Is Raw Food Juicing Healthy?

Juicing fruits and vegetables has become quite popular amongst both raw and cooked food health enthusiasts. Many see it as an easy and tasty way to increase their consumption of fresh produce and help cleanse the body.
You’ve probably even encountered “juice feasting,” in which people live on raw fruit and vegetable juices alone for days, even months at a time.
But is it necessary or even helpful to include juicing as part of your raw diet?
Juicing for Assimilation
Supporters of juicing often claim that it helps the body absorb and assimilate the nutrients from the foods. The juicer essentially “digests” the food for you.
Yes, juicing fruits and vegetables does make the nutrients in them more readily available to the body. However, this is unnecessary when you are *only* eating foods that we humans evolved to eat, i.e. whole, fresh, ripe, raw fruits, tender leafy greens, and nuts and seeds. We can digest these foods in their whole states without any trouble.
In addition, juiced foods have had the all-too-important fiber removed, which means that the nutrients from the food will enter the bloodstream much too quickly. Loss of fiber also means that you won’t feel as satiated as you would eating the food whole.
Juicing for Variety
Proponents also claim that juicing allows you to add more variety into your diet by juicing foods that would be difficult to eat in their whole state.
Variety is very important in a diet. By variety, I mean eating from the wide range of foods that humans have evolved eating. These are foods that can be eaten with relish in their whole state. I do not mean juicing otherwise inedible foods in order to gain their somehow superior nutrients.
Juicing for Green Consumption
Lastly, juice lovers believe that juicing allows people to eat enough greens during the day.
This is valid, but instead of juicing, I would advise you to blend your greens. You will retain all the fiber and nutrients from the whole food, but in an easier-to-digest form.
An excellent way to do this is to make green smoothies. Just take your favorite fruit smoothie and add greens to it. Be sure to taste as you go, otherwise the smoothie may turn out bitter or just too “green” for your liking.
My Experience
Personally, I have not juiced any foods in quite a while. The only fruit juice I like is orange juice and I never juice greens or vegetables because I find the taste horrible and the color completely unappealing.
And to be quite honest, I’m lazy. I’d rather eat a giant bowl of peaches or a few bunches of bananas and be done with it.
There was one winter in particular when I consumed orange juice pretty regularly. During this period, I experienced pretty strong cravings for cooked foods. I was getting plenty of calories, but I still never felt satisfied.
It finally dawned on me that it might be all the juicing, so I stopped. My cravings reduced substantially just like that. This makes perfect sense because, as I mentioned above, juicing removes fiber, which is necessary for satiation.
The Final Word
I do not recommend juicing foods that you would otherwise never eat whole. If these foods are unappetizing to you in their original state or hard to digest, this is a sign not to eat them at all!
Just because bitter foods like kale have higher levels of certain nutrients than other greens does not mean that they are nutritionally superior or even appropriate for human consumption. More is not always better in terms of nutrition.
With that said, I see no problem with occasional juicing of fruits and tender greens. If it is a practice that you enjoy, indulge every now and again! Just know that there is no need to juice. It does not offer any nutritional benefit and actually removes some important components from your food.
Last but not least, PLEASE don’t feel compelled to buy one of those huge, expensive juicing machines. A nice little electric juicer for around will do just fine.
For more information on the best raw vegan diet, be sure to visit www.fitonraw.com and subscribe to Swayze’s newsletter Peachy Keen Ezine. By subscribing, you will also receive the free report The 4 Principles of a Healthy Raw Diet as well as the 5-week mini-course The Fool Proof Transition to Raw.

Orange Juice Poor Old Soul + Rip it Up
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Juicy news: Summit Matsu and grove fruit juice work together

