The Complete Idiot's Guide to Juicing - Ellen Brown [4]
Amino Acids
Next to water, protein is the most plentiful element in the body, and more than 50 percent of the dry weight of the body is composed of protein. Proteins, in turn, are composed of protein chains called amino acids. These amino acids are the raw materials with which the enzymes do their building.
The essential amino acids are those that the body can gain only from the foods we eat. A deficiency in an amino acid can create a range of symptoms from allergies to poor digestion. For example:
• Lysine helps to activate hormones and enzymes, as well as promote body growth and blood circulation.
• Leucine keeps us awake and alert. It’s sort of nature’s own jolt of caffeine.
• Tryptophan is essential for building blood, skin, and hair. It also calms the nerves and stimulates digestion.
• Phenylalanine is what gives the thyroid gland a boost in the production of thyroxin for our mental balance.
• Threonine stimulates easy digestion and general body metabolism.
Pulp Tidbits
Did you ever wonder why you’re always so mellow after Thanksgiving dinner? Sure, you ate a lot of food. But one of those foods was turkey, which contains a high amount of tryptophan. So after your turkey dinner, you’re calm—and full.
• Valine activates the brain, helps in muscle coordination, and calms the nerves.
• Methionine helps cleanse both the liver and kidneys and regenerate their cells.
The need for nutrients and increasing their number in your diet is the “why” of juicing. Now it’s time to get to the “how” of juicing.
Passion for Pulping
Let’s say you don’t want to invest in a juicer when you already have a blender and perhaps a food processor. Well, don’t despair. You can still gain lots of beneficial food energy with a process called pulping. This process works the same as juicing, but if you want to drink the mixture without the pulp, you will need to strain the resulting liquid.
Fundamentals of Fiber
Vegetables and fruits are full of two different types of fiber, and fiber is necessary in the diet. That’s why if you’re using a juicer, you have to remain aware of how much fiber you’ve had in the course of a day from other sources, such as whole grains, nuts, and seeds.
The first type is insoluble fiber. Water does nothing to its size or form, but it helps to keep stools soft in the intestinal tract and push them through the tract faster. This is the type of fiber found in whole wheat, wheat and corn bran, and potato skins.
Then there’s the soluble fiber. Soluble fiber forms a soft gel when it mixes with water in our bodies and is able to bind bile salts which may help in lowering cholesterol. It also keeps the digestive tract functioning properly. When a drink is pulped, this beneficial fiber is retained with all the good things from the juice.
Pulp Tidbits
Eating large quantities of beans and other legumes can cause potentially embarrassing bouts of gas and other forms of flatulence because they contain short-chain carbohydrates that are not digested by the human digestive tract but by natural bacteria in the colon. It’s just nature doing its thing.
Prepping Your Parts
It would be easy if all you had to do was place the produce in the blender to pulp it. But it’s not that easy. Blenders and food processors don’t separate the juice from the pulp. They create a thick liquefied mixture by pureéing. So for each recipe, I give you tips on how to prepare the food for pulping as well as juicing.
In a juicer the tops of scallions will be ejected along with all the other pulp. But for a blender or food processor, you should cut off the tops for aesthetic reasons. The same holds true for the skin of yams and some fruit skins.
Wrong Spin!
If you want to peel apples, pears, or bananas for pulping, either do so just before blending them or else toss them with some fresh lemon juice to prevent