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Even fuller Background Article !: JUICE, JUICERS AND JUICE EXTRACTION
John Davidson, M.A. |
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Our bodies consist of the food, water and air we consume,organized by life's inner energies and processes into our cells,tissues and organs. It stands to clear reason, therefore, that a healthy body can only be built out of high quality nutrition and pollutant-free foodstuffs. It has always seemed strange to me that people feed themselves on junk foods and low quality produce. Even stranger is the lack of appreciation of true dietary considerations in most medical and hospital practice. How can a person regain good health on hospital canteen food? Yet ask someone to run his car on paraffin, and he will look disbelievingly at you. We need to learn, therefore, what is helpful and what is fad, and what works for us in the maintenance of good health and well being.
It is for this reason, therefore, that the use of fresh fruit and vegetable juices in both normal and therapeutic diets has long been established as a great aid to natural health, energy and well being. The high mineral and nutrient content, combined with the vibrant life-energy of fresh fruits and vegetables, makes pure, fresh juice a wonderful part of a healthy person's diet. In no other way, for example, can one consume the nutritional content of a pound or two of apples and carrots - and then go on to eat a healthy breakfast.
For high quality health, our cells require high quality nutrition. And for this nutrition to be of use, all the tissues and organs of our body must be in prime condition. It is no use,for example, eating excellent healthy food if the epithelial cells lining the intestines are in such poor state that little nutrition is actually absorbed. Nor does it help us if our cardio-vascular or circulatory system is sluggish or the blood is full of uneliminated toxins due to poor kidney, lymph, skin or bowel functioning - the nutrition just never reaches the cells, or is delivered along with unwanted toxins. Similarly, the lungs do not aerate the blood efficiently or if our muscle tone is weak, we cannot be in good health.
All the cells in our body are in constant change - they grow,they live, they die. Some live for only a few hours, some much longer, but the constant change-over of cells within our body gives us the ability to regenerate healthy tissues by changing our living and eating habits. The existing cells are then strengthened by receiving good nutrition and new cells develop in a more nourishing environment.
Freshly prepared juice contains the subtle life principle, or prana, that energizes our cellular metabolism. It is a powerful vibration penetrating the atomic and molecular structure of all the foods we eat. This is why raw fruit and vegetables give us more energy and sparkle than cooked, dead foods. In juice,this energy is concentrated, and you feel it as soon as you drink it. It can clear your head and make you feel light and energetic. It is the presence of this prana, or life energy that writers like Dr. Norman Walker are referring to when they speak of organic water and minerals.
Water from a tap is 'dead' water. Similarly with its mineral content, or table salt, while the water and minerals that are available in fruit and vegetable juices are already bound into living structures by the synthesing metabolism of the plants. They are full of vibrating life energy, probably discernable even at sub-atomic, if not molecular level.
One may eat a full three cooked meals a day and yet be starved of the basic, vital nutritional elements - the vitamins, enzymes,amino acids, minerals and all the other food requirements destroyed or denatured in the cooking process. We do not say that one should eat only raw fruit and vegetables and their juices, but a balanced healthy diet must contain a good proportion of them.
"Fruit juices are the cleansers of the human system" says Dr. Walker, while "Vegetable juices are the builders and regenerators of the body." They contain all the essential nutrients, provided they remain uncooked. Fresh juices are an invaluable supplement to any person's diet, indeed there are therapies that rely almost entirely on the power and nutrition available in juices to rid an ailing body of serious illness, even cancer. The body is stimulated by such concentrated goodness to throw off negative, pathological cellular deterioration and regain excellent health. In a normal regular diet, Dr. Walker recommends the consumption of between two and eight pints per day of fresh juices.
