Eat your Foods & Drink your Greens. the importance of Green Veggies!

Green Veggies are necessary for good health as it provides significant amounts of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytochemicals with very few calories, making it an ideal choice to get your daily nutrient needs.

The Indian Dietary Guideline, ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) recommends anywhere from 5 to 8 servings of vegetables per day depending on age, gender, physical activity and overall health. Eating such an amount of vegetables, particularly green leafy vegetables daily would seem quite difficult for many, especially for picky eaters.

So, for people who are ready to embrace a healthy way of living by consuming vegetables daily, but find it difficult to commit on a daily basis…. Juicing could be your saviour.

Let’s have a look at other benefits of vegetable juicing:

Loaded with Nutrition in Single Serving

Juicing requires a large volume of vegetables. A single glass of vegetable juice contains a significant amount (around 4-5 cups) of vegetables in it, thus can provide you more nutrients than eating a bowl of green salad.

Also, juicing a combination of different vegetables together as individually their juice yield is not very large. This leads to making a highly nutritious serving of vegetable juice filled with all vital nutrients your body could ask for.

"For people who are ready to embrace a healthy way of living by consuming vegetables daily, but find it difficult to commit on a daily basis…. Juicing could be your saviour."

Most Bioavailable Nutrients

You may be wondering, you are protected with a multivitamin pill/capsule but, the sad truth is, most multivitamins are made up in a lab using harsh chemicals and solvents. Thus these “Artificial nutrients” are not well absorbed in the body. Vegetable juices, on the other hand, contain natural vitamins and minerals in their most bioavailable form. With nutritional co-factors and enzymes intact, they are easily absorbed. Bonus! Therefore, you simply get more out of a green juice than a standard, multivitamin. Sounds great, right?

Also, vegetable juices power-packed with nutrition but the rate at which these nutrients get absorbed in the body is also much quicker when taken as juice than in the form of whole vegetables.

Juicing Retain Nutrients That Can Be Lost While Cooking

Cooking vegetables can destroy some of the nutrients, especially if you cook them in boiling water at higher temperatures. About 30% of nutrients can destroy when you cook vegetables and cooking with water can further increase the loss by 20%. Some most sensitive nutrients lost while cooking includes potassium, vitamin C, folate and B vitamin. Whereas, juicing process, encourages nutrient retention…so you can extract more nutrients per vegetable.

A Tasty and Nutritious On-The-Go Drink

Sometimes eating green leafy vegetables might be boring or simply you don’t like in your diet. Juicing is a tasty and fun way to add those green veggies to your diet. Juicing regularly can effortlessly meet your daily nutrients requirements without the sweat. You can simply mix a handful of kale, broccoli, celery, wheatgrass with herbs to get your daily dose of nutrients.

Also, Vegetable juice can be taken during any time of the day. So, if you are feeling hungry and don’t want to compromise your health by binging on chips, crackers, cookies or samosa; just sip a glass of fresh vegetable juice and satiate yourself while providing essential nutrients to your body.

Perfect for Old Age and People with Digestive Issue

Vegetables in blended form make it easy on the digestive system, making juices a perfect alternative for old age people or persons having digestive issues to take in all the essential vitamins, minerals and antioxidants present in green vegetables.

"Juicing may have many other health benefits. It may offer protection against many degenerative diseases, including diabetes, obesity, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s Disease and even cancers."

Many Long-Term Health Benefits

Juicing may have many other health benefits. It may offer protection against many degenerative diseases, including diabetes, obesity, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s Disease and even cancers.

A study published in the American Journal of Medicine in Sept 2006 showed that those who drank 3 or more servings of fruit and vegetable juice each week were significantly less likely to develop signs of Alzheimer’s over 10 years than those who drank < 1 serving per week. This may be due to high levels of polyphenols (An antioxidant) vegetable juice, that is believed to protect the brain’s neurons.

Leafy vegetables also contain chlorophyll (green pigment) which can enhance the body’s ability to produce haemoglobin thus strengthen the oxygen-carrying capacity of body cells. Green vegetables are also the healthiest alkaline foods you can include in your diet.

Keeps You Hydrated

Along with providing the body with essential nutrition, the Juice from veggies also maintains the optimal water level thus helps in keeping the body hydrated, thus filling up a part of your daily requirement of water.

A Healthy Replacement of Fruit Juice and Sugary Drinks

As compared to fruit juices, vegetable juices are very low in sugar and empty calories but packed with vital nutrients, this gives you the liberty of drinking them a number of times a day without worrying about your blood sugar levels.

So rather than opting for fruit juice and carbonated drinks filled with tons of sugar, go for a vegetable juice of your choice to quench your thirst.

Take Away

No Doubt, green veggies have an impressive amount of nutrient profile, but sometimes eating them could be boring and take much more time and effort to eat. Juicing is a quick, easy, convenient and fun way to add those green veggies and boost your nutrients intake into your diet. It also preserves all nutrients and available in a highly bioavailable form.

You can juice a wide variety of leafy vegetables and herbs. However, consider blending instead of juicing. Blending the edible parts of vegetables produces a drink that contains healthy fibre that can keep you full for longer.