Are juice cleanses healthy for you?

Hi Nina!

Thank you for sharing your question about juice cleanses with the EmpowHER community!

Juicing is totally the rage these days...it has become so popular in fact that you can even get a press pressed juice on the go!

To embark on a juice fast or cleanse, you are basically limiting your diet to only fresh vegetable and fruit juices and water for anywhere from a few days to several weeks. How does this sound healthy? What about us carnivores? What about the fiber that is missing when you don't eat the whole fruit or vegetable and just its juice?

Proponents for the juice cleanse capitalize on getting our attention by focusing on all the bad stuff we put in our bodies and that "detoxing" is the best way to rid our bodies of these harmful and often unknown ingredients. The fact is, though, our body does an excellent job of this already; in fact our internal organs such as our liver, kidneys and intestines get rid of these impurities all on their own through urine, bowel movements, breath and sweat.

Here's my two cents...eat a balanced diet, buy organic, read labels and do everything in moderation. If you really want to do a juice cleanse, I say go for it, but don't go extreme. Just try it for a day. If you struggle with packing in the fruits and vegetables into your diet, then juicing is a great alternative as long as you aren't compromising any of the vital nutrients of a balanced diet.

Here is a great article about the juicing fad from the Huffington post. It makes some good points that you might find helpful Nina.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/03/22/do-juice-cleanses-work_n_1372305.html

You can also find some great articles about juicing on the EmpowHER site as well!!

https://www.empowher.com/healthy-eating/content/vegetable-juicing-building-excellent-health

Did this help? Let me know what you decide to do!

Best,

Kristin

September 30, 2014 - 12:19pm