Different fruits and vegetables contain different nutritional elements and there is no doubt that a mixture of juices is of great value. Carrot juice, for example contains all the major vitamins. It helps to promote the appetite and aids digestion. It improves the bone structure of the teeth. The quality of breast milk in nursing mothers is enhanced, while during the last months of pregnancy, Dr. Walker again says that raw carrot juice, taken in sufficient quantities reduces the possibilities of puerperal sepsis at childbirth. "One pint of carrot juice," he says, "has more constructive body value than 25 pounds of calcium tablets."
The list of benefits of specific juices is extensive and we do recommend Dr. Walker's books, particularly his classic Raw Vegetable Juices. Carrot juice, is a natural solvent for ulcerous and cancerous conditions. It resists infections, working in conjunction with the adrenal glands, including those of the eye, throat, tonsils and sinuses. The nervous system is protected, while vigour and vitality are increased.
Cabbage juice is good for healing duodenal ulcers and constipation and is an excellent source of Vitamin C. Celery juice is high in organic sodium, one property of which is to maintain calcium in solution. It is of great value to people who have used concentrated sugars and starches throughout their lives. It is useful to sufferers from arthritis.
And so the list continues, Dr. Walker and other natural therapists discuss the use of alfalfa, beetroot, coconut,cucumber, brussel sprout, dandelion, endive, fennel, garlic, artichoke, kelp, leek, lettuce, onion, papaya, parsley, parsnip, pepper, potato, radish, rhubarb, sorrel, spinach, tomato, runner bean, turnip, watercress and other juices.
These juices are related to their use in particular conditions from anaemia, allegy, asthma and arthritis to blood pressure,boils, cataracts, colds, chicken pox, cramps, eczema, fatigue,haemorrhoids, hay-fever, headaches, indigestion, insomnia, leukaemia, jaundice, weight control, migrane, nervousness, pregnancy, paralysis, rheumatism, children's diseases, tumours and many other common and uncommon ailments.
Juices are a pure, natural food, full of essential goodness and the body cells respond to them in an energetically positive fashion.
Juicers
The concept of relatively inexpensive kitchen juicers, mass produced in plastic and steel or aluminium has become so widely accepted that the quality or quantity of juice produced or the method of extraction is often never questioned. We feel that such juicers mostly pander to a market, at a price that most folk can easily afford, the criterion of marketability being more apparent than that of excellence in juice extraction.
The juicers that we recommend are in a different league and take the matter more seriously. They are, in general, more expensive, but the quality is far superior, both in manufacture and juice content and can genuinely be considered as a part of a naturally healthy lifestyle and an investment in good health.
However, we do not ignore the fact that these inexpensive juicers are widely used. Use of the HEALTH STREAM PRESS (see picture and link) on the pulp from such juicers can finish off much of what is left undone! We also have a recommendation as to the best of these less expensive juicers.
In order to extract juice from fruits and vegetables, it is necessary to first break down the cell walls and fibres and then separate out the juice. Ideally, a top quality juicer should deliver clear juice on the one hand and a dry pulp of cell walls and fibres, on the other. Generally speaking, commercial and domestic juicers adopt one of three methods to achieve this end.
Centrifugal Juicers use a grater to more or less break up the plant fibres and cell walls and then spin out the juice by centrifugal action, forcing the pulp against a high speed revolving basket, thrusting the juice through the holes in the basket. This is the least expensive method and hence most domestic juicers follow this design. However, centrifugal juicers suffer from a number of drawbacks:
(a)The fruit or vegetable is merely grated. At no time is it rubbed or chewed, so the fibres and cell walls are not adequately broken up to allow the extraction of top quality juice. This type of juicer is usually equipped with a tiny, inexpensive high speed motor that would break down completely under a true pulping or mastication process.
(b)The pulp usually remains very moist, sometimes so moist that considerably more juice can even be squeezed out by hand pressure The juice itself is pale, watery, low in nutrient value and often quite insipid in flavour.
