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

People may have been intrigued by the idea of juicing vegetables (as they should!)  But there are several things that come in the way.  Space can be an issue.  You must have adequate counter space to keep a vegetable juicer out all the time, or have enough storage space.  Price is another issue, as the best vegetable juicers will cost hundreds of dollars (you could settle for less expensive centrifugal juicers, but for juicing vegetables, it is recommended to stick with the high end models.)  Finally, the amount of work needed for juicing recipes can be a problem – it is much simpler to buy a container of juice than it is to prepare your produce and cleaning your juicer every time for your own juicer recipes.

V8 Vegetable Juice Recipe

The most common alternative to juicing vegetables is to drink V8 juice.  You must have heard the commercials by now – “*Doink* You could have had a V8.”  While it does contain a wide variety of juices, it undergoes several processes that significantly reduce the nutritional content in it.  Some of those nutrients are very sensitive and will be denatured simply by being exposed to the air for too long, while more will be diminished from the types of processes that are used to constitute and package the V8 vegetable juice. This is true with any packaged juice that you can buy at the grocery store though.

The ingredients are as follows:

• Tomato Juice from Concentrate (Water, Tomato Concentrate)
• Reconstituted Vegetable Juice Blend (Water and Concentrated Juices of Carrots, Celery, Beets, Parsley, Lettuce, Watercress, Spinach)
• Salt
• Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid)
• Flavoring
• Citric Acid

Overall, not too bad though.  The only major problem is from the amount of salt added.  The nutritional facts show that there is a total of 630mg of sodium per serving!  Fortunately, there are reduced sodium versions out there as well.  Of course, it is still no comparison to your own vegetable juicer recipes.

This is not to knock V8 fruit or vegetable juices, as they certainly have their place in today’s culture.  If you can’t make your own vegetable juice recipes and have the choice to either buy a bottle of soda or V8, then the V8 is definitely the better choice for your health.  But for those that think that V8 juice can replace juicing vegetables, I’m sorry but you are sorely mistaken.  Drinking vegetable juice in its raw state is always the healthiest option.

Besides V8, there are many other juices to choose from.  However, a lot of them are not even close to the power of fruit and vegetable juicing, with most of them considered to be on the same level as sugary soda drinks.  Not all juice is created equal, so don’t think that drinking any kind of juice is beneficial to your health.  Here is an actual ingredient list from a typical store-bought juice:

• Filtered Water
• Sweeteners
• High Fructose Corn Syrup
• Sugar
• Grape Juice from Concentrate (Less than 15%)
• Pear and Strawberry Juices from Concentrate
• Natural Flavors
• Citric Acid (Provides Tartness)

It’s amazing how people will buy this stuff.  Judging from these ingredients, I’d say that a soda is probably better for you.  These are the worst types of drinks if your plan is to stay healthy or lose weight with juicing.

In the end, there is a lot of junk out there, so take the time to evaluate whether or not it’s wise to purchase for you and your family.  But no matter what there is on sale at the supermarket, the healthiest option is always to stick with your own free vegetable juicer recipes.

First of all, why the craze over wheatgrass?  What about other types of grass?  Is it possible to save money by just going to the park and eating the grass like a cow, instead of juicing wheatgrass?  As silly as it sounds, it is a legitimate question…and the answer is no.  Humans are not capable of digesting grass directly.  Our stomachs don’t have the ability to digest the cellulose.  Cows have 4 stomachs that can fully digest grass for all its nutrients.

But why wheatgrass? Wheatgrass refers to a young grass, which livestock owners feed to their animals because it improves the animals’ health moreso than adult grass.  All grasses begin as a grain, and as you could guess, wheatgrass gets its name from the fact it grows from wheat grain.  It was Dr. Ann Wigmore that made wheatgrass juicing famous a few decades ago, as wheatgrass juicing showed to improve her patients with incurable ailments.

Wheatgrass juice has a very high chlorophyll content that is great for cleansing the blood.  It also rids the liver and intestines of toxins that build up in those areas, though be careful of drinking too much juice, which could release too many toxins.  Wheatgrass contains many other nutrients and is great for boosting your energy.

You can get wheatgrass juice by either buying wheatgrass and juicing it, growing your own wheatgrass, or getting it at any juice bar.  Besides wheatgrass juicing, you can also buy it in powdered form at health food stores to store it easier.  Whichever form you choose, it is important to slowly work wheatgrass into your juicing diet.  It is very potent and can cause a lot of discomfort for those not used to it.  Use 2 ounces of wheatgrass juice AT MOST until you are sure you can handle it.  How much grass is 2 ounces?  Its a little hard to explain – you’ll just have to keep adding grass to the juicer until you get the required amount.  It will take some practice.

To get the most out of wheatgrass, you should use an auger juicer or a dedicated wheatgrass juicer.  A centrifugal juicer will not be able to extract as much juice out.

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

Many already know or have heard that carrots are great for improving vision.  Besides this, carrots contain many antioxidants that reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.  They contain the largest amount of vitamin A out of all produce, which improves night vision and skin health.  The pectin in carrots can lower cholesterol levels.  Carrots also have small amounts of vitamin C, potassium, and vitamin K, making carrots a very powerful vegetable.  Carrots are extremely cheap at the grocery store, so you can even save money by making your own healthier carrot juicing recipes.

One caveat to vitamin A is that it is harder for your body to dispose of excess vitamin A because it is fat-soluble.  It is possible to overdose on vitamin A, known as hypervitaminosis A, which can cause a slew or problems including hair loss, skin discoloration, and bone fractures.  Fortunately, consuming less vitamin A will reverse the adverse effects.  The benefits of carrot juice vastly outweigh this potential overdose, so carrot juice is still a miracle vegetable when used in vegetable juicing.

Interestingly, unlike almost all other produce, you can increase the amount of nutrients through cooking.  Recent studies show that boiling carrots whole boosts health benefits.  The heat will soften the cell tissue inside the carrot, making it easier to absorb the nutrients from those cells.  In essence, by boiling it whole you are locking in the nutrients.  This isn’t to say you should not juice carrots – in fact, carrots should be a main staple in your vegetable juicing diet.

Here are some delicious carrot juicing recipes:

Carrot Apple Juice

Carrots and apples make a very versatile combo.  You can add all sorts of other fruits and vegetables and still create some great tasting juicing recipes.

• 4 carrots
• 2 apples

Carrot Potato & Beet Juice

• 3 carrots
• 1 sweet potato
• 1 beet

Carrot Spinach Juice

• 4 carrots
• A handful of spinach
• 1 celery stalk

Carrot Salad Juice

• 5 carrots
• 2 tomatoes
• 2 red peppers
• 1 celery stalk