You can show kids what a certain molecule in green vegetables can do for the human body in regards to building blood and making them healthier and stronger. That's one way of motivating them to drink vegetable juices and eat the vegetables and fruits with the fiber. It may even motivate kids to take an interest in learning about cellular nutrition or even biochemistry of how certain choices of foods have practical uses in helping to make people healthier.
When you eat fresh, clean green leafy vegetables, the chlorophyll in those greens builds blood. The chlorophyll is the blood of plants. But it also builds blood in humans. Some societies drink animal blood as food, such as the Masai of central East Africa who drink cow's blood and cow's milk. But vegetarians and vegans can drink the blood of green vegetables, since the chlorophyll in the plant's blood, and the green juices also sustain and build your body.
How does chlorophyll build blood?
The chlorophyll molecule and the heme molecule, at the center of your blood's hemoglobin, are essentially identical in structure. One difference is that the center of the heme molecule is iron and the center of the chlorophyll molecule is magnesium. Your body gets iron from certain foods and magnesium from various foods. You can check out sites online on what foods have the most iron and/or the most magnesium. Check out the sites, "Foods With Most Magnesium | foods.WebCrawler.Com," and "Top 10 Iron-Rich Foods: Foods High in Iron."
That's why some nutritionists encourage people who don't have kidney conditions that warn people to keep away from magnesium can drink the green juices and get some of their needed magnesium. This near identical structure of plant blood to animal blood is one reason why green leafy vegetable drinks are such a great blood builder. Your goal in drinking any type of vegetable juice is to build a healthy body.
You also need the fiber. So you can eat the rest of the vegetable in a salad or soup. When you cook spinach, it becomes acidic in the body. But when you eat it raw or chopped up in a salad, it's alkaline. Check out the sites, Chemical of the Week -- Chlorophyll, Chapter 3 Chlorophyll and Blood Regeneration, and that's heme, not hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is a complex of the heme group and the much larger globin protein. Both are derived from the same precursor, protoporphyrin IX, as shown in this pathway diagram. Check out Chlorophyll. These sites are a great way to get your child interested in cellular nutrition and biochemistry as it relates to what foods are healthiest and how they may work in the human body.
Micronutrient-rich green vegetables and fruits
There are many ways such as salads, smoothies, and cold soups to get your great-tasting green drink out of organic, phytonutrient and micronutrient-rich, green fruits, vegetables, and juiced green grasses such as wheat or barley grass juice. The goal is to power your cells and your entire body. Either with fresh vegetables and their juices, the ideal way in salads or smoothies or use green powders. But make sure that the green powders don't have excessive lead in them.
People drink green juices to manage weight, support blood pressure, increase energy, or help their body to heal itself. Check out these sites before you begin doing your research on which green foods are best: 3 Popular Supplements That Are a Waste of Money, How To Alkalize Your Body With Green Juice, and 13 Refreshing Smoothie & Green Juice Recipes.
People may hesitate to buy packaged green vegetables because of all the recalls during the past decade of bacteria-contaminated greens from animal droppings or dirty run-off waste water. Check out the articles, Myths About Wheatgrass and Barleylife green juice scientific studies. Get both sides of the studies on green juices.
Celery is very high in nitrate
A highly regarded survey published in 2009 found an average nitrate concentration of 1495 ppm nitrate in conventionally grown celery. Of the veggies analyzed, (broccoli, cabbage, celery, lettuce and spinach), only spinach was higher (2797). Other studies have established that ~ 80% of the nitrates in the human diet come from vegetables. Cured meats are the primary source of nitrites in the human diet.
Because of the USDA's labeling regulations, meats cured with celery can be labeled organic, natural and nitrate free, if they meet the other necessary criteria, which is very misleading. Nitrate is nitrate. If you want to use nitrate as your curing agent in making cured meats such as sausages and you prefer it from a vegetable source, then it's a good product, explains a posting in the forum on Celery Juice powder.
Can green vegetable juices help remove toxins such as mercury and lead from the body as well as vitamin C?
