The verdict is in: juicing fights inflammation at its source!
So, you’ve been reading BeFitAgain and you’ve gotten the hint that juices have a profound healing effect in the body. But why is this so? One major factor is that juicing fights inflammation.
Fundamentally, there are two reasons why juicing fights inflammation:
- Juicing floods the body with nutrition-packed, high-quality hydration. Each plant cell is a home to the vitamins, minerals, enzymes and co-factors your body needs to survive. High-quality hydration releases toxins, and provides absorbable minerals and vitamins that let the body relax, heal, and revive!
- Juicing ‘alkalizes’ the body — in other words, fruit and vegetable juices reduce acid in the body. And, acids = inflammation. Think about high school chemistry class: acids can burn. They scald, etch, and scar your tissues; your body’s response is inflammation.
One example: Bar-B-Que
Eating red meats — especially barbequed red meats (which cause my own mouth to water) — requires your body to generate more acid to digest the meat. Thus, when you eat red meat, your insides experience a self-induced chemical burn. Although it’s mild in a single episode, over time it scars your internal tissues, and can lead to even cancer — in fact, it’s a leading cause of esophageal cancers.
Fortunately, alkaline fruits and vegetables help neutralize the acid, and give the body both the time and tools to heal. And, you’ll be glad to know that there are only a handful of vegetables that form acids in the body.
Here’s an analogy: think of your body like a house. Acids are like little fires burning in your home. Rather than putting out the fires, most common drugs simply take out the fire alarms. They don’t fight fires; they’re merely making you unaware of the symptoms.
Perhaps, somewhere in the back of your mind, you know something’s wrong. It’s like being in that house and thinking: hey, man. I still smell smoke!
Well, it’s not just you — frankly, it’s all of us.
Nutritionist David Wolf is fond of repeating (I’m paraphrasing) ‘we are living at the best time ever for learning how to live and eat healthfully. Unfortunately, because of the accessibility of processed foods, and even more so the lack of good, solid nutritional education in our schools, it’s also the worst time ever to try to eat right.’
So, let’s close that gap and get down to specifics . . .
Be Smart: Juice To Fight Inflammation
Top athletes understand the importance of anti-inflammatories because extreme physical activity requires the rebuilding and cooling of the tissues for injury-free recovery. Athletic programs such as Auburn University integrate fresh juice into their nutrition and performance regimens.
What are the best juices to drink to enjoy alkaline nutrients? Greens (of course!). Combos of kale, celery, herbs, bitter greens, and lettuces are powerful on their own or added to your juices. You can get a powerful alkaline shot by juicing ginger, garlic, and dandelion greens (but whoa! Use just a little – that stuff is super-bitter!). Some people swear by “salad juice” (yes, take a salad’s ingredients (minus meat and dressing) and juice it)! So, be sure to also try tomato, cucumber, basil, lettuce, garlic, bell pepper and celery.
Pineapple’s bromelain is an inflammation fighter. In addition to pineapple, raspberry, cucumber, lime and mint will also cool off your body and keep inflammation under control.
Beets (I’m always trying to get folks to turn up the beet. (link)) and apples (I eat one a day), too! Carrots (link) are another great alkalizing juice that brings down inflammation in the body.
And who can forget turmeric? It’s been shown to work as well as NSAIDS (a pharmaceutical) on some forms of inflammation, without the nasty side effects.*
Lemon juice (link) is also a reliable anti-inflammatory alkalizer. You can add lemons to green juices, or juice shots like wheatgrass or kale to cut through the grassy taste (which I happen to love). In fact, I literally start each day with a quart of lemon-lime water (one lemon, one lime, one quart of water).
Let’s close with aloe vera (link). Aloe vera has long been used to cool inflammation and soothe overheating — for sunburns it is considered nearly magical. And, inside the body studies have shown it to be effective in treating inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s and colitis. In fact, because I have Chron’s disease, after researching for this article I ordered a gallon of aloe vera juice and am drinking aobut six ounces daily. Keep reading BeFitAgain to lean how it works for me!
For More Information:
Dan McDonald is a leading advocate for eating raw food including juices. The Comfort Life Channel also advocates the anti-inflammatory benefits of raw juicing.
Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991605/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4061642/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23069270
https://www.livestrong.com/article/457385-pineapple-juice-inflammation/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20425759
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/foods-that-fight-inflammation
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/30/6/1406
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5003001/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4808856/
* You may recall that back in May’s “The (Brief) Anti-Inflammation Juicer’s Guide” (link) I talked about how the conventional medical industry handles Inflammation in general, and why these treatments just don’t address the root causes of the symptoms (rather, they treat various symptoms), especially for suffers of chronic inflammation. In fact, we learned that the toxic — and potentially mortal — side effects of some of these drugs are as bad as dealing with inflammation.
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