Green juice recipes
The health benefits of drinking a glass of fresh green juice each day are extraordinary. Drinking green juice facilitates weight loss, increases energy levels, strengthens immunity and supports strong bones and a glowing complexion. Here are my top tips to get the maximum reward from your juicing efforts.
1. Vary your leafy greens. To ensure you are reaping the nutritional benefits of a wide variety of plants you should rotate your greens. This means I generally switch between kale, spinach, and romaine and swiss chard. You can also experiment with dandelion greens, which are rich in calcium, and carrot tops, which are loaded with anti-inflammatory chlorophyll.
2. Use mostly vegetables and just one portion of fruit. Just like eating too many sweets can send your body into a blood sugar tailspin, drinking juices with too many sugary fruits can leave you with energy highs and lows. It’s best to use mostly green vegetables and just one portion of fruit per juice like the recipes below. Many commercial green juices are loaded with sugar, and they often contain more fruit than we should be consuming in one sitting so making your own is always preferable.
3. Don’t consider juice as a meal replacement. Green juices are low in calories and protein, with the majority of calories coming from carbohydrates. Whilst drinking green juice is an excellent way to increase your daily servings of vegetables, most juices aren’t sufficient to be full-blown meal replacements.
4. Enjoy it straight from the juicer. Drinking green juice immediately gives you the biggest nutrient bang for your buck, since the natural enzymes in fruits and vegetables start breaking down as soon as they are exposed to air.
Here are seven of my favourite green juice recipes.
Each recipe provides two servings:
Green Goddess
5 handfuls of spinach, 3 kale leaves, 3 celery stalks, ½ cucumber, ½ lemon, 2 apples
Love your greens
1 cucumber, 1 granny smith apple (Green), ½ cup of pineapple, 4 kale leaves, 3 swiss chard leaves
Mean Green
2 handfuls of spinach, 4 kale leaves, 1 cup pineapple, 1 small handful of mint leaves, 2 granny smith apples
Green detox
1 handful of spinach, 6 kale leaves, 10-15 sprigs of parsley, 2 apples, 1 lime, 1 cucumber, 2 ribs of celery, ½-1in piece of ginger
Sweet Kale
1 bunch of kale, 3 kiwis, 1-2 apples, ½ -1in ginger
Mint crush
1 head of romaine lettuce, 1 small handful of mint, 3 swiss chard leaves, 1 lemon, 2 apples
Green Glow
3 swiss chard leaves, 8-10 parsley sprigs, 1 apple, 2 oranges, ½ Cucumber