Can leafy green vegetable juices actually detox the human body from various environmental toxins and help lower blood pressure? Actually, universities study whether kale juice, barley grass and other green juices from kale juice or collards and parsley clean out your body of various chemicals and allergens from polluted air. Check out the study's site, "Weight loss in individuals with metabolic syndrome given DASH diet counseling when provided a low sodium vegetable juice: a randomized controlled trial."
A study conducted by Sacramento and Davis researchers at the University of California, Davis found that adults who drank one, 8-ounce glass of vegetable juice each day, as part of a calorie-appropriate Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, received nearly twice as many vegetable servings a day than those who didn't drink any vegetable juice.
Additionally, nine out of 10 participants who drank V8 100% vegetable juice said they felt they were doing something good for themselves. But you also have to take a look at who funded the study. The work was supported by resources from the Campbell Soup Company. You also could juice fresh vegetables and puree them in your blender or a more powerful food processor such as a Vita Mix. The trick is to keep any vegetable juice you drink low sodium if it's off the shelf and processed.
If you make the juice yourself from fresh vegetables, the produce has a balance of postassium and sodium in the vegetable itself. You don't need to add salt. And don't buy commercial vegetable juice where the company adds potassium chloride. For some people sensitive to it, the ingredient can be dangerous. See, Potassium chloride Side Effects | Drugs.com. Fresh vegetables have their own potassium, and you don't need additives to vegetable juice for taste. Just add some garlic or onion for flavor or herbs and spices such as dill, lemon, parsley, or curry powder if you need a spicy or tart taste to vegetable juice.
What's a detox cocktail? Or does the body clean itself out without help from foods?
When numerous green health enthusiasts and some nutritionists discuss studies on detoxing from the pollutants in the Sacramento air, water, or foods, a topic that may come up for discussion is the vitamin C, glutathione, and lipoic acid detox cocktail. Is there such a thing as a green health detox cocktail of nutrients or supplements? And should they come from food directly as in fresh, raw plant foods or extracts or from vitamins and any other supplements?
How would you know what is safe other than to read some of the medical studies published in credible science journals? Check out site such as, "Yabba Pot - 21 day raw food diet - instructions - YouTube," and Starting a Raw Food Diet.
The detox cocktail that some physicians recommend is found in the book, The High Blood Pressure Hoax by Sherry A. Rogers, M.D. on pages 40-43. Detoxing starts with fighting free radicals. Dr. Rogers emphasizes that your detox cocktail consists of three ingredients: vitamin C, glutathione, and lipoic acid.
Up to 75 percent of pantothenic acid, which is vitamin B5, is lost when food is canned or frozen. Yet according to a study at the University of Windsor, Canada, researchers found that tissue cells treated with pantothenic acid found in COQ10, detoxifies numerous synthetic compounds that you can absorb from drugs, herbicides, and insecticides, according to the book Healing with Vitamins, pages 14-15.
Readers also should take into consideration that according to an answer the doctor noted in response to a viewer's question about lipoic acid on the Dr. Ray Sahanian’s site, heart rhythm disturbances have been reported from some people that were taking too high dosages of lipoic acid.
“There are no indications that low doses of lipoic acid, such as 5 to 20 mg, have side effects,” reads the answer on Dr. Ray Sahelian’s site to a viewer’s question. The answer noted on Dr. Ray Sahelian’s site states, “In my personal experience, high dosages of alpha lipoic acid can cause insomnia and ALA (alpha lipoic acid) may cause heart rhythm disturbances. Until we know more about the long term side effects of these supplements, I prefer to take low dosages and take days off.”
Different doctors will differ on the dose you need. You have to tailor what you take in the form of any detoxifiers to your own body and needs.
R-lipoic acid in small amounts is recommended over alpha lipoic acid by numerous nutrition-oriented doctors. On page 132 of The Cholesterol Hoax, Dr. Rogers notes, "Make sure you at least get minimum 300 mgs of R-Lipoic Acid twice a day..." (to detox from plastics pollutants).
