Banking on Good Health – Juicing Provides Vital Nutrients for Your Body

By Eve Lees

There’s a continual banking system happening in your body every day. Transactions occur all the time. When you eat food, you credit your “account” by depositing vital nutrients.

However, you’re also debiting your account because the digestive system uses nutrients just in doing its job. Depending on your food choices, your account can be either overdrawn, balanced, or collecting a fortune.

Unfortunately the average person is overdrawn. Processed, refined foods constitute the majority of what we eat today. They stress and exhaust the digestive system and lack the nutrients needed to strengthen our immune system and ensure good health.

The body is designed to slowly and methodically break down a whole food into the nutrients it needs. Refined sugars and other processed, refined foods are already broken down and absorbed very quickly. This confuses the structured chain of events in the digestive process. Our designer foods of today are far too advanced for the unique simplicity of the human digestive system.

Dieticians say our wide selection of these “convenience foods” is a contributing factor to the rising rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Twenty years ago, sugar-coated breakfast cereals were about the only convenience junk food found in most households. Today, we’re bombarded by hundreds of selections for quick meals any time of the day.

When you eat a microwaved snack, a pop-in-the-toaster treat, or a sugar-coated doughnut, you aren’t crediting your account, because these foods provide few nutrients to make up for the debit your digestive process makes. Infrequent eating of these processed foods won’t put your account in the red; you’ll at the very least stay in balance. However, many of us make poor food choices at practically every meal, withdrawing continually on our good health.

Sadly, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for the average person today is mostly food that doesn’t resemble its original form: Sausages and deli meats, instant mashed potatoes, white rice, potato chips, snack bars, cakes, cookies and soda pop didn’t occur that way naturally. Over time, the lack of nutrients (and all the preservatives) in many of these foods will snowball into health complications.

To keep your account in credit, find a healthy balance in your food choices. More often, choose foods that aren’t as tampered with or changed by humans. Look for food products that are as close as possible to how Mother Nature created them.

Choose an apple as a snack instead of a cookie or sports bar. Be creative: Munch on a whole bell pepper or a handful of cherry tomatoes. Try to eat more fruit, vegetables and root vegetables, cooked whole grains, and natural meat choices.

Save the processed, refined “fast foods” as an occasional treat and you’ll be a wealthy banker.

Eve Lees, a former newspaper editor, has been a health and fitness professional for 25 years. She is a Certified Nutrition & Wellness Specialist, a Certified Personal Trainer, a health speaker, and a health writer for several publications. Artnews-Healthnews.com

Best Juicers for Optimal Nutrition

Now that you have read all the benefits of juicing, you will appreciate learning about two featured juicers for those who understand the value of juicing or juice-fasting.

They help you get the optimal nutrition from your juiced fruits and veggies.

If you have never juiced or tend to live on fast foods, be prepared for your body to go through a period of “what
the heck?” and to experience detoxing symptoms, as well as a possible period of gastrointestinal distress as
your body adjusts to juicing.

Because juiced veggies and fruit are highly concentrated, they can create some interesting initial effects in the
body not used to that much live nutrition. Go gently into this new way of nutritional exploration. As your body adjusts,
the benefits of juicing become evident…more energy and vitality, less gas and indigestion, better sleep, better
skin, etc. As always, honor the current state of your body and back off when needed.