Making up a glass of carrot juice is easy and drinking it regularly is great for your energy levels and can have some serious health benefits.
Fresh carrot juice has a cleansing effect on your liver and digestive system, does wonders for tired eyes and also provides excellent skin nutrition.
Why Organic Carrot Juice Is Best
Once you’ve got your juicer you’ll obviously need a big bag of carrots. The carrots used for juicing really should be organic carrots. Here’s why.
Part of what makes carrots so healthy is the way they absorb nutrients from the ground they’re grown in. Unfortunately, this means they are also very good at absorbing pesticides and even heavy metals from the same soil.
Testing shows conventionally grown carrots often have a high pesticide load and even peeled conventionally grown carrots tested showed traces of pesticides.
Organically grown carrots, on the other hand, cannot be sprayed with pesticides or grown in ground where pesticides have been used for many years. They also don’t need to be peeled. This is a good thing as just under the peel is where much of the nutrition is so you want it in your carrot juice if possible.
I think they taste better as well and really are only a little more for the difference they will make to your health. So get organic for your carrot juice if you can. It’s definitely worth it.
How to Make Carrot Juice
To prepare organic carrots for juicing, simply soak them in a large bowl of warm water with a dash of apple cider vinegar and quickly scrub them with a scrubbing brush.
Once they are scrubbed and cleaned, cut off both ends and, if any are too large, slice them in half. Depending on the size of the feed chute in your juicer, it can be good to look for relatively thin carrots that are around 6 inches long or less. These will usually be sweeter as well.
Another thing to look for when selecting your organic carrots is the color. The deeper the color the more beta-carotene and other antioxidant carotenoids they are likely to contain.
If they still have their leafy tops, go for those that look fresh and green, rather than wilted and yellow. It’s also best to leave carrots with too many cracks or blemishes.
Now that you have our carrots ready, simply turn on the juicer and push them through with the press at a steady rate. Have a large cup or bowl underneath where the juice comes out to collect the bright orange liquid.
Something I like to do here is use quite a big bowl to catch any splatter and put some ice cubes and a squeeze of lemon juice at the bottom of it to help lessen oxidization.
Particularly using a centrifugal juicer, there’s going to be a bit of oxygen exposure in creating the juice and for this reason it’s best to drink your carrot juice as soon as you’ve finished making it. Much of the nutrition, and particularly the enzymes, won’t keep and you’re getting the most out of your carrot juice if you drink it right away.
Masticating juicers are much better at preventing oxidization and preserving the nutrients, but even then I’d still suggest drinking your carrot juice as soon as you’ve made it, even before you clean the juicer.
Don’t leave the cleaning too long though. The sooner you do it the easier it is.
Carrot juice is great on its own but even better in combination with other healthy juices like beetroot, pineapple, apple, lemon, kiwi, watermelon, celery and many others. You can come up with some amazing tastes and store bought juices will really pale in comparison.
Have you tried making carrot juice up regularly before? Did you notice an improvement in your energy levels and the healthiness of your skin? Many people notice a real difference when they drink carrot juice often and I’d be interested to hear how it works for you.
