Raw vegetable juicing is fabulously healthy and cleansing, as long as you do not tend towards diarrhea. I have a few delicious raw juice recipes below that will give you powerful drinks in minutes! If you are underweight and suffer from bloating or frequent bowel movements, then your system is likely not healed enough yet to tolerate raw juice and it will likely give you diarrhea. In that case, use these easily tolerated shake recipes instead.
If you tend towards constipation, then raw juice can be a wonderful thing if you also throw in blueberries, plums, and pitted cherries (use them instead of apples or pears) – which encourage bowel movements. You would also benefit from adding a heaping teaspoon of ground chia seed to your juice.
If you don’t have a high quality juicer that preserves the live enzymes in the juice, then you need to purchase one. Recommended juicers include Green Star (Green Power), Champion, Juice Man and the Norwalk Juicer. I personally have a Green Star juicer, but now both Ian and I use the cheap and easy Nutribullet or MagicBullet (cheaper but does the same job – I’ve tested both!) to juice, because the clean-up takes literally 10 seconds!
Raw juices provide vital plant-source nutrients, sterols and phytochemicals and it’s great if you can get your whole family drinking these juice blends since they will only benefit.
If you’re squeamish about drinking vegetable juices, then add some extra apples and/or sweet oranges to each blend, as that will make it more fruity and palatable. These recipes are surprisingly delicious, though – even my kids like them! Start kids off with just a shot glass full of juice, with an ice cube in it. As their taste buds adjust, they’ll ask for more.
These recipes are ideal for people just beginning to drink raw juice. As you adjust, you can reduce the amount of fruit and increase the vegetables.
Shopping List: carrots, kale, spinach, apples, oranges, beets, celery, parsley and fennel (all certified organic).
Note: The amounts given in these recipes are for a juice extractor. If you are using the MagicBullet, you can cut each recipe in half.
Juice Blend #1 – Go Green
- Handful of parsley
- 2 kale leaves
- Handful of spinach
- 2 apples (seeded, cut into wedges)
Juice Blend #2 – Liver Tonic
- 2 kale leaves
- stalk of celery
- 1 beet (can use the leaves too, but for kids, only use the beet bulb)
- 2 carrots
- 2 apples
Juice Blend #3 – Hormone Helper (my favorite!)
- 1 small fennel
- 2 stalks of celery
- 1 orange (peeled and seeded) or 1 small mango
- 2 apples (seeded, cut into wedges)
Juicing Guidelines
Note: These guidelines only apply to juice extractors, if using a MagicBullet or Nutribullet, just throw everything in with enough water to blend.
Wash all items before juicing. Put leaves through first, roll or bunch them up, then use a carrot or apple wedge to help push them through.
Always save something hard (carrot, apple, beet) for the last items to juice as they will make sure everything preceding has been juiced thoroughly.
Jini Patel Thompson is an internationally recognized expert on natural healing for digestive diseases. She healed herself from widespread Crohn’s Disease and has remained drug and surgery-free for over 25 years. Jini has appeared on numerous podcast, TV, and radio shows throughout the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia, giving people hope and vision for how they can heal their Colitis, Crohn’s, Diverticulitis and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), using entirely natural methods. Her books on natural healing for digestive diseases have sold worldwide in over 80 countries.
