Beets are members of the spinach and chard family.  The beetroot with it’s earthy taste and the bitter beet greens are high if folic acid and vitamins A, B, and C.  Also they contain potassium, calcium, betacyanin (antioxidant), calcium, copper, iron, iodine, manganese.

Because of the iron content beets are powerful blood purifiers.  This offers a multitude of health benefits and can improve the following conditions:

• constipation
• cancer
• anemia
• gallbladder and kidney ailments
• ulcers
• anemia

Detoxification

Beets and stimulate enzymes in the liver.   For this reason they give support to detoxification and fight cancer.  Juice cleanse recipes often utilize beet roots and greens for their detox qualities.

Heart Health

Beets create nitric oxide in the blood, which dilates blood vessels and thus lowers blood pressure.  Healthy HDL cholesterol is raised by the fiber contained in beets. (Remember that fiber is removed when juicing, so to include the benefits of fiber you must eat the vegetable in its whole form.)

Energy

Beets increase the oxygen in the blood by as much as 400%.  This provides you with energy and stamina.

Tip for Juicing Beets

It’s important to repeat that beets are powerful cleansers.  When beets are juiced, the fiber is removed but the sugars remain. The detox process may be rapid and may cause you to become light-headed and experience detox symptoms.  Drink plenty of water to help flush the toxins out.

Beets can be juiced with most any other vegetables.  For your first juice cleanse with beets, use only 1/4 beet in a recipe  to determine how your body will react.  Then add more accordingly.

More Information

Nutritional information on beets Nutrition Data

Beet Pigments May Help Prevent Cancer Report

Beetroot Therapy from Annie Appleseed Project

But if you knew you could keep that healthy state all the time, wouldn’t you want to do that?  Well there might just be a way and David Wolfe, the well respected nutritionist, raw food guru, author, and founder of the SunFood company (their raw cacao nibs are great by the way), has developed a new program called Longevity Now.  David hasn’t been sick in 15 years and he will show you how to achieve the same results yourself.

David has made some videos with incredible information about how to keep your immune system healthy, so I encourage you to watch (and keep a pen and paper handy to keep notes).  You can watch the video here.

1. Start with breakfast. Have a smoothie. An example recipe is ½ cup of freshly squeezed orange juice, 1 cup water, ½ bunch kale and/or 3 T hemp seed protein powder, 1 T coconut oil. If you care for some melon, eat it 20 to 30 minutes before anything else as it doesn’t combine with other foods. Pack an apple for a snack. You are now eating about 25% raw.
2. When you are ready, pack a salad of organic vegetables for lunch with some homemade dressing of raw apple cider vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and a bit of raw agave or unheated honey. (There are plenty of raw dressing recipes; this happens to be one of the easiest.) Add some raw nuts or seeds that have been soaked overnight to get rid of the enzyme inhibitors. (Be sure to rinse them.) Also make your own sprouts to add to the salads. You are now eating about 60% raw.
3. For a snack have the apple and some raw trail mix: organic goji berries with raw nuts and seeds, any sundried fruit, and shredded coconut. Be creative. Now you are eating about 70% raw.
4. When you are ready, switch dinner to raw. There are many free recipes on the internet. Simple ones include raw soups, kelp noodles to make pad thai, and Chinese stir “fry” with various raw sauces. Dinner is when most people are tempted to eat cooked food. If you are, have some lightly steamed vegetables sprinkled with walnuts ground up in your coffee grinder or Vitamix.

You won’t feel deprived. When you eat 80-100% of your calories in raw foods, you will feel so much more alive! When we eat a cooked food diet, we use about 85% of our energy digesting the food.

Susan Schenck, LAