Vegetables for Juicing-part 4 Vegetables H to O

Vegetables are as good as medicine, maybe even better. There are many laxatives, sedatives and sleep inducers among the vegetables. Vegetables like. onion, radish and celery are a tonic for the nerves. Check out these vegetables and what they will do:

HORSERADISH root is one of our most valuable concentrated natural foods. It contains one of the most efficient solvents of mucus, or phlegm, in the system, particularly that in the sinuses and nasal cavities, because of the penetrating nature of ether of the mustard oils it contains. Because it is so strong, ground horseradish root should not be taken in larger quantities than ½ teaspoon at a time. Just a whiff of it will clear my sinuses.

KALE is another cold loving plant and quite possibly could be grown through the winter months if protected. It belongs to the cabbage family and is high in sulfur, phosphorus, chlorine, and potassium. It is valuable as a cleanser and is rich in vitamins. It should be eaten when young and tender. Best when harvested in cold weather.

LEEKS are suppliers of potassium, calcium, phosphorus, chlorine and sulfur. They are high in vitamins B and C. Leeks clean the system and the blood, aid the stimulation of the pancreas and the secretion of digestive juices. They help the muscles work better, particularly when they overloaded with uric acid due to the frequent or large consumption of meat. They should be used often in large quantities.

LETTUCE is one of our most valuable foods because of the large organic water content, and because of the high potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium and iron the different varieties contain. Lettuce is also rich in organic silicon and fluorine. The most nutritious way to eat it is eaten raw or juiced without condiments and seasonings. You will get an abundance of juice and it is one of the best things you can give your nerves and muscles because of the nutrients it contains. Of all vegetables, lettuce is #3 in nutrients behind carrots (1) and alfalfa (2). The outer leaves that we most often discard are the most nutritious. Don’t want to eat them? Juice them. This food is very valuable for stimulating metabolism.

SEA LETTUCE is a marine plant, like kelp, that is high in organic iodine. It is found finely ground and you should use no more than one-fourth teaspoonful daily. Try mixing it with a pint of raw vegetable juice. Making a drink of carrot, celery, parsley and spinach, and one-fourth teaspoon of powdered Sea Lettuce is a good aid for diseases of the thyroid gland.

MUSTARD GREENS are a good cleansing food, particularly if the leaves are young. Eaten raw they are valuable for the nutrients they contain.

NETTLES, though not popular because of the stinging nature, are good for their nutrition. They have high vitamins, potassium, calcium and sodium.

OKRA soothes inflammation of the intestines. Add them to your juice drink to soothe irritations of the colon, bladder and kidneys. Okra is high in calcium and has 20% sodium content.

Vegetables for Juicing-part 3 Vegetables C to G

Most vegetables will make good juices, but some are better than others. We can divide vegetable juices into three types. These are (1) Juices from vegetable fruits, (2) Juices from green leafy vegetables, and (3) Juices from root. Here is a general rule for combining different vegetable juices. You can combine vegetables from category 1 and 2 or from 2 and 3, but not 1 and 3. Here are more of the common vegetables and something about the good they do in the body:

CHIVES are fairly high in protein and carbohydrate, rich in potassium, calcium, phosphorus and sulfur. They stimulate the digestion, and are valuable as a blood cleanser but they are a strong diuretic, so they should be used in moderation, especially by those who have trouble with their kidneys.

CUCUMBERS are recognized as a valuable health food. They are tasty and refreshing when crisp. Cucumbers are very high in potassium, iron and magnesium. They also contain a relatively high percentage of silicon and fluorine. They are good for the gall bladder, liver, kidneys, hair, teeth and nails. Cucumbers should be peeled or scored with a fork as the skin is not easy to chew or digest.

DANDELION greens are a good source of potassium, calcium, sodium and magnesium. Dandelions nourish the bone structure and help the health of the teeth. It is good for the lymph and helps release toxins through the skin pores. Dandelion is a cold loving plant that will have a mild flavor if harvested in the cold months. It will become bitter if grown through the hot months. It is helpful and nutritional in many organs of the body so combine with carrot juice for a milder flavor juice in hot months. Blossoms are high in Vitamin D and roots are good for the kidneys.