(c) The juice is not adequately strained from the cell wall and fibrous material, thus leaving the juice cloudy. With modern methods of agriculture, this can be quite serious. Fruits and vegetables may deposit the non bio-degradable elements of herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers etc. in their cell walls, since they do not have the physiological eliminative channels of higher creatures. That is, once inside, pollutants can't get out. For pure juice, from non-organically grown produce, it is therefore essential to adequately strain the juice under pressure, through a fine mesh juice cloth.
(d) Enzymes and large molecules are to some extent destroyed by the cutting and centrifugal action, while considerable degrading oxidation of the juice also occurs.
(e) Separate, continuous removal of the pulp is not always possible. It is usually necessary to stop the machine at regular intervals, remove the pulp and start again - a tedious process.
Nose-Cone Pressure Juicers, such as the CHAMPION and the HEALTH FOUNTAIN, break up the fruit or vegetable material with a cutter or masticator and then ram the resulting pulp into a nose cone with a narrow opening. A high pressure builds up in the cone and the juice is forced out through a stainless steel grid, while the pulp finds its way out through the opening. This is far more efficient than centrifugal action. The power required to efficiently masticate the fruit or vegetable and to build up sufficient pressure in the cone is considerable and the CHAMPION uses a 1/3 horse-power motor running at 1425 revs per minute. The pressure can also be built up more slowly through the leverage obtained in a manual system, such as the HEALTH FOUNTAIN.
Juice Presses (the only available one in the United Kingdom is the HEALTH STREAM JUICER) - do the job thoroughly. First, a high powered cutter, such as the CHAMPION, is used to reduce even hard root vegetables to a fine pulp in a few seconds. This is then placed in a strong nylon twill, juice cloth inside a stainless steel pan. A beechwood pressing block is placed on top and the pan and contents placed on the pressing platform. The platform is raised and a pressure of three to five tons is produced between the pressing platform and the top of the press casing. The pulp is pressed flat and the juice, finely strained through the nylon twill cloth, runs out of a spout in the stainless steel pan. The pulp is reduced to something resembling a piece of cardboard, with almost all the juice being pressed out. This method of pulping and then hydraulic pressing is used commercially, on a larger scale, and is generally accepted as the only way to successfully and efficiently extract all the plant juices and nutrients.}
Some Facts, Figures and Notes on individual juicers
The figures reproduced below from the work of Leroy J Bailey (to be added soon, Ed., 12.10.02) an independant consultant chemist from Washington, Utah, clearly show the results obtained from the three kinds of juicer in action. 'A' is a centrifugal juicer,'B' is the CHAMPION and 'C' is a hydraulic press juicer. Apart from the greater quantities of juice produced by the press and the CHAMPION, it is of importance to note that the concentration of nutrient and mineral content in the extracted juice rises as more juice is extracted. It seems that the last ten percent of juice comes out with a far higher content than the first ten percent. Also, efficient pulping and pressing results in a higher percentage of nutrients being extracted, even if the quantity of juice extracted remains the same. Uniform five pound samples of carrots, celery and parsley were processed by each of the machines with the following results:
The extremely fine pulp produced by a juicer such as the CHAMPION (Juicer B), before processing with the very great pressure of the hydraulic press of machine (C) would appear to account for the greater yield of juice and the very marked superiority in the extraction of mineral content.
The VITAMINE Juicemaster centrifugal juicer (A)
We can recommend this juicer as the best centrifugal juicer we have tried. It has many of the drawbacks we describe above, but some juice is definitely better than none and if cost is of prime concideration, then we suggest the VITAMINE as an excellent compromise.
The VITAMINE has the following advantages over other centrifugal juicers:
..1. The cutting disc and centrifuge basket are made of stainless steel. This was the first centrifugal juicer use to use discs and baskets that are not made of aluminium. Aluminium is poisonous. Natural health literature contains many references to this by well qualified and respected naturopathic doctors (Jensen, Walker etc.). It has also been related in conventional medical research to senile dementia, diseases of the nervous system and infant deaths.
