When it comes to healthy living, it’s not just about what you eat, but also about what you drink.
The best beverage you can drink is water, preferably spring water straight from a natural spring. Other forms of water include mineral, distilled, and purified water. Several health aficionados recommend eight to 10 glasses of water a day; however, this number is less when you count the amount of water you consume from fresh fruits and vegetables, especially the green ones.
It is always the best option to benefit from things that are naturally green. Plants are the greenest things on earth. What do you get when you combine water with green plants? The answer is some of the healthiest beverages on earth. They not only contain natural water, but they contain beneficial and natural nutrients that the body needs.
Green juice and green tea are very popular green drink options, but which is healthier for your body? Let’s take a sip of each beverage, discovering the benefits in the process.
Green Juice
What is green juice? Concentrated and processed juices contain an abundance of sugar, whereas green juice is made from natural green vegetables and fruit. Green juices are often made with a juicer or blender, and are made with several green vegetables, including green leafy vegetables, alkaline vegetables, and even green fruits. When you practice juicing, you gain beneficial nutrients from these whole foods by separating the juice from the pulp.
Great green options to juice with include kale, spinach, Swiss chard, romaine lettuce, broccoli stems, cucumber, celery, fennel, as well as green apples, grapes, honeydew melons, avocados, and pears. Ginger and lemon are common flavors for your green juice and healthy living practice. Here are some of the top benefits of juicing with green vegetables and fruits.
Green Juice Benefits
From childhood on, we are told to eat our veggies—will drinking them be any better? If you find it difficult to get your recommended serving of vegetables daily, juices will allow you to easily drink your vegetables.
A simple green juice recipe of a cucumber, a celery stalk, a broccoli stalk, a large handful or kale, and a pear gives your body well over the three to five recommended vegetables by America’s Food Guide Pyramid. They also suggest two to four fruits.
If fruits and vegetables alone have health benefits, together those benefits must be even stronger. A green nutrient-rich juice contains plenty of disease-fighting vitamins and minerals.
It also benefits you with needed plant protein, enzymes, and oxygen. The chlorophyll in your green vegetables helps provide that oxygen to your body, allowing the release of stored toxins.
Drinking green juice helps cleanse your digestive system, lungs, and liver. All green vegetables are good sources of vitamins A and C, especially kale, spinach, and broccoli. Vitamin A can help you fight viral infections, while vitamin C can help reduce your risk of cancer.
The vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants in green fruits also help protect you against cancers, viral infections, and other diseases. Green fruits and vegetables provide many solid healthy foods for your green juice. Shouldn’t you start green juicing today?
Green Tea
What is green tea exactly? Green tea is very popular in Japan and China. There is minimal oxidation during the production of green tea, which is made from the leaves of camellia sinensis.
A book written in 1191 called the Kissa Yojoki (Book of Tea), explains how the consumption of green tea can positively affect your five vital organs: your heart, brain, lungs, kidneys, and pancreas. It is essentially a super drink, and its benefits have been extensively researched for years. Here are a few of the top benefits of green tea.
Green Tea Benefits
When you drink green tea daily, you lower your risk for many diseases and health conditions, including cancer. In the last 10 years, cell culture, epidemiological, animal, and clinical studies have all supported green tea’s cancer prevention abilities.
One cup of green tea contains 20-35 mg of epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), which is a flavonoid catechin which studies have found helps prevent and slow cancers including lung, prostate, breast, and colorectal cancer.
The EGCG in green tea contributes to other health benefits as well, especially weight loss. Research from Tufts University has found that the EGCG in green tea can speed weight loss by 77%.
A study also found that drinking five cups of green tea a day can decrease your chance of coronary artery disease by 16%. This can be contributed again to EGCG, which plays a role in inhibiting fat buildup in the arteries.
Another reason to drink green tea is its sweet taste and fresh aroma. The smell will have you filling up for more!
So which beverage reins supreme? There are anti-cancer benefits for both green juice and green tea, among many other health benefits. So I believe it’s a tie. Enjoy your green juice in the morning and your green tea at night.
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