What to Juice

Juicing is gaining in popularity, with juicing recipes available all over the internet. Juicing is healthy and easy, with a plethora of benefits for all parts of your body. While recipes can be helpful, you’re always free to come up with your own combinations based on your tastes and what benefits you’re hoping to get from the juice.

This article refers to the kind of juicing that is done by extracting the liquid from fruit and vegetable ingredients, not pulverizing the entire fruit of vegetable in the blender to produce a smoothie.

For more information on juicers and which juicer will best meet your needs, refer to this article.

Best Fruits and Vegetables to Juice

Fruits

Apples: Apples are by far the most popular fruit in juice recipes. They’re not only tasty, but full of vitamins and potassium.

Oranges: Oranges make a refreshing juice that is full of vitamin C, which helps the immune system to fight illnesses and disease. Oranges are famous as a breakfast juice, and they are delicious added to carrot juice.

Grapes: A juice recipe containing grapes can help to lower cholesterol, reduce the risk of blood clots, and help to regulate blood sugar.

Pomegranates: These fruits are one of the highest in antioxidants and have a sweet, mild flavor that works in many juice recipes. However, it has a thick peel that needs to be removed before going into the juicer, so it involves some prep time.

Blueberries: Blueberries are full of B vitamins that can fight aging and and ward off illnesses and disease. It takes a lot of them to fill a glass with juice, but they are great additions to many juice recipes.

Lemons: Lemon juice is too tart on its own, but it enhances the flavor of other ingredients with its bright acidity. It’s also quite healthy and provides plenty of vitamins.

Cranberries: Like lemon, cranberry is bitter, and it will need an inclusion of a sweetener (like another fruit) in the juice recipe. But it is worth finding a fruit and vegetable combination that makes them palatable because they’re full of antioxidants, can lower cholesterol, and fight urinary tract infections. Try combining them with sweet fruit like apples or grapes.

Melons: Melons go well with cucumber and due to the high water content, result in a hydrating and refreshing juice, great for drinking on a hot day or after working out.

Strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries: Small but mighty, these fruits pack not only a powerful flavor punch, but are full of vitamins.

Pineapples: Despite the extra prep time, pineapple is great in a juice recipe because of its prteolytic enzymes, which help you digest proteins. Try it in juices with papaya and lemon.

Pear: Tasty as well as great for digestive health due to its pectin levels. Try it in juice recipes featuring cucumbers and kale.

Vegetables

Kale: This superfood is mild in flavor and works well in many juice recipes. Best of all, it is high in antioxidants and vitamins A, C, and K.

Beets: Beets add sweetness to juice recipes, and they’re full of potassium, folate, manganese, and nitrates. Both beet roots and beet greens can be used in juice.

Cucumber: Because of their high water content, cucumbers are a great base in many juice recipes. They’re low in calories and contain silica, essential for healthy skin.

Swiss chard: This leafy green vegetable is a great source of vitamin C and vitamin A. Some studies suggest it may be beneficial in regulating blood sugar. Chard can take the place of spinach, kale, or other leafy greens in a juice recipe.

Celery: Celery is one of the best veggies in weight loss juice recipes because it’s so low in calories. It’s also packed with antioxidants like kaempferol, caffeic acid, and ferulic acid. Celery juice is delicious and refreshing on its own, and it is also great in juice recipes containing lemon, ginger, apples, cucumber, and leafy greens.

Carrots: Carrots add sweetness to juice recipes in addition to being packed with nutrients like alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, lycopene, and lutein – powerful antioxidants. Many people drink carrot juice on its own.

Cabbage: Cabbage is packed with vitamin C and K, along with micronutrients like folate, manganese, and vitamin B6.

Tomatoes: Tomatoes are a favorite ingredient in vegetable juice. In addition to being flavorful, they’re a good source lycopene, which may help to prevent prostate cancer, heart attack, and stroke.

Spinach: Spinach is one of the healthiest greens, full of iron and antioxidants.

Herbs and Others

Parsley: Parsley is well-known for its ability to aid in digestion. It’s also full of vitamins. Parsley is a great addition to any vegetable juice.

Mint: In addition to being a delicious addition to juice recipes – especially fruit juices – mint has long been known as a digestive aid and calming agent. It can also reduce the bacteria in the mouth that causes bad breath.

Ginger: Ginger is wonderful way to add zesty flavor to juice recipes. It aids in digestion and stimulates gastric and pancreatic enzymes. It aids in respiration by expanding the lungs and loosening phlegm.

Wheatgrass: The quintessential health food, wheatgrass because of its high concentrations of iron, phosphorous, magnesium, copper, amino acids, and chlorophyll. It is so popular, there are juicers sold exclusively for juicing wheatgrass.

