You, like other people that commit to living a healthy lifestyle, may have decided to incorporate juicing into your diet. After all, juice serves as a great alternative to caffeinated, carbonated beverages and it can be substituted for your daily fruit servings. Yet, it has become necessary to take a closer look at the quality of juice you consume.

Can your juice be trusted?

In order to determine the quality of your juice, you must know the condition of the fruit that the juice was made from. If you think about it, fresh fruit is found in a cooler area of the supermarket with other produce while frozen fruit is located in the frozen department. So, why are bottled juices placed on an unrefrigerated aisle? The reason is pasteurisation.  As you may already know, pasteurisation extends the shelf life of many products by heating them to a high temperature for a short period of time in order to destroy the bacteria, mold, and other pathogens they contain. However, the process of pasteurisation is indiscriminate in what it destroys. Thus, a great number of the nutrients available in the product are also destroyed and the product loses nearly all of its nutritional value.

Bottled Juice:  Pieces of what was once whole

So, you are probably wondering if most of the nutrients have been destroyed, why does the label say 100% Juice, vitamin C, etc.? Well, that is because following pasteurisation, manufacturers dump a lot of nutrients back into the juice along with sugar! We have already discussed the dangers of sugar, but here even the natural sugar found in fruit, known as fructose, is not beneficial.

Raw juicing is best

Truthfully, the healthiest and most nutritional juice for consumption is raw juice. A major reason for this is fructose. In raw fruit, fructose has intact enzymes that it can use to travel through and nourish the body, but without those enzymes the body receives little to no nutrients at all. For this reason, juices made from raw fruits and vegetables offer you the most nourishment and hydration. However, if you are trying to lose weight it is advisable to limit the amount of fruit juice you take due to the high fructose content, which your body treats as though it is straight sugar.

4 great reasons to start Juicing

As a matter of fact, many nutritionists believe that 50% of the fruits and vegetables you consume should be raw! Raw vegetables and fruit contain greater amount of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, like chlorophyll, flavonoids, and carotenes than when they are cooked) If you are still not convinced, here are four great reasons to get you juicing today:

1. Raw juice gives you energy by providing vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants which help your cells use oxygen more efficiently and ultimately improve your brain and muscle performance.
2. Raw juice makes your body more alkaline by neutralising all the acidic foods you consume.
3. Raw juice eliminates excess wastes and toxins from the body with its antioxidant abilities.
4. Raw juice reduces the workload on your digestive system especially when you drink it on an empty stomach.

Raw juicing also:

• Improves bone health
• Slows the ageing process
• Increases immunity
• Promotes weight loss

As always, with any changes you consider making to your diet, you should ‘Ask a Naturopath’ if juicing is suitable for you.  In addition, make sure that you drink raw juice made only from organic produce that has not been compromised by pesticides.