By now you've certainly heard of the so-called 'Juicing Rage' that has taken America by storm. Between the amount of juicers popping up in online fire sales, new juice bars (and now juice bar chains) and juice recipe books, it's hard to avoid or at least have a slight interest in this juicing phenomenon.
While the 'Rage' is relatively new from a popular mainstream perspective, juicing itself is nothing new. For decades, health-conscious individuals have been extracting bright rainbow liquids from everything like cucumbers and carrots to apples and spinach.
Perhaps one of the most famous 'juicing celebrities' who helped bring juicing into the home kitchen is none other than the original Juice Master, Jack LaLanne. The exercise and nutrition icon is famous for his infomercials where he showed off how to use one of his namesake 'Power Jucier' models. More recently however, the documentary movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead turned a new generation of people onto juicing thanks to filmmaker Joe Cross' open and honest journey of getting healthy with a 60-day juice fast.
Regardless of how juicing came into the mainstream though, perhaps what's most important is to know how to best-integrate it into your own daily routine. While some people associate juicing with 'juice fasting' as seen in Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, there are actually many other ways to enjoy the benefits of juice along with a regular and healthy diet.
The most important thing to consider when juicing is to treat a 'juice' as a 'meal'. Although it may seem difficult to translate a mental image of liquid replacing a cheeseburger, most people have found that thanks to higher amounts of nutrients and the overall natural side effects of drinking juice, they feel just as full as if they had just eaten a traditional food meal.
In the case of juice fasting, the juice gives your digestive tract an opportunity to not work as hard breaking down food. While some people have found success with 60-day juice fasts for weight management, it is generally recommended that a 1, 3, or 5-day juice fast is implemented.
While juice fasting works for some people to help gain control of their health, most people find success with just incorporating one juice into their daily routine...usually first thing in the morning. This can be as simple as making it yourself instead of a traditional breakfast or by picking up a juice from a juice bar. Be wary though...as bottled juices tend to be just as expensive as freshly-made juices and don't carry near the same amount of nutrients.
So whether you choose to do a 3-day juice fast to help get your health back on track or want to start including a single juice into your daily routine, thanks to all the available options of getting juice these days, now is a great time to start!
