So you’re looking for some recipes to use with your juicer. Whether the juicer is a new addition to your kitchen, or you’ve been making your own blends for years, gaining new recipes to add variety to your dietary routine is a good idea to keep things from getting boring and tempting you to succumb to the convenience of the additive filled juices at the supermarket. Ultimately, the recipes you will want will largely be determined by the reason you started juicing to begin with. So before we jump straight to the recipes, lets first review some commonly over looked facts and misconceptions to make sure that you have the right recipe for your needs.
The majority of the people we deal with in our practice are interested in juicer recipes for weight loss. Nutrition and supplementation are close contenders, but as we like to remind people, these concepts really go hand in hand. You cannot achieve real lasting weight loss results without proper nutrition, and for that reason we this we will consider them one in the same.
There has been a fair degree of debate in the last 10 years about the high sugar content in juice and whether it is one of the primary culprits causing an epidemic of obesity across the nation, especially in young people. We’d like to end that myth now! While some of the prepared fruit juices found on the supermarket shelves are loaded with additional sugars and sweeteners, this is not the case with 100% fruit juice. It’s called 100% for a reason – there is nothing added to the juice. The juice at the centre of the debate in childhood obesity are the juices that have the additives in them. There has been no link between 100% natural fruit juice and weight gain. In fact, the exact opposite has been found. Dr. Carol O’Neil’s study into the matter found no evidence of 100% fruit juice causing weight gain, even when consumed in quantities greater than the recommended allowance. (1)
Now, does juice have a lot of calories? Yes, it does. Lets explore the difference between apple juice and cola:
12 ounces of 100% Apple Juice = 192 calories
12 ounces of the average cola = 136 calories
Source = CDC
What’s important here is to recognize the difference between the empty calories found in the cola, and the beneficial, nutrient filled ones found in the apple juice. The apple juice contains a higher degree of water and fibre which will help you feel full, and less likely to overeat. The important thing to remember here is to NOT allow your juicer to remove the pulp from the fruits and vegetables that you process in you juicer. Doing so removes these beneficial nutrients and fibre that aids tremendously in our weight loss goals. For more information, please see our previous post on the subject of the best fruits for weight loss
We would also like to point out one of the greatest missed opportunities and benefits of juicing that dieters fail to take advantage of: Phytochemicals. Also called phytonutrients, these are naturally occurring compounds found in plant foods such as fruits and vegetables. These compounds have been found to become bioactive and work with other plant nutrients to protect against a host of diseases as well as lower appetite and quicken weight loss. Lycopene, resveratrol, lutein, and quercetin are examples of these phytonutrients.