ENDIVE is another cold loving plant that helps the body in ways similar to the dandelion. This vegetable aids the liver and spleen. Rich in potassium, sodium, calcium and phosphorus, the juice of endive, particularly when added to the juices of carrots, celery and parsley, is very nourishing to the optic system.

FENNEL is a very alkalizing food, aiding in loosening up mucous or phlegm conditions. It helps to stimulate the digestive processes. It is a good diuretic. It has high sodium content and is rich in potassium and iron. The editable part is the bulbous part of the plant.

GARLIC is beneficial to the lymph, aiding in eliminating noxious waste matter from the body. It will probably increase body-odor until the toxic waste has been sufficiently eliminated. It is a good cleanser of the mucus membrane which would include the lungs, sinuses, nose and throat. This makes it great for heart conditions and asthma. It stimulates the kidneys and helps with high blood pressure. It also helps stimulate the peristaltic action in digestion. Use with parsley or mint juice to help with the odor problem.

Vegetables for Juicing-part 2 C Vegetables

Vegetable juices are so good for soothing the nerves and to gently carry away toxic and accumulated waste matter. Raw Vegetable juices are good for many common health problems. Drink vegetable juice at least half an hour after meals. Follow the general rule to not drink vegetable juices before meals or with fruit juices.

Use these favorite vegetables for good health.

CABBAGE, both the red and white, are valuable ingredients in a salad but only in reasonable quantities, because the sulfur and chlorine content is high. Red cabbage has 50% more sulfur than white. White cabbage has about 65% more potassium, nearly ten times more iron and about three times as much silicon as the red cabbage. If not properly chewed, cabbage will cause gas, and if you combine cabbage with vinegar, salt, or sugar it can irritate the digestive tract.

CARROTS are one of our most complete foods. Finely grated pulp of raw carrots is one of the most soothing, efficient ways to heal a diseased colon. Raw carrots contain all the elements and all the vitamins that are required by the human body. This is not true of cooked carrots. Carrot juice is a good cleanser of bile and waste matter coagulated in the liver from years of wrong eating. If the skin becomes discolored, after drinking carrot and other juices, it is a result of coagulated bile in the liver dissolving so fast that sluggish kidneys and bowels were not able to take care of its elimination quickly enough, resulting in the lymph carrying this toxic matter out the pores of the skin. If this happened to me I would be grateful to have the cleanse going on rather than the alternative. Drinking raw carrot juice will bring relief to eyes and reduce fatigue resulting from working or driving in bright lights.

CAULIFLOWER is very good to eat raw. It is high in potassium, phosphorous and sulfur, and protein. Like other members of the cabbage family, it has the tendency to irritate the kidneys if you eat too much. It is nourishing and used sparingly is good for you.

CELERY, the stalks along with the green leaves should be used because in addition to very high sodium content they contain insulin. Celery, our best food for organic sodium chloride, has four plus times more organic sodium than calcium. This is why raw celery juice is a wonderful drink for hot weather. It provides organic salt which is much better for the body than inorganic salt. It helps with nerves, sleeplessness, and sobering a drunk. Eating too much starch leaves deposits of inorganic calcium in our bodies. When we eat celery the organic sodium in celery aids in maintaining the inorganic calcium in solution until at least some of it can be eliminated from the body before it accumulates and causes trouble. The high magnesium and iron content of celery is good for the blood cells.

Vegetables for Juicing-part1 Vegetables A to B

With rare exceptions, any vegetable we can cook will give us grater nutrition if eaten raw. I think we would be chewing all the time to process that much vegetable fiber. Because most vegetables are 80% or more water, juicing will make the nutrients much more usable in your body than eating the whole food. While Fruits act as cleansers of our systems, Vegetables act as builders of cells and tissues.

This is the first article in a six part series about vegetables and the good they do in the body:

Alfalfa has traditionally been used as feed for cattle and other animals. It is a little known fact that carrots used to be used in this way and now they are widely used for human consumption. Alfalfa is becoming used more and more for human consumption as well. Only the leaves should be used for juice and salads. It is very rich in nitrogen, calcium, potassium, phosphorus and magnesium.

