First of all, assuming you don’t have one yet, you will need to purchase a vegetable juicer.  There are several types, including a centrifugal juicer and an auger juicer.  Both have their advantages and disadvantages.  Centrifugal juicers are more affordable and more mainstream, though they are noisy and are not the most efficient juicers.  An auger juicer is very powerful and great for vegetable juicing because they can get the highest yield of vegetable juice, yet you will have to spend quite a bit more.  There are many brands out there, and prices greatly vary.  One thing you must understand though is that when it comes to juicers, you get what you pay for.  The type of juicer that I use is the Omega 8005 auger juicer.  It is an amazing machine, and I have never been unhappy with this juicer.

So what produce to use to make vegetable juicing recipes for weight loss? Try focusing on vegetables with a deep color, such as spinach, peppers, and broccoli.  Their deep color is attributed to the high presence of nutrients in it.  Also, though it is not a vegetable, use grapefruit, as it creates a chemical reaction that helps with digestion and weight loss (I’m sure you’ve heard of the grapefruit diet.)  Another fruit to add is kiwi, which contains a mineral called chromium that aids in weight loss too.  Here is just one of many vegetable juicing recipes for weight loss:

Weight Loss Juicing Recipe

• 1 kiwi
• 1 grapefruit
• 1 yellow pepper
• Juice ingredients in this order

For the fastest way to lose weight, use juicing as a complement to a solid exercise routine and good eating habits!

But that’s why you got a vegetable juicer, right?  It sure does save the effort of munching on raw vegetables and coping with the bland taste.  It also saves the time of having to prepare your vegetables to counteract that tough bland taste so you can [somewhat] enjoy them.  In the end, you get around the hassle by switching to the next best thing – fruit juicer recipes.  Not that big of a problem, so long as you be careful before crossing over to fruit juicing.

There are reasons you should be juicing vegetables more than fruits.  The biggest reason is the high amount of sugar in fruits.  Most fruit juicer recipes may call for a wide variety of fruits, and the amount of sugar packed into them can deceitfully add up in one glass.  Couple that with other fruits you may snack on throughout the day, in addition to any other sugary junk foods you may consume, and you are asking for trouble.  You will definitely be getting a lot of nutrients, but you will also be getting a lot of sugar, which is especially bad if you are vegetable juicing for weight loss.

Another reason is that you most likely eat fruits in their raw state anyway.  In fact, it is recommended that you eat fruits whole as to get the roughage that will help maintain healthy digestion.  How often do you eat raw vegetables though?  Some may eat carrots or celery, but what about broccoli or brussel sprouts?  Usually, you would cook those, but heat from cooking will start to kill the vital nutrients inside.

This isn’t to say that you should never use fruit in juicer recipes or never cook your food.  But be sure to mix it up a little.  Eat some fruits as snacks and drink a glass of vegetable juice for dinner.  Make a hearty salad comprised of both raw vegetables and fruits.  When juicing, make a glass of vegetable juice one day, fruit juice the next, then a hybrid the following day.  Be creative.

It can be hard to strictly drink vegetable juice all the time.  Here are some of the best vegetable juice recipes:

V8 Vegetable Juice Recipe

In my previous post, I compared vegetable juicer recipes to store-bought juice.  V8 is a popular brand and while not as good as juicing your own produce, it’s still one of the better options available at your grocery store.  This recipe is a good way to duplicate it yourself.

• 2 tomatoes
• 1 carrot
• 1 celery stalk
• 2 leaves of lettuce
• 1 handful of spinach
• 1/2 handful of parsley

Veggie Kick Juicer Recipe

• 3 carrots
• 1 beet
• 1/2 inch fresh ginger
• 1/2 lemon
• 1 clove of garlic

Super Simple V8 Juice

• 3 carrots
• 1 tomato
• handful of spinach

Body Cleansing Juicer Recipe

• 2 celery stalks
• handful of kale
• handful of spinach
• handful of parsley
• 1 oz. wheatgrass juice

Green Hydrator

• 1 celery stalk
• 1 cucumber
• 1 green pepper
• 2 handfuls of spinach

Sweet Vegetable Juice Recipe

A little on the sweeter side, but not that bad in sugar content

• 3 carrots
• 2 red peppers
• 1 beet

The reason we get pimples are due to the toxins that linger in our bodies.  Normally, it is the liver and the kidneys that flush out all of the toxins from our body.  When there are too many, or if the liver and kidneys aren’t able to get rid of them, they find their way only other way out – their skin.  Depending on how much the pores in your skin are clogged, acne you get might be a few red bumps or large inflamed and irritating bumps.