The VITAMINE's manufacture is of reasonably sturdy plastic and stainless steel, lasting well. It is easy to take apart and clean.
..2..the VITAMINE juice extracton capability is superior to other centrifugal juicers that we have tried. With some, you can even extract considerably more juice from the pulp by squeezing it in your hand! Its operation is quick, easy and continuous. It is also automatic in the sense that the pulp is ejected continuously. With many inexpensive centrifugal juicers, you need make frequent stops in order to clean the pulp from the basket.}
The CHAMPION Juicer (B)
The CHAMPION is one of the most popular juicers. It is an excellent juicer in its own right, giving an even better performance when used in conjunction with the
HEALTH STREAM JUICE PRESS. Using carrots and apples in our tests, we have consistently produced between 25% and 35% more juice by using the CHAMPION as a pulper with a blanking panel, and then extracting the juice in our own press. The CHAMPION can also be used for making seed and nut butters as well as soft fruit ice creams and delicious purees. There is also a grain mill available for use with the CHAMPION.
The HEALTH STREAM Manual Juice Press (C)
Using a manually operated three-ton hydraulic ram, the pulp from any juicer that gives a well broken up pulp can be pressed to great advantage, normally giving between 25% and 200% more juice depending on the juicer and the fruit or vegetable being juiced. Normally this press is used along with the CHAMPION, but is also available separately to upgrade the performance of your existing juicer. The Gerson therapists for cancer and other serious illnesses insist on the highest quality juice as an integral part of the therapy. For this purpose, the HEALTH STREAM PRESS is essential.
The HEALTH FOUNTAIN Juicer
The HEALTH FOUNTAIN is a manually operated juicer that extracts juice from fruits and vegetables by using a coarse feed screw to cut and propel pieces of fruit and vegetables into a nose cone. The outlet from the nose cone has an adjustable screw to vary the pressure built up in the cone, depending on the fruit or vegetable being juiced. Thus, an almost dry cylinder of pulp comes from the nose cone outlet, while the juice is forced through a stainless steel strainer. For maximum results on hard vegetables such as carrots, the pulp can be reprocessed with a higher pressure set on the nose cone outlet.
The system is, of course, slower than the CHAMPION but is considerably less expensive and does produce a high proportion of good quality juice. The HEALTH FOUNTAIN is solidly built , plated, cast iron, somewhat in the style of an old-fashioned mincer. It is not at all beautiful by modern standards unless one described it as "ruggedly good looking", but it should last a lifetime, outliving many generations of its more modern plastic relatives. We look on it as a specialist wheatgrass and herb juicer, with only occasional use for regular fruits and vegetables.
Juicing Wheatgrass and Other Fibrous Plant Life
Wheatgrass juice is used in a number of therapies and being so high in chlorophyll is a valuable addition to a normal healthy diet. Dr. Ann Wigmore, founder of World famous Hippocrates Health Centre in the U.S.A., is the one who really started using wheat grass juice in therapy and her books are well worth reading. Dr. Jensen's excellent book: "Health Magic Through Chlorophyll" also describes in detail, the great value of this kind of chlorophyll-rich juice. Chlorophyll is unique in nature. It stands at the base of all food chains. Chlorophyll is the only commonly occuring compound within living organisms able to trap the sun's energy. This same energy is transmitted - through food chains - to all other creatures on this planet. It is similar in molecular structure to the haemoglobin in the blood of all higher animals.
One unique feature of the HEALTH FOUNTAIN is that while the CHAMPION uses a sharp serrated cutting edge, the HEALTH FOUNTAIN uses a coarse screw. This makes it suitable for juicing extremely stringy vegetables such as wheatgrass and comfrey, which otherwise get caught on the serrated cutting edges of other machines. Celery, being both a juicy and stringy vegetable is about as stringy as you can juice with the CHAMPION.
All stainless steel parts are polished. The Press Casings and the CHAMPION are stove enamelled in white.
© Copyright Wholistic Research 2005
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