ASPARAGUS is rich in silicon, lots of potassium, sodium, manganese, iron and some phosphorus. Because it is a strong cleanser especially for the kidneys and bladder, it should be used in moderation. This vegetable is better for you eaten raw or juiced because it has a tendency to irritate the kidneys when cooked. Just one serving of asparagus supplies almost 66% of the daily recommended intake of foliate which is very good for heart health and a birth defect fighter. Asparagus has been used to treat problems with swelling, such as arthritis and rheumatism, and may also be useful for PMS-related water retention. Asparagus has inulin which helps promote friendly bacteria in our large intestine.

BEETS contain potassium, iron, sodium and manganese. They are much better for you if you eat the tops and roots together and raw. The tops of beets are very rich in manganese which helps the iron work in building the liver and the blood. Beet juice is powerful and strong so don’t start out drinking more than a cup full a day until your body gets used to it. Raw they are especially good for constipation, menstrual problems, and early menopause. Beet juice is a potent inhibitor of cell mutations caused by nitrosamines which are found in processed meats. Beets are rich in foliates which are associated with heart health and birth defect protection.

BROCCOLI is rich in potassium, phosphorous and sulphur. Raw is best for Broccoli, and stems should be used as well as the tops. They are wonderful juiced or chopped and ground for salads. Broccoli is a very good cleanser and tends to reduce body weight.

BRUSSEL SPROUTS are very high in sulphur and phosphorus, and rich in potassium. Because they contain so much sulphur they should be used sparingly and they are best for the body raw. They contain 3 times more sulphur than cabbage.

Why We Need Raw Food, Especially Fruits and Vegetables

Did you know that from thirty to eighty-five percent of the nutrition in foods is destroyed in cooking? Did you know that fresh, raw foods contain the highest level of enzymes? Did you know that unless you supply enzymes for your body, the enzymes present at birth in your body will eventually run out and you will die of degenerative disease? Each of us receives a supply of enzymes at birth. This supply is not limitless; it must supply our bodies with life sustaining enzymes for our whole lives.

What are enzymes and why are they so important?

“An enzyme is a biocatalyst — something that makes something else work or work faster. Chemical reactions are generally slow things, enzymes speed them up. Without enzymes the chemical reactions that make up our life would be too slow for life as we know it. (As slow as sap running down a tree in winter). For life to manifest as we know it, enzymes are essential to speed up the reactions. We have roughly some 3000 enzymes in our bodies and that results in over 7000 enzymic reactions. Most of these enzymes derived or created from what we think of as the protein digesting enzymes. But while digestion is an important part of what enzymes do, it’s almost the absolute last function. First and foremost these body wide proteolytic (protein eating) enzymes have the following actions:

· Natural Anti-inflammatory

· Anti Fibrosis

· Blood Cleansing

· Immune System Modulating

· Virus Fighting”

William Wong N.D., Ph.D., Member World Sports Medicine Hall of Fame

Enzymes are needed for the digestion and absorption of foods as well as for the production of cellular energy. Enzymes are needed for most of the building and rebuilding that takes place constantly in our bodies. Metabolic enzymes are used by the heart, lungs, kidneys, immune system, and for brain functions; digestive enzymes convert protein, carbohydrates and fat into fuel to maintain our bodies. Requiring the body to supply digestive enzymes can reduce the supply of metabolic enzymes. Eventually, the body becomes enzyme-deficient, introducing weaknesses and disease. It is understandable that glands and major organs suffer most from enzyme deficiency.

We can prevent our bodies from depleting its own supply of enzymes by providing those enzymes in raw foods. Food enzymes will start the digestion process in the stomach, but if there are no food enzymes the body will have to produce enzymes for digestion and thereby deplete the supply of systemic enzymes.

Fresh, raw foods contain the highest level of enzymes. When we cook food it kills the enzymes, so we end up with dead food that will not replenish the enzymes we have used up in the body. From the time food is harvested the quality of the enzymes goes down. Enzymes are powerful biochemical catalysts, which speed burning or building reactions in the body according to our need. They are specialized proteins, often with long complicated names ending in -ase. Cooked food passes through the digestive tract more slowly than raw food, tends to ferment, and throws poisons back into the body. Colon cancer is second only to lung cancer as a killer in America and is related, in various ways, to eating enzyme-deficient cooked food.