Reducing the problem is two fold – you have to protect the inside and the outside of the body.  Protect yourself from anything that can clog your pores, such as cosmetic products.  Reducing the amount of toxins in your body is a little harder, as many have terrible eating habits that are hard to break.  Fortunately, one solution for us is to use vegetable juicing recipes for acne.

Juicing produce that have a lot of antioxidants is ideal for acne.  These antioxidants are powerful fighters against free radicals that can cause damage to your body.  Good produce to juice include wheatgrass and vegetables with a deep color, such as dark green vegetables and vibrant yellow-orange vegetables.  Bell peppers (all colors), spinach, carrots, and broccoli are your friends here.  Also important to mention are berries, as they are excellent sources of antioxidants as well.

Garlic is a surprisingly effective food against acne.  The problem is that is has a very strong taste that is not the best complement in most vegetable juicing recipes.  Don’t overpower your juicing recipes by adding to much – do little bits at a time.  Another very obscure yet powerful product is Brewer’s Yeast.  It contains minerals that reduce stress levels, thereby reducing toxins in the body.

Probably the most overlooked way to prevent acne is to simply stay hydrated.  Having a lot of fluid running through your body is essential to flush out all the toxins.  This is the best reason for juicing vegetables for acne – you stay fully hydrated while getting plenty of nutrients.

Here are two vegetable juicing recipes for acne:

Detoxifier

• 4 carrots
• 1 shot of wheatgrass juice
• 1 clove of garlic

Citrus Flush

• 1 grapefruit
• 1 orange
• 2 carrots
• 1 orange pepper

First, we need to assess how much vegetable juicing we want to do.  For now, I’ll assume you are the average person wanting to make one glass of juice most days of the week – let’s say 5 days.  Next, we need to choose which vegetable juicing recipes we want to make.  It is important that you MIX IT UP! You do not want to stick with the same juicing recipes and get accustomed to a specific diet.  Besides, it’s good to be open-minded, so try new juicing recipes.  At the very least, you can use two, but we’re planning for 5 days, so aim for 5 different juicing recipes.

Now let’s sort out and list what vegetables we need.  I find it easiest to start with one juicing recipe, list the ingredients, and tally them.  Go to the second vegetable juicing recipes.  Add any new ingredients to the list, while adding tally marks to shared produce.  Do this with all the recipes.  When done, add any fresh vegetables you normally buy for dinner, salads, etc, though you should be able to reduce the amount you normally buy since you will get most of it through vegetable juicing.

With our list in hand, grocery shopping is as easy as finding the produce in the store.  Some of the produce you can buy comes in bundles, so you must account for that.  Also, you can choose between fresh produce on display or pre-packaged.  The quality is usually the same, but there may be differences in price and whether it’s organic or not.  Nothing you can’t handle.  Check this list of foods to buy organic to get a good idea of what produce is likely to contain pesticides if not organic.

Do NOT treat vegetable juicing as an exact science. The produce from store to store will vary in size and quality.  A green pepper from my supermarket will not be the same as a green pepper from yours, and this will affect your vegetable juicing recipes.  You can only learn by doing, so it is essential that you experiment…

The best thing you can do with the pulp after making your juicing recipes is to eat it.  This way, you don’t miss out on the fiber and nutrients left in the pulp, and any juice that couldn’t be extracted.  You might be thinking that if you are going to eat the pulp, you may as well not bother with juicing and eat the fruit whole.  But by juicing, you can also extract juice out of the rinds you normally wouldn’t eat, like the prickly pineapple rind.  With vegetables, it makes it easier to eat that if you had left it in its original raw state, such as broccoli.

Alternatively, if you have an auger juicer, you can homogenize your produce.  This separates the juice from the pulp, but leaves it all in one mixture, leaving a thick pulpy concoction.  For example, you can homogenize an apple to make apple sauce.  This is an easy way to eat raw foods that are too difficult to chew, or for someone unable to chew solid foods.  A great example is to make baby food for your tots at home.

If all you want is the juice for your vegetable juicing recipes, you can add it to your soil!  The pulp provides for a lot of organic material that is great for soil.  This is a wonderful option for people who keep their own little gardens.  This is especially great for raw food purists that love to grow their own produce!

