To Juice Or Not To Juice

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One of the latest fad diets that has been sweeping the world for quite some time now is juice cleanses. These diets involve consuming nothing but juice for a period of time. They are normally attached to claims like rapid weight loss, slimming and detoxifying. In reality juice cleanses can potentially be more damaging to your health than beneficial. Even if you are only replacing one meal a day with a juice it doesn't hurt to be aware of what you might be missing out on nutrition wise.

I have written endlessly about not living by a set diet and about eating everything in moderation. So you can probably understand why I'm not so crazy about juice cleanses. I like to believe that there is something to learn from every diet. Let's look at both the pros and cons of juice cleanses and fruit and vegetable juices in general.

Pros

-It increases your fluid intake.

-It makes fruit and vegetables more appealing (those brightly coloured drinks can be hard to resist).

-Often it can make vegetables taste better.

-You will be getting some valuable vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

-For some people it could increase your fruit and vegetable intake for the day.

Cons

-Some juices can have a lot of added sugar as well as the large amount of natural sugars.

-You miss out on a lot of the fibre that fruit and vegetables provide.

-Juice only diets or cleanses don't provide you with all the nutrients you need to be healthy.

-Juice cleanses help you to drop weight fast but often this means weight re-gain once you go back to your regular diet.

-Most juices are low in valuable proteins that help you feel full and build muscle (you could in fact lose muscle if following a juice regime over a long period of time).

-They can be expensive.

-You need a lot of fruit and veg to make a little glass of juice.

There are a lot of different claims regarding juices, one of them being that they can detoxify your body by altering your pH. Well I have good news for you, your body is more than capable of balancing it's own pH and detoxifying the blood all by itself no matter what we eat (our bodies are so clever without us even knowing it)! Another health claim to be careful not to fall for is that juicing fruits and vegetables extracts the nutrients when they are all blended together. Don't forget those strong teeth you have that can do the same thing for a lot less money.

My advice if you want to try out juicing why not enjoy them as part of a balanced diet. A green juice to accompany a well balanced meal is perfectly fine. Water will always be my main recommendation for fluids but I also believe everything in moderation is the key to a healthy diet.

Have a lovely weekend,

Bridge

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