Dandelion: What some consider a weed is actually a powerhouse of nutrition. It can help lower cholesterol and high blood pressure, is rich in calcium and antioxidants, and contains the beneficial fatty acids Linoleic and Linoleic Acid.

Chamomile: Known as a healing herb as far back as Ancient Egypt and Greece, this fragrant, flowering herb relaxes muscles and nerves and aids in digestion.

Cilantro: Fragrant Cilantro was used by the Ancient Greeks and Romans as perfume and to mask the smell of bad meat. Today, it can add a boost of flavor to juice recipes along with plenty of nutrients.

This is far from an exhaustive list, and the fact is, there aren’t many vegetables or fruits that can’t be used in juicing recipes – with a few exceptions and depending on the juicer you’re working with. What’s more, all fruits and vegetables have nutrition that will benefit your body and your health. Which ingredients you choose to juice will depend on your personal preferences and goals for your diet and body.

Juicing to Fight Inflammation

Inflammation is the root cause of many conditions, and there are lots of benefits to fighting it. Arthritis, lupus, joint pain, and even some cancers are theorized to be caused by inflammation. If you are suffering from an inflammatory disease or just feeling puffy and swollen, try juice recipes containing the following fruits and vegetables:

  • Pineapple
  • Turmeric
  • Ginger
  • Tart Cherry
  • Spinach
  • Beets

Try this juice recipe:

  • 4 carrots
  • About half a cup of pineapple, cut into chunks appropriate for your juicer (1 – 2 inch pieces)
  • 2 inch piece of turmeric
  • A pinch of black pepper (added after juicing)

Juicing for Antioxidants

Antioxidants keep the body healthy by fighting free radicals, which damage cells and result in premature aging, illness, and disease. Drinking juices containing fruit and vegetable ingredients rich in antioxidants helps your body fight both chronic conditions and time. Try juicing recipes featuring:

  • Blueberries
  • Strawberries
  • Dandelion
  • Goji Berries
  • Kale
  • Red cabbage
  • Beets
  • Spinach

Try this juice recipe:

  • 2 cups red cabbage
  • 2 oranges – peel removed
  • 1 red beet – cut into 1 – 2 inch chunks
  • 1 inch piece of ginger
  • 1 half cup of basil leaves

Juicing for Digestive Health

Gut health has been in the news a lot lately, because the modern diet of fast food and highly processed food has lead to problems like acid reflux, gas and bloating, constipation, nausea, and other disorders of the GI tract. Fruit and vegetable juice recipes with certain ingredients can get you back on track and improve gut health. Look for juicing recipes containing:

  • apples
  • pears
  • celery (many people swear by plain celery juice for gastrointestinal issues)
  • lemon
  • ginger

Try this juicing recipe:

  • 2 stalks celery
  • 2 green apples
  • 1 medium to large cucumber
  • 2 inch piece of ginger
  • 1 half lemon
  • fresh chamomile

Juicing to Cleanse the Body

No ingredient or juice recipe can rid the body of toxins – your body does that itself. But the good nutrition found in many of these juice recipes, along with the vitamins and minerals that come from fresh fruits and vegetables benefits the body in its efforts to cleanse itself, work that is done primarily by the liver. No juices can remove toxins from the body, but providing your body with proper nutrition allows it to cleanse itself. Boost your body’s ability to cleanse itself by providing nutrients found in:

  • apples
  • beets
  • ginger
  • carrot
  • lemon
  • celery
  • kale
  • cucumber

Green Juice Recipe

  • 2 cups chopped kale or other leafy greens
  • 1 or 2 stalks of celery
  • 1 medium to large cucumber
  • 1 half green apple
  • 1 quarter lemon
  • 1 and a half inches ginger

Juicing for Weight Loss

If you’re on a diet to lose weight, juicing can aid your efforts if you replace high sugar, high fat, and processed foods with delicious juices made from fresh veggies. No juice can completely replace healthy food, but as part of an overall healthy lifestyle, juicing can help with weight loss and overall good health, as well as giving you a boost to your energy levels. You’ll want to stick with fresh green veggies and moderate your consumption of fruits that are high in sugar or calories. Stick with ingredients like:

  • celery
  • ginger
  • kale
  • lemon
  • carrots
  • parsley
  • cucumbers
  • green apple in moderation for sweetness

Try this healthy recipe:

  • 2 Grapefruits (peel)
  • 2 Oranges (peel)
  • 1 Lemon (peel)
  • 10 Celery stalks
  • 2 cups of fresh kale
  • 1 – 2 inch piece of ginger (or add ginger to taste)

Produce to Avoid Juicing

  • Avocados – make a better smoothie
  • Onions and garlic – juice is unappealing
  • Banana
  • Coconut

Other than these few fruits and veggies, most other ingredients are fair game!

Happy juicing!