The Complete Idiot's Guide to Juicing - Ellen Brown [3]
Part 1
Component Parts
If you can use a knife, you can make any juice in this book. Not only do you need no culinary skills or a stove, but you don’t even need to have teeth.
These chapters contain all the information you’ll need to start juicing! First I discuss the necessary machines, and then I give you chapters on fruits and vegetables to put through the juicer.
Juicing is like jazz. Once you have a classical foundation, you can begin to improvise, so this part ends with a chapter that presents other ingredients you might want to add to juices.
Chapter 1
Just Juicing
In This Chapter
• Juicing is smart
• The pulping alternative
• Types of juicers
• The importance of organics
You already know that it’s smart to add fresh juices to your diet. That’s why you’re holding this book. Right? So now let me validate your hunch with solid information.
Nutritional Necessities
Every health organization—including the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Research Council—believes Americans don’t eat enough fresh fruits and vegetables to prevent disease.
And cooking and processing destroys food’s natural nutrients and energy, so you’re not getting as many benefits from eating the food if you cook it. But juicing preserves all those nutrients.
Liquid Lingo
Nutrients are elements or compounds that our bodies need for metabolism, growth, or other functioning. Carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are the three substances that provide energy in our diets, while vitamins, minerals, and water are the essential nutrients that support metabolism. All of these come from the foods we eat.
Vitamins for Vitality
To remain healthy, humans need to consume some 13 vitamins a day. The largest group of these vitamins is the eight distinct B vitamins and also vitamin C, which are all water soluble. This means that with the exception of vitamin B12, which is stored in the liver, you need to eat foods that contain these vitamins on a daily basis because they don’t stick around. You know many of these vitamins in the B family by their chemical names, such as thiamine (B1), niacin (B3), and folic acid (B9).
Pulp Tidbits
Casimar Funk, a Polish chemist in the early 1900s, set out to research diseases like rickets and scurvy. He discovered that these widespread maladies were due to chemical deficiencies rather than poisons in the diet. He named these chemical compounds vitamins, or literally “union of vitality.”
The body stores the fat-soluble vitamins, which is both good and bad. On the good side, you can go for a day or so without meeting your quota and your body will still function well. But on the bad side, too much of a fat-soluble vitamin can lead to toxicity.
Magic from Minerals
Dietary minerals are the group of nutrients that bind us to all living organisms. Plants need them to prosper and grow and so do humans. The mineral content of food depends on the soil in which it’s planted. Soil is the natural breakdown of the minerals in the rocks that form the earth, and some soils are richer in some minerals than others.
The trace minerals include chromium, cobalt, copper, fluorine, iodine, iron, and magnesium. Of these, the body needs iodine in the largest quantity, which is why table salt frequently has iodine added as a dietary supplement.
Liquid Lingo
Dietary minerals are the chemical elements required by all living organisms. They can either be bulk minerals our bodies require in large amounts or trace minerals that we only need a small amount of in our diets to keep us healthy.
Essential Enzymes
Enzymes are the body’s worker bees because they are constantly demolishing and rebuilding our bodies. Approximately 1,000 enzymes are found in all living things, including raw food. It’s the enzymes in fruits and vegetables that cause them to ripen.
Juicy Jive
Enzymes are paired with the foods they help to break down. For