Mercola on Jucing

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/07/02/cherie-calbom-on-juicing-part-1.aspx

Juicing is a very powerful tool that you can use to accelerate your progress towards optimal health. Virtually every health authority, even conventional doctors, recommend 6-8 servings of vegetables and fruits per day but very few of us actually get that. In my life I have found that juicing is a simple and easy way to virtually guarantee that you will reach your daily target for vegetables.

I first became excited about juicing when I was in practice and treated a patient who was in her 60s or maybe even 70s but looked like she was in her 40s. She attributed most of her youthful appearance to juicing.  I decided to try it and have been juicing more or less regularly ever since. I typically juice every day and consume from a pint to a quart of green juice daily.

Reasons to Juice

There are three main reasons why you will want to consider incorporating vegetable juicing into your optimal health program:

1. Juicing helps you absorb most of the nutrients from the vegetables. This is important because most of us have impaired digestion as a result of making less-than-optimal food choices over many years. This limits your body's ability to absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. Juicing will help to "pre-digest" them for you, so you will receive most of the nutrition, rather than having it go down the toilet.
2. Juicing allows you to consume an optimal amount of vegetables in an efficient manner. If you are a carb type, you should eat one pound of raw vegetables per 50 pounds of body weight per day. Some people may find eating that many vegetables difficult, but it can be easily accomplished with a quick glass of vegetable juice.
3. You can add a wider variety of vegetables in your diet. Many people eat the same vegetable salads every day. This violates the principle of regular food rotation and increases your chance of developing an allergy to a certain food. But with juicing, you can juice a wide variety of vegetables that you may not normally enjoy eating whole.