Dr. Rogers notes that "Plastics that are the highest pollutant in the human body now also trigger insulin resistence." Three studies also are noted for reference on page 132 of The Cholesterol Hoax. The important point is to find the dose that's correct for you by working with your doctor if you want to detox from plastics pollutants or insecticide contamination.
In the book, The High Blood Pressure Hoax by Sherry A. Rogers, M.D. on page 42, Dr. Rogers explains how to make your own personal detox cocktail: “It begins with one teaspoon of Ultrafine Pure Ascorbic acid.” (The doctor notes that if that gives you diarrhea, to “cut it back to half a teaspoon.”
Add the glutathione. Dr. Rogers suggests “the best source I know of, Recancostat, 400-800mg and Lipoic Acid, 300-600 mg.” The ‘cocktail’ is to be taken with one to two glasses of water. The healthy goal on page 43 is to “boost your endothelial lining.”
In the book, The Cholesterol Hoax, Dr. Rogers also refers to the detox cocktail using vitamin C, R-Lipoic acid, and Recancostat. It’s also covered in Dr. Rogers book, Detoxify or Die. And statements on page 225 of The Cholesterol Hoax mention that “the daily detox cocktail not only lowers cholesterol, but also boosts your daily blood and gut detoxification."
The book gives excellent sources of the various studies and also notes, “One very serious sign of a bad gut with hidden toxins is an elevated fibrinogen.” (Patel). See the research study noted: Patel P, Carrington D, Strachean DP, Leatham E, Goggin P, Northfield TC, Mendall, MA, "Fibrinogen: a link between chronic infection and coronary heart disease," Lancet, 343; 1634-5, June 25, 1994.
According to page 77 in the book titled, Is Your Cardiologist Killing You?, by Sherry R. Rogers, M.D., "Sometimes a vitamin B1 (thiamin) deficiency can't be corrected until a magnesium deficiency is corrected." (Zieve). See Zieve L, "Influence of magnesium deficiency on the normalization of thiamin," Annals of the NY Academy of Science, 162; 732-43, 1969. Also look at another book titled, The Magnesium Miracle, by Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D.
You also might read, The Calcium Lie, by Robert Thompson, M.D. and Kathleen Barnes. In the chapter titled, "The Vitamin Lie." On page 89, the book suggests that you take whole food vitamin C, not just the ascorbic acid part. You need the bioflavinoids contained in whole food vitamin C.
A statement on page 88 explains, "The body is completely dependent upon the whole vitamin C molecule." The chapter notes that ascorbic acid "also blocks the absorption of the whole C molecule as well as interfering with its benefits and causing its excretion in the urine, depleting your body's stores of this important molecule."
Is the solution to take whole foods vitamin C, not merely ascorbic acid by itself? Or do you take your usual ascorbic acid followed by a capsule of citrus bioflavonoids? Watch the uTube video featuring Dr. Robert Thompson, speaking on balancing your minerals to avoid mineral deficiency and calcium excess, "The Calcium Lie - What Your Doctor Doesn't Know."
Resources
1. Nitrate and Nitrite: Health Information Summary - The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services
2. Nitrite in Meat - The University of Minnesota Extension Service
3. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), USDA. 2010. Dietary Guidelines for Americans. 7th edition, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. January 31, 2011.
4. Shenoy A, Kazaks A, Holt R, et al. Easy accessibility to a vegetable beverage can result in marked increase in vegetable intake: an approach to improving vascular health. Poster presented at Experimental Biology, New Orleans, LA, 2009.
5. Flegal KM, Carroll MD, Ogden CL, Curtin LR. Prevalence and trends in obesity among U.S. adults, 1999-2008. JAMA. 2010;303:235-241.
6. Shenoy S, Poston W, Reeves R, et al. Weight loss in individuals with metabolic syndrome given DASH diet counseling when provided a low sodium vegetable juice: a randomized controlled study. Nutr J. 2010;9:8.
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