It is no secret that eating fruit and vegetables is good for you. The department of health now promotes eating a minimum of 8-10 portions of fruit and vegetables per day (predominantly vegetables due to the high sugar content of fruit). With health benefits such as lowering the risk of heart disease, improving our musculo-skeletal system, improving our immune system and giving us more energy it seems like some advice we should all be following! However, recent surveys show that many of us only eat 3 portions of the good stuff per day!!
Fruit and vegetables are low in fat and high in fibre, they also contain loads of great vitamins and minerals that have great antioxidant properties. The high water content also helps our bodies to eliminate waste more efficiently.
The best way of getting the benefit of fruit and vegetables in our diet is to eat them in their whole food, raw state as we can sometimes lose some of the goodness through cooking and breaking them down. However, juicing is still a great way of getting extra portions of fruit and vegetable into your diet each day and topping up what you are eating.
Here are some great juice recipes for you to try at home. Let us know what you think!
Green
1 cup of spinach
1 celery stick
2 inches cucumber
1 small apple
½ avocado
Chunk ginger
Mint leaves
Small handful of cashew nuts
Water
Beetroot
1 small red beetroot
1 large apple
2 celery sticks
1-2 carrots
½ lemon or lime
½ inch small piece of ginger (peeled)
Fruit
1 cup blackberries
1 cup blueberries
1 cup raspberries
1 small bananna
1 teaspoon honey
½ cup water
Carrot
1 large apple
5 carrots
½ inch ginger
½ lemon or lime
¾ cup of water