It is also possible to use the pulp after vegetable juicing for cooking.  You can use it in soups, pasta sauces, and for baking recipes, such as carrot cake muffins.  You can also find other ways for pulp usage that use leftover pulp after vegetable juicing.

Cucumbers are made of mostly water.  Because of this, cucumbers are a great thirst quencher and one of the best natural diuretics.  They are very useful for cell hydration, regulating body temperature, and waste removal, just like plain water.  Cucumber juicing recipes are great on hot days or after workouts.

The skin of cucumbers is rich in silica, which is a vital mineral in maintaining healthy connective tissue.  This list includes the tendons, muscles, cartilage and ligaments.  Cucumbers have earned the biggest reputation to aiding the skin and its complexion.  They can help treat skin conditions such as eczema and acne, which is why cucumbers are used a lot in skin beautify products.

BUY ORGANIC! You will definitely want to juice the skins of the cucumbers for the silica.  But you will find that most cucumbers will have some waxy stuff on it to make it look shiny.  It is hard to wash off and you probably won’t get it all, and you do not want that stuff in your vegetable juicing recipes.  Look for firm cucumbers with a dark green color – it’s ok if they have bumps.

Some vegetable juicing recipes to help you keep “as cool as a cucumber”:

Green Juice

• 2 celery stalks
• 2 cucumbers
• 1 small green pepper
• handful of spinach

Cucumber Melon Juice

• 2 cucumbers
• 1/2 honeydew

Carrot Cooler

• 3 carrots
• 1 celery stalk
• 1 cucumber

Simple Cucumber Juice

• 3 cucumbers
• small handful of grapes
• water (dilute to taste)

Beets are great for overall health.  Studies have linked beets to lowering bad cholesterol levels and triglycerides, while increasing good cholesterol levels.   This is why beets have a reputation for “cleaning the blood”.  They also do a great job fighting inflammation that is linked to conditions such as heart disease, osteoporosis, spinal stenosis and Alzheimer’s.  Other nutrients found in beets include folic acid, manganese, vitamin B, iron, and potassium.

As I said before, they must be taken lightly.  Beet juice is too strong to drink by itself.  Apparently, it can even temporarily paralyze your vocal chords.  Fortunately, I’ve never been afflicted with this, nor do I ever hope to.  It can also turn your urine a little red, though this is normal, so don’t be afraid if this happens.

To play it safe, dilute the beet juice with other produce when using in your vegetable juicing recipes.  Always use beet juice in moderation.  Buy small beets so it’s easier to manage smaller amounts.  You can juice the green leaves too, but it is quite potent itself, so you may want to only add a little bit.

Here are some vegetable juicing recipes that use beet juice:

Carrots, Beet & Spinach Juice

• 4 carrots
• 1 small beet
• handful of spinach

Soothing Beet Juice

• 1 small beet
• 1 cucumber
• 3 celery stalks

Beet Zinger Juicing Recipe

The first time you try this juicing recipe, I suggest NOT using the garlic clove.  If you like the base of the recipe, add the garlic the second time.

• 4 carrots
• 1 small beet
• 1/2 inch fresh ginger
• 1/2 lemon
• 1 clove of garlic

The way a centrifugal juicer works is it shreds food and then spins a strainer basket extremely fast to separate the juice from the pulp.  Think of the spin cycle in a washing machine.  After the clothes wash, the drum spins really fast.  The centrifugal force pushes the clothes along the walls of the drum, and water is will drain through holes on the sides.  The exact same thing happens inside a centrifugal juicer.

First of all, this method of juicing is not the best for vegetables, most notably the leafy greens that have little juice that is hard to extract from the pulp.  It is simply not that efficient.  You will find that the pulp that comes out is still wet and needs to be run through the juicer again.  And the high speeds a centrifugal juicer spins at will generate heat, potentially killing some of the enzymes in your juicing recipes.  Why do more work to put fewer nutrients into your vegetable juicing recipes?

Even worse is the problem of oxidation (Ever see an apple slice turn brown?  That’s oxidation).  After vegetable juicing, the enzymes are now exposed to the oxygen in the air, and will die if not consumed soon.  Centrifugal juicers will create a lot more foam, trapping air in your vegetable juice and speeding up the oxidation process.

