There are already a lot of ready-to-drink veggie juices available in the market that are mostly made out of green leafy, marrow, or root groups of vegetables. While they are surely healthy, do you sometimes doubt if they are 100% natural? If you do, you’re not alone. We couldn’t be surer than making our own veggie juice in our home. And, do you know which vegetable is best for juicing? Yes, you’ve guessed it right, Kale is said to be the King of all the greens.
Because it is a very nutrient-dense food, they are best eaten raw. That’s why kale is best for juicing, or for making smoothies and salads. Read more if you want to learn the health benefits of kale juice and what it can do to our bodies.
Getting to Know Kale and Kale Juice
Making Kale Juice
Health Benefits of Kale Juice
Helps prevent serious diseases
Boosts immune system
Improves bone health
Enhances skin, hair and nails
Takes good care of our eye health
The Bottom Line
Getting to Know Kale and Kale Juice
Kale is a cruciferous vegetable that belongs to the Brassicaceae family together with cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens and brussels sprouts. Its leaves come in green or purple and are smooth or curly in shape.
Kale is best known for its antioxidants and vitamins and minerals such as Vitamin C, Vitamin K, potassium and a lot more—reasons why many would choose Kale to make their morning juices and smoothies.
Kale chips:
Making Kale Juice
Making kale juice is no different from how you make other veggie juices. After rinsing kale leaves, just put them in your blender or juicer, add some flavoring like honey or sugar, and add enough water and blend them all together.
Some people like it as is or with added fruits, to improve its taste. Other common ingredients that can be added to kale juice are green apples, lemon or lime, spinach and the like. The good thing about juice or smoothies is that you are free to add anything you like to satisfy your taste.
Blender:
Juicer:
Health Benefits of Kale Juice
If you are not a green leafy vegetable eater, turning veggies into juices is a subtle way of eating them—the same nutrients but tastes better and can be swallowed easier. Ever wonder what kale juice can do to our body? See below.
- Helps prevent serious diseases.
Kale juice contains a significant amount of antioxidants, fiber and other vitamins that help in preventing risks of critical illnesses such as: (image yet to be added)
Diabetes. Consuming foods that have the highest amount of dietary fiber has shown to have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to some studies. Kale juice contains about 4g of fiber for every 1 cup of serving, which may help in lowering blood glucose levels.
Heart disease. High intake of potassium and lessening the consumption of added salt can reduce the risk of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, according to the American Heart AssociationTrusted Source (AHA). 1 cup of cooked kale contains 3.6% of an adult’s daily needs for potassium.
Cancer. Kale and any other green vegetables contain chlorophyll that can help in preventing the body to absorb heterocyclic amines, (found on grilled animal-derived foods) which are linked with cancer, as experts say.
Kale juice is one of the best sources of antioxidants: vitamin C, beta carotene, and selenium, which may help prevent cancer. Studies show that people who have a high intake of fruits and vegetables have a lower chance of developing various cancers.
- Boosts immune system.
Kale is said to be the best green in terms of antioxidants. It is also loaded with Vitamin C which is good for improving our immune system. It actually has 3.5 times as much Vitamin C as spinach and more Vitamin C than an orange. Hence, in just a single drink of your kale juice, you are also taking a lot of vitamins your body needs.
- Improves bone health.
Kale juice contains Vitamin K and calcium which are crucial for healthy bone formation. Some studies suggested that a high intake of vitamin K may help in reducing the risks of bone fractures. You can prevent osteoporosis as you age and maintain the health of your bones and teeth by drinking kale juice.
Besides juice, cooking a cup of kale is almost five times higher than an adult’s daily need for vitamin K, and also gives around 15–18% of their daily calcium requirement.
- Enhances skin, hair and nails.
Antioxidants are also known for being the factor in slowing down the aging process of every human. Kale juice which is high in antioxidants helps in doing so by preventing free radical cells from damaging our skin. When cooked, a cup of kale gives at least 20% of a person’s daily Vitamin A requirement and more than 23% of the daily need for Vitamin C—which plays a role in the growth and maintenance of all body tissues, including the skin and hair.
- Takes good care of our eye health.
Kale also contains lutein and zeaxanthin, which help to reduce risks of age-related macular degeneration. Hence, kale juice is indeed a power juice lowering a person’s chance of macular degeneration and cataracts, because of its high content of vitamin C, E, beta-carotene, and zinc.
Organic kale powder:
The Bottom Line
I’d like to quote Ruth Frechman RD, from the American Dietetic Association, when she said that “when it comes to nutritional powerhouses, there is nothing quite like kale juice”. Kale indeed contains a surprising amount of nutrients many never knew about, until today.
If there’s something I’d like to change in my daily routine, that would be drinking power juices like kale. This way, I wouldn’t bother taking in synthetic vitamins as I can get them in just a handful serving of kale juice.