"Following a strict vegetarian diet is not as important as eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables. A vegetarian whose diet is mainly refined grains, cold breakfast cereals, processed health-food-store products, vegetarian fast foods, white rice, and pasta will be worse off than a person who eats a little chicken or eggs, for example, but consumes a larger amount of fruits, vegetables, and beans." Joel Fuhrman., MD, board-certified family physician specializng in preventing and reversing disease through nutritional and natural methods.

The Importance Of Iodine In The Body

Iodine is a trace mineral required for human life. Iodine is important in the developing of the fetus, particularly in the brain. It helps the functioning of the heart, pancreas, liver, kidneys, muscles, and brain. Iodine promotes general growth and development of the body as well as metabolism of nutrients. Iodine is important for maintaining body temperature, and helps the condition of hair, skin, teeth and nails. Iodine is essential for fertility. Deficiency of it is the single most common cause of retardation and brain damage in the world.

Most of the iodine in the body is stored in the hormones of the Thyroid gland. The Thyroid gland is a butterfly shaped gland at the base of the neck near the voice box. A swollen or enlarged thyroid gland can result from the lack or over abundance of the available iodine to the body under certain conditions. Iodine is also a part of every hormone in the body. Iodine is used by every hormone receptor in the body. Iodine is found in the four thyroid hormones, but particularly in Thyroxine (T4) and Triiodothyronine (T3).

Iodine is the trigger mechanism for programmed cell death and there must be a constant source of iodine in the urine for this purpose. There is no method for resorption of iodine in the urinary tract and this is how it needs to be to make iodine available for the function in the urinary tract. Because we need to be constantly disposing of iodine we need to be continually taking it in. Depriving the renal system of iodine would immediately lead to the creation of abnormal cells and cancer.

Iodine is the ultimate adaptogen or a substance that helps to normalize bodily functions. Normally we think of adaptogens as herbs like cordycepts mushroom or rhodiola rosea. Now studies are showing that if you take enough iodine (100 to 400 times the RDA), it normalizes other body functions as well.

Good sources of iodine in food include kelp and seaweed, fish and shell fish, leafy vegetables, and dairy products from cows fed iodine supplements.

Because Iodine is a necessary part of every cell in the body, it is important that we are aware of the need to get enough iodine into our body on a daily basis. If our body runs low on iodine we will develop a condition that makes it possible for our body to limit our ability to take high doses of iodine without bad effects. The need for iodine in our bodies involves every cell in our bodies. Find a good source for Iodine and make sure you get enough every day.

Why Are We Iodine Deficient?

Some health practitioners and nutritionists say we get plenty of iodine in our diet and we don't need to worry about it. I think it isn't true that we get plenty of it. Most people eat iodized salt and think that is taking care of their need. I think there is something wrong with that picture. My reasons have a lot to do with Halogens and the chemical properties of them.

Chlorine, Fluorine, bromine and Iodine are all halogens. The more reactive halogens will replace the less reactive halogens in the body. The higher the molecular weight the less reactive the halogens. The most reactive would be Fluorine, then Chlorine, then Bromine and then Iodine. Most municipal water supplies are treated with chlorine so unless we do something to clean up our drinking water we are getting chlorine from our water into our bodies. Many supplies have added fluorine to the drinking water also plus toothpaste and deodorant and baking powder. We get bromine in much of our baking powder. Salt is made up of Sodium and Chlorine and some salt has iodine added to it. Of all these four chemicals, iodine is needed more in the body and is the least reactive halogen so it will get replaced if any of the other three are present.

It has been estimated by some medical doctors that 99.9 % of the people in the world are iodine deficient. It is widespread everywhere except in Japan where they use a lot of seaweed and kelp. If this is true, we all should pay attention to getting a better source of iodine in our diets so we can have our endocrine systems functioning up to capacity. We should also pay attention to cutting down on the other halogens so the iodine can be absorbed by the body.