For serious vegetable juicing, an auger juicer is the best option available.  It crushes food and presses most of the juice out.  It does so in a less violent way, preserving many more nutrients while extracting more juice.  It will even juice those pesky leafy greens, like parsley and cabbage, AND wheatgrass, so you don’t have to worry about not getting a dedicated “wheatgrass juicer.”  It’s all part of the package!

An auger juicer is the only way to go in making the best vegetable juicing recipes.  It is more expensive -be ready to drop about $260 for a great auger juicer.  Unless price is a major factor, then do NOT get a centrifugal juicer.  Go grab an auger juicer and let’s start vegetable juicing!

You must incorporate vegetable juice into your diet slowly.  Vegetable juicing allows you to absorb more nutrients because the juice is already extracted from the cells for your intestines to take them in.  However, not all vegetables are easy to digest, especially the dark green leafy vegetable juice that is very dense.  It is better to focus on vegetables that are easy to consume first – this includes carrots, celery, cucumbers, beets and zucchini.

Use vegetable juicing recipes that are based on a variation of these.  After a while, when you have no problems with digestion, slowly work in some leafy greens like spinach, broccoli and lettuce to your juicing recipes.  Eventually, you should be able to take on almost all vegetables.

As for juicing wheatgrass, I will discuss this at a later time.  For now, I will say it is very concentrated and should be the last thing you attempt to juice.  Wheatgrass juice is supposed to be drunk in little amounts, and it is usually drank as a shot.

Also, don’t stick with one or two vegetable juice recipes that you like.  MIX IT UP! Try juicing recipes that include vegetables you may not like.  Reduce the amount called for if you want and use other vegetables to mask the taste.  That way, you won’t get too accustomed to a specific diet.  Otherwise, your body will have a hard time adjusting to changes of eating habits.  You also ensure that you are getting a wide variety of vitamins and enzymes.  I’d recommend using your favorite vegetable juicing recipes every 2 or 3 days, and the other days to change it up.

Many people find it hard to deal with the taste of vegetable juice because it is too bitter and too dense.  If it’s too bitter, sweeten it! Consider carrots and beets, as they are sweet.  Alternatively, you can use fruits like apples or grapes to give it a pleasantly sweet taste.  If it’s too dense, try diluting it with water.

It may take some time to fully integrate vegetable juicing into your diet, but it is definitely worth it in the end!  Now let’s get started with our vegetable juicing recipes!

Vegetables are most nutritious eaten raw.  The nutritional content of vegetables diminishes with different cooking methods and for the duration of cooking time.  However, eating only raw vegetables is flavorless and boring.  Some do not like the taste of certain vegetables unless prepared a certain way.  With juicing, you get all the nutrients of your veggies in one easy drink.

Vegetable juicing is extremely easy.  Get a bunch of vegetables, throw them all in the juicer, and let the magic happen.  No cooking or preparation needed – and you get more nutrients and enzymes than if you had done so.  You can mix together as many different vegetables as you want too and enjoy the health benefits of each one.  Don’t like the taste of only veggies?  Mix in fruits that you love to add nutrients and deliciousness to all your vegetable juicing recipes!

But you can just buy vegetable juice at the grocery store!  What’s the point of indulging in vegetable juicing?  Well, you could buy commercial vegetable juice, but when compared to your own fresh juicer recipes, they are seriously lacking in terms of nutritional content.  Some of the enzymes in vegetable juice are fragile, and will die off not long after juicing it.  Commercial juice will also undergo processes that will further reduce the nutrients.  That’s not to mention the number of additional unhealthy ingredients that you cannot even pronounce.

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Why vegetable juicing recipes? Because you are probably not getting the proper amount of vegetables in your diet.  You’re probably not getting enough fruits either.  With fruits, you can just buy raw fruit and eat it as snacks.  Vegetables are a little trickier.  Rarely do you start snacking on a raw broccoli stalk or cucumber.  You should also be focusing on vegetable juicing recipes because they contain a lot less natural sugar and will not raise insulin levels as high as fruit juicer recipes do.

There are plenty of reasons to be vegetable juicing.  It is fast, it is easy and it is fun.  You’ll find yourself eating your servings of fruits and vegetable, and you do so in a much more fulfilling way (you’ll find a bunch of free juicer recipes on this website!)  You’ll enjoy great health benefits that will instantly boost your lifestyle.  Go out and start juicing with Vegetable Juicing Recipes!