Juice your way to a new you with a Hurom Slow Juicer (contest)

The new year is here, and we’ve got health on our minds. Gyms are overflowing, yoga studios are mat to mat and most of us have resolved to eat less chocolate and more vegetables (steamed kale, anyone?). But the biggest question? How to make changes that last.

Experts agree that one of the best ways to stick to your goals is to make simple changes that fit into your existing routine, and to make your new habits enjoyable. If you’re excited about what you’re doing, you’ll have an easier time achieving the consistency necessary to make it stick, eventually making it automatic.

Before resorting to willpower to shovel down another daunting plate of that stringy green stuff, it’s worth considering a few easier (and dare we say, more delicious) ways to get your requisite five to 10.

One of our favourites is juicing. It makes consuming a huge amount of fruits and vegetables easy and achievable. Think about the time it would take to chew five carrots, two beets, an apple and half a head of kale. When you juice these items, you can drink them up in minutes, giving you a healthy boost of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. It’s also a great way to ingest produce items you wouldn’t normally eat on a daily basis. For example, add a big hunk of ginger and a large beet to your daily juice—two incredibly beneficial veggies you probably wouldn’t otherwise be consuming!

Another great thing about juicing is that it makes the amazing nutrients in your fruits and veggies easy to access. Fresh juice can be digested and assimilated quickly and efficiently into your bloodstream, with a minimum effort on the part of the digestive system. As a result, it’s one of the most efficient ways to deliver antioxidants to our bodies, and nutrients are used almost entirely in the nourishment, cleansing and regeneration of the body’s cells, tissues, glands and organs. This ultimately helps combat free radicals and prevent aging, cancer and cell damage. When you juice, you give your body a natural source of fuel that is easy to absorb and digest.

The third benefit to juicing—it tastes absolutely delicious! You can mix the admittedly less palatable powerhouse greens with sweet fruit and tart citrus, customizing your daily dose of the good stuff to make it exactly to your palate.

Curious to know more? Here are a couple of tips on how to get the most out of your juicing experience.

1. The fresher your juice, the more nutritious it is
When you juice at home, you’re getting fresh juice with significantly greater nutritional value than a store-bought juice. Fresh juice is filled with live enzymes, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals that are a critical part of the metabolic activities taking place in your body throughout the day. When you drink a store-bought juice, a lot of those beneficial properties have been killed as a result of the heating and processing involved in bottling juices. Whenever possible, it’s best to drink your juice fresh.

2. Use organic produce wherever possible
Most good juicers on the market don’t require you to peel your fruits and vegetables, which is a great timesaver. However, it means that you’re ingesting the skin. Choosing organic produce is the safest way to ensure that you’re not getting a dose of pesticides along with those antioxidants.

3. Choose a good juicer
You’re looking for one that will maximize the amount of juice you get, so pick one designed to squeeze out every last drop. We like masticating juicers, as they do well with greens. Another thing to look for is a low-speed juicer. This means that the produce doesn’t get heated up, which helps preserve the enzymes and nutrients in your juice.

Ready to take the plunge? We’ve got a great chance for you to win a Hurom Slow Juicer from SPUD.ca to get you started on your juicing journey!

The Hurom Slow Juicer is a compact, masticating juicer that uses a unique two-stage low speed technology system to process fruits and vegetables with amazing efficiency. By crushing and then pressing fruits and vegetables rather than grinding them, it releases all of the most beneficial and deep-seated nutrients and enzymes directly into your glass.

If you’re looking for a great source of organic produce, SPUD’s got some easy and cost saving boxes designed specifically for juicing. You can choose from 1, 3 and 5 day organic juice cleanses, filled with organic produce and customized juicing recipes.

The best part? The boxes come directly to your door. This keeps your new habit simple, and makes it easy for you to succeed! Learn more at SPUD.ca.

Contest

To enter to win a Hurom Slow Juicer from SPUD.ca (valued at $359), you can do the following:

1. Retweet the following on Twitter:

• Win a Hurom Slow Juicer from @SPUDVancouver via @VancityBuzz http://ow.ly/snSqM  RT to enter!

2. Leave a comment below telling us what fruit/vegetable you want to start juicing the most.

3. Like SPUD on Facebook: www.facebook.com/SPUDVancouver

4. Like this photo on Vancity Buzz’s Facebook page.

Contest ends January 15 at 11:59 p.m. One winner will be drawn at random.

Note: To be eligible to win, you must live within SPUD’s delivery areas in Metro Vancouver.

Contest winner: Laina T

 

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