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The Benefits of Juicing For Breast Cancer – My Best Juicing Tips
To conclude my series of articles about juicing for breast cancer, this one is all about the best tips I’ve gathered over the past 15 or so years while juicing – a real grab-bag of “good to know” tips on juicing.
1. The produce you really should buy organically grown – because of the fact that they are highly sprayed and you don’t want toxic residue in your healthy drink – are: apples, celery, bell peppers, strawberries, grapes, spinach, kale and other leafy greens, cucumbers, and blueberries. Everything else? Well, you’re always better off buying organic but if you need to keep your food budget down or it just isn’t available where you live, the other things are okay to buy non-organically grown. If you have to. See the Environmental Working Group’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce. Regardless of whether you are using organic produce, always wash everything thoroughly. Even organic produce can have bacteria, road dust, etc on it.
2. Beet juice will turn your urine a beautiful shade of pink (it can happen with your poo too). Just be aware. It’s not internal bleeding! Beet is a fantastic thing to juice though – see my page Diet And Cancer for the reasons why. The tops of the beets are also excellent to juice or in salads, they are high in potassium, iron, vitamins A and C.
3. If you are juicing fruits, make sure to include 2-3 vegetables for every fruit. Doing this will help to keep your blood sugar levels from spiking.
4. Fresh juices don’t last a long time. It’s best to consume fresh juices within a half hour or so of making them. Some juicers create juices that can be stored up to 2 days, know whether yours will do that, Store them in the fridge in a glass container, filling it as full as you can (thus allowing very little air inside) and make sure the lid is very tight. This will keep your juice from oxidizing so quickly. Remember, it has no preservatives!
5. Save preparation time in the morning. Just scrub and chop all your produce prior to putting it in the fridge, and then store it in glass containers (not plastic!). This really cuts down the preparation time and the containers also help to keep things fresh a bit longer.
6. Add a wedge of lemon or lime at the end of your juicing – after you’ve juiced everything else. It helps to clean your juicer of other things you’ve been processing and it adds a fresh, clean zing to the taste of your juice. Not to mention loads of vitamin C.
7. Keep the motor running… head out on the highway…. Seriously. When juicing, keep the motor running for a further 10-15 seconds. You might be surprised at how much juice keeps coming out.
8. There are lots of things you can do with pulp. If you are juicing, you may be dismayed to see how much pulp gets left. Don’t worry! With some juicers you can pass the pulp through the machine one more time to get even more juice out of it. You can also use the pulp to create your own super healthy organic vegetable stock (contact me if you need a recipe). Just strain the pulp out of the stock when you have finished cooking it. You can also use the pulp in quiches, soups, stews, casseroles. Or – rather than throwing away the pulp – put it in your compost heap or bury it somewhere in your garden. Your plants will love it.
9. Wash your juicer immediately after juicing. This keeps it from getting stained by the vegetables you juiced, and the dried on bits of vegetable residue can gum it up and be hard to remove if you leave it for too long.
10. Ginger is divine to juice and its anti-inflammatory properties make it well worth adding to your daily juice regime. Begin by using just a little bit, however, because it is hot and spicy and less is more. As you get used to the heat and the flavor, then you can begin adding a little more.
11. Consume fresh juices on an empty stomach. This allows all of the plant nutrients and live enzymes to be absorbed by your body as quickly as possible. Don’t drink juice when you’ve already eaten something else, it may cause some digestive disturbances for you. A good idea is to wait at least 2 hours after a meal to drink fresh juices and wait 20 minutes after drinking your fresh juice to eat solid food.
12. Chew your juice! I know that sounds crazy, but the process of digestion begins in the mouth. Swish the juice around in your mouth, move your jaw up and down for a couple of seconds prior to swallowing – this releases saliva which contains within it the digestive enzymes which will help you get the nutrients into your cells.
13. Rotate your greens. By greens I mean spinach, arugula, kale, chard, etc. Juice a different one every few days – this helps to prevent imbalances of vitamins and minerals within the body.
14. Be patient. If juicing is something that seems more like a chore than a pleasure, just know you are not alone. The health benefits are huge though, and I would encourage you to be patient and keep at it.
For more information on juicing, see my article The 12 Best Benefits of Juicing for Breast Cancer – especially if you get discouraged by juicing and how long it might take you each day – that will help you to remember why you’re juicing in the first place! For information on whether to use a blender or a juicer, see my article The Benefits of Juicing For Breast Cancer – Which Juicer Or Blender To Use?.
If you would like to receive my best tips on getting through breast cancer and preventing recurrences, just sign up for my free e-newsletters and e-books on the right, and/or “like” me on Facebook (Marnie Clark Breast Health Coach). I promise to do my utmost to keep you informed and empowered on your healing journey… and beyond.