Summit Matsu are an Australian manufacturing company of industrial chillers which can be used for a variety of purposes and have a history of being supplied within a wide range of industries.  Grove fruit juice were in need of a reliable chilling system so they called upon Summit Matsu Chilling Systems to supply them with two air cooled chillers which are used for process cooling at several stages in their juice production process. Grove Fruit juice is an Australian company, established in Brisbane in 1969 as a specialist fruit juice business. Bought by the current owners in 1983, the company has been growing ever since with a vision of expanding through a commitment to innovation, quality and service. Grove now functions as a progression processing and distribution network, employing over 70 staff and processing over 300,000 litres of juice per week.  Grove’s purpose built processing and distribution factory is positioned midway between Australia’s summer and winter citrus growing areas. Grove takes pride in using only the finest fruit drawn from these areas dependent on seasonal quality and blends its oranges to ensure that the product is the best available at every time of year. This process means that Grove requires large, efficient and above all reliable chilling equipment at almost every stage of production. When Grove sought to expand their operations even further, they called in Australian chiller specialists Summit Matsu Chilling Systems to design and manufacture the air cooled chiller units needed to ensure that Grove’s product remained of the highest quality.  A shared commitment to quality and service meant that bringing together Summit Matsu Chilling Systems and Grove Fruit Juice resulted in the creation of an efficient and reliable cooling system for a range of processes.  The two air cooled chiller units that Summit Matsu Chilling Systems supplied are used to chill brine which is pumped through other heat exchangers to cool a series of processes including after pasteurising, water chilling and product chilling as well as refrigerating the cool rooms at the site.    The most important factor for Grove fruit juice in selecting their supplier was that the chiller would be a piece of equipment that they could always rely on to assist them in producing the best quality juice possible.  As Summit Matsu has gained more than 45 years of experience in the industry specializing in building chillers to meet the constraints that the variable Australian weather brings to a variety of industries.  Greg Tzvetkott a Grove fruit juice worker that looks after the chiller was interviewed to monitor how their chiller had been performing and he stated “We are happy with them to the point that we have already recommended the company to others”. Summit Matsu was thrilled with the feedback they received from Grove fruit juice about how delighted they were with the performance of the process chiller.  Summit Matsu follows procedures in order to ensure that a same level service quality is consistency achieved with each customer they do business with.  More information on similar applications and case studies can be found online at http://www.matsu.com.au. For product enquiries please call 1300 CHILLERS (1300 244 553) or +61 2 9698 4666.
Daniel Rollston is the General Manager for the Australian chiller manufacturer Summit Matsu Chilling Systems. The Company manufactures and distributes water chillers Australia wide and also commission and service 2kW to 1200kW chillers Australia wide and throughout the Middle East.

Further details can be found at:

www.matsu.com.au
www.matsu.com.au

Tel (AUST): 1300 CHILLERS (1300 244 553)
Tel: +61 2 9698 4666
Fax: +61 2 9698 4688

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Juicy news: Summit Matsu and grove fruit juice work together

Summit Matsu are an Australian manufacturing company of industrial chillers which can be used for a variety of purposes and have a history of being supplied within a wide range of industries.  Grove fruit juice were in need of a reliable chilling system so they called upon Summit Matsu Chilling Systems to supply them with two air cooled chillers which are used for process cooling at several stages in their juice production process. Grove Fruit juice is an Australian company, established in Brisbane in 1969 as a specialist fruit juice business. Bought by the current owners in 1983, the company has been growing ever since with a vision of expanding through a commitment to innovation, quality and service. Grove now functions as a progression processing and distribution network, employing over 70 staff and processing over 300,000 litres of juice per week.  Grove’s purpose built processing and distribution factory is positioned midway between Australia’s summer and winter citrus growing areas. Grove takes pride in using only the finest fruit drawn from these areas dependent on seasonal quality and blends its oranges to ensure that the product is the best available at every time of year. This process means that Grove requires large, efficient and above all reliable chilling equipment at almost every stage of production. When Grove sought to expand their operations even further, they called in Australian chiller specialists Summit Matsu Chilling Systems to design and manufacture the air cooled chiller units needed to ensure that Grove’s product remained of the highest quality.  A shared commitment to quality and service meant that bringing together Summit Matsu Chilling Systems and Grove Fruit Juice resulted in the creation of an efficient and reliable cooling system for a range of processes.  The two air cooled chiller units that Summit Matsu Chilling Systems supplied are used to chill brine which is pumped through other heat exchangers to cool a series of processes including after pasteurising, water chilling and product chilling as well as refrigerating the cool rooms at the site.    The most important factor for Grove fruit juice in selecting their supplier was that the chiller would be a piece of equipment that they could always rely on to assist them in producing the best quality juice possible.  As Summit Matsu has gained more than 45 years of experience in the industry specializing in building chillers to meet the constraints that the variable Australian weather brings to a variety of industries.  Greg Tzvetkott a Grove fruit juice worker that looks after the chiller was interviewed to monitor how their chiller had been performing and he stated “We are happy with them to the point that we have already recommended the company to others”. Summit Matsu was thrilled with the feedback they received from Grove fruit juice about how delighted they were with the performance of the process chiller.  Summit Matsu follows procedures in order to ensure that a same level service quality is consistency achieved with each customer they do business with.  More information on similar applications and case studies can be found online at http://www.matsu.com.au. For product enquiries please call 1300 CHILLERS (1300 244 553) or +61 2 9698 4666.
Daniel Rollston is the General Manager for the Australian chiller manufacturer Summit Matsu Chilling Systems. The Company manufactures and distributes water chillers Australia wide and also commission and service 2kW to 1200kW chillers Australia wide and throughout the Middle East.

Further details can be found at:

www.matsu.com.au
www.matsu.com.au

Tel (AUST): 1300 CHILLERS (1300 244 553)
Tel: +61 2 9698 4666
Fax: +61 2 9698 4688