The vegetable juice diet is a popular type of cleanse diet that purportedly eliminates dangerous toxins from the body. Vegetables naturally contain antioxidants, vitamins and minerals that benefit your health. However, adopting a cleanse diet consisting solely of juices may leave you malnourished. Consult your doctor before beginning a cleanse.
Purpose
Many foods contain additives, preservatives or traces of pesticides that are harmful. A vegetable juice diet purportedly cleanses the body by eliminating toxins and removing excess fat cells, according to the website Juicer Tips. Juicing allows someone undergoing a cleanse to incorporate more vegetables into her diet by reducing their volume. Frequently drinking juice also makes you feel fuller, reducing cravings for fatty or caloric foods.
Features
The vegetable juice diet involves drinking a homemade juice every few hours. The website Doctor Yourself recommends drinking a glass of juice whenever you feel hungry or thirsty. Dieters make their own vegetable juices by adding three or four vegetables to a juicer machine. Water should be consumed in conjunction with vegetable juices to flush out the kidneys. Healing Daily recommends using fresh, filtered water to reduce chlorine intake. A vegetable juice diet should last about three days.
Considerations
Use a variety of vegetables in your juices to boost your intake of different vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Consider combinations of spinach, celery greens, broccoli, carrots, cabbage, beets, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes and fennel. Dark leafy green vegetables make a juice that contains high levels of antioxidants that cleanse your body of toxins, according to the Healing Daily website. If you find vegetable juices difficult to tolerate, add several grapes or an apple to sweeten the taste.
Benefits
Following a strict vegetable juice diet usually causes weight loss of 5 to 7 lbs. over the course of the fast, according to JuiceFasting.org. Some of this weight is due to excess fecal matter being eliminated from the colon. Dieters report feeling more energetic, less fatigued and in overall better health. A vegetable juice diet may also boost immune system activity.
Warning
There is little scientific evidence that demonstrates the benefits of detoxifying diets such as the vegetable juice diet, according to MayoClinic.com. Ingesting toxins are normally eliminated from the body by the kidneys, liver and intestines. No evidence suggests that vegetable juice speeds this natural detoxifying process. A vegetable juice diet can be dangerous because it severely restricts caloric intake and does not provide a balanced source of protein or fats. Consult your doctor or a nutritionist before beginning a vegetable juice diet.
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