Hi Y'all,

So I bought a juicer a while back and have been meaning to get into juicing. This morning I made a big bottle of juice, I put 3 carrots, an apple, a lemon, a bunch of kale and a bunch of celery, oh and fresh ginger and turmeric root.

I put it in a bottle so I can save it and drink a bit every now and then over a couple days/week.

Does this seem like a good juice? It tastes.. powerful.. beacuse of the ginger etc.

My only concern with juicing is, that it would raise my blood sugar, because its pure juice.. gets absorbed so quickly, and my other concern is over "goitrogens" .. foods like Kale that contain goitrogens which can interfere with thyroid function.. I was told a while back that I may have a "sluggish" thyroid, dunno if thats even the case though as I Feel pretty good.

Should I just avoid kale and other "goitrogenic" foods and stick with other veggies/greens.. got any advice? And to avoid the blood sugar, im thinking I will just have a small cup of the stuff at a time, and only include a limited amount of carrots/apples etc which are more loaded with sugars.

I have started juicing recently, and my first instinct was to get as much in there as I could, because more is better right? I have now started just putting a few things together at a time. I have done some reading on the subject and this is what my impression is from what I have read and my experience thus far:
Don't mix fruit and veggies, except apples
Don't have your juice contain more than 1/3rd green juices such as kale,spinach etc.
Carrot juice is a great base juice, and I like celery as a filler, if that makes sence

Usually I end up using mostly carrots, some celery, and then what ever green juice I want to add, usually spinach, or kale and or cilantro (good for heavy metal detox). I tend to juice mainly veggies as that is the thing I find lacking in my diet the most. I have a juice recipe that is something like 5 lemons, half a pineapple, garlic to taste (I put in a lot) and you can really feel the power of that drink.

As for goitrogens, I would just make sure your are supplementing with iodine, and don't worry about it.

couldn't you just eat ginger in asian food? instead of trying to drink it?
And couldn't you just eat garlic in italian food instead of trying to drink it?

you lik-uh the juice?
the juice is goooooooood?
you want uh more juice?
i git you more juice.

Watch out with the garlic, it can really upset your stomach,

I can see no reason why you should not mix fruit and veg together. Depends if you are trying to drink greens a lot or the point is to just get fruit and veg into your system in a lovely fresh juice.

Jofus makes the point that initially we all tend to cram as much in as we can - and I did the same. Now I am far more sensible - but I still throw all sorts in the pot at times.

I even add things like Goji berries, dried fruits, cucumber and fresh or dreid mint in a light drink is lovely, apples go well with almost everything, as do grapes. Bananas fill up and go great with a non-dairy milk base... whereas berries tend to be better with ice blended in. Celery is something I would rather make soup from than a drink - but personally I love soup more than smoothies and they are almost as easy to make too.

Garlic and ginger I'd prefer not to include, but equally I throw coconut oil and even barley grass in and some would scoff at that too... so each to their own - we all have out own preferences. Mine is to make smoothies taste like a drink and soup taste like veg soup. Having said that I think some salad items in drinks are great - e.g. lettuce and cucumber will blend into anything.

Its great to experiment and there are lots of cupboard basics you can use too before they go out of date maybe - coconut, dried fruits, even tinned fruit in natural juices if you run short of fresh items.... almonds and other nuts I have included. Lemons and limes are great too.

The only thing I would not do is drink something over a week - I'd be worried that it might start fermenting - so I'd say that day and the next day at a time only in my opinion.

Enjoy your juicer - mine pops in / out of the cupboard now and then but its a great item to have a lovely fresh drink.

It is best to keep it simple. Fruits and vegetables require different enzymes for digestion and can tend to cancel each other out. So it is best to keep them separate. There are exceptions. Papaya and lemon are good to mix with vegetables. These things even require and create different pH. Sugars change the digestion process as well.

Barley grass is not good to mix with anything, because it is alkaline. Food requires acid and mostly stomach acid to digest, or it will ferment and cause bloating and other problem

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- Jim
�Look! Out the window! There is a flying cow!� St.Thomas Aquinas looked, and they all burst into laughter. He calmly replied, �I would rather believe that the cow is flying than that my friends would lie to me!�

But aren't some fermented foods even better for you?
How do we know which fermented foods are good and which ones are not?

I can't think of any purposefully fermented food that is not good for us. They are all excellent for our health.

You might be confusing this with spoiled. Meaning bad bacteria or pathogen.

Today I made Carrot, Celery, Cucumber, Beeat juice and it was delicious!! Gonna have to do that one again.. so easy to make too, at first when I got my juicer I thought it was so much work to make the juice, clean the juicer etc.. but its really not that bad actually.. I Can clean it in like 1 minute.. Ive got the breville one, its pretty snazzy.

Yea I also make smoothies in my Vita Mix blender.. with coconut milk, banana, cacao/acai/hemp/maca powder.. those are good too..

Im gonna try and make fresh veggie juices a staple of my diet.. they are the perfect in-between meal snacks.. and packed full of nutrients.

I wonder if just extracting the juice you lose any of the vitamins/minerals/nutrients? I know in some veg. etc a lot of nutrients are in the skin/husk/rine.

I have a vitamix also. What a great blender.

Yep, my thoughts are 24 hours max... storing it in an airtight container in the frige. It will lose some potency, but won't not spoil.

You figure oxidation begins to occur within 15 mins..

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A very important nutrient, which is lost, is fiber. You need fiber. Not just for bulk, but for a good source of silica. Your friendly bacteria convert the fiber into their much needed sugar as well as consuming the silica within the fiber. Also, some fruits have important bioflavinoids in the membranes as well as the skins.

It is a good practice to consider it as a "snack", just as you would an afternoon tea, but not as a meal replacement.

You should not lose any vitamin or mineral by juicing. There are some things to watch for with juicing though. You will tend to use more vegetable or fruit than you would for any meal entree or side, so beware of that. For example, beets have a lot of iron as does spinach. Men have a difficult time disposing of this excess iron. It is a blessing for women though.

I must prefer to blend my drinks, instead of juicing. But the reason to juice, is to not tax the digestive system and get the nutrients into your system more quickly.

I know with camu camu fruit, without the peel its like 3% vitamin c. With peel its like 5% vitamin c. but then again, I doubt you are juicing camu camu fruit. Its probably pretty hard to get the actual fruit in a store (right now).

hmm interesting about the beets/iron.. I definitely have been having a lot of beets lately cuz I thought they were really good for you, but I need to be aware of that.. What are the symptoms of too much iron in the body?

I don't juice. I would like to, but right now (3 little kids) its just not going to happen. But I want to share this story.

My uncle's ex wife was diagnosed with stage 4 uterine cancer years ago. Doctors told her to get her affairs in order because she realistically had a few months to live and there was nothing they could do.

They refused to accept that. They traveled around the country going to different seminars or something and talked with alot of nutritionists/alternative medicine people and learned as much as they could.

Long story short, she was juicing greens and different stuff and beat it. She's been fine for years now.