse diet. Plus, the vitamins and nutrients often recommended as supplements can be found in certain produce for easy consumption like juicing!
7. Delay Alzheimer’s Disease
Interestingly, juicing vegetables and fruits can help delay the on-set of Alzheimer’s! The idea is that the polyphenols in raw vegetables are much more hardy against oxidative damage possibly caused by hydrogen peroxide that’s involved with the development of Alzheimer’s. Juicing produce for the polyphenols is proving to be effective even over vitamins and drinking tea!
8. Heart Health
Juicing is good for your heart! Reduce your risks of heart disease by taking a break from solid foods. A study showed significant reduction numbers in triacylglycerols and insulin levels and an increase in LDL (good cholesterol) and non-esterified fatty acids (free fatty acids) when the participants juiced for a week.
However, if you don’t maintain a healthy diet after juicing, these numbers won’t stay the same. It’s important for counterregulatory hormones that you continue to eat raw foods, whole grains, and lean meats for the best results. One study suggests getting 5-9 servings of produce daily – juicing can do that for you!
9. Fight Back at Type 2 Diabetes
Replacing refined grains, potatoes, store-bought juice, and sodas with juicing fruits and vegetables can have substantial benefits in lowering your risks for type 2 diabetes and your insulin levels.
While this study shows that 100 percent fruit juices can increase your risks for diabetes because of the higher dietary glycemic load, you can always throw some green, leafy veges in to supply magnesium that’s been inversely linked to diabetes development.
It also states that juicing green, leafy veges can lower your risks because they have a low glycemic load, low energy density, and high micro-nutrient and fiber content. All the good stuff to help fight back at type 2 diabetes!
10. Kids Get Involved
While we don’t recommend kids participating in a juice cleanse, we do recommend that kids drink cold pressed juice! Children are drinking more sugar-loaded fruit juices than ever, and to get the kids on board with dietary changes, let them help out in the kitchen!
A study showed that kids who made goals for a healthier diet by creating up fruit and vege juice recipes were consuming more servings of produce daily than kids who didn’t. Letting the kids demonstrate some home recipe preparations will correlate with their dietary changes, and yours too! It’s time for the entire family to get juicing, cooking, and healthy!
11. Protect Your Unborn Baby
As unnerving as it is, your baby in the womb can be exposed to a complex mixture of toxins before she or he is ever born!
While it was thought that the placenta protected babies in utero by shielding cord blood, cord blood tests of 10 newborns in the USA revealed positive of 287 chemicals in the umbilical cord! 180 of them are known to cause cancer, 217 are dangerous to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause abnormalities and birth defects.
The point? Juicing vegetables and fruits allows for maximum detoxification to remove even the most stubborn, culminated toxins in the body. Green, leafy veges enhance detoxification in the liver and by inducing the glutathione systems. The nutrients supplied during juicing supports every stage of detoxification helping you to keep your mind and body free of dangerous compounds. Juicing to cleanse while pregnant is definitely not recommended, but incorporating juice into your diet while pregnant is good for you and your growing, cherished bundle of joy!
Benefits You Never Even Knew About!
Fads are bad but vegetables are good! Juicing provides a convenient and tasty way of getting as much veges and fruit into your diet as you possibly can. With all of these motivating cold pressed juice benefits in mind, get out your cold pressed juicer, you’ll be sure to have a spring in your step each and every day!
Here’s to a long life well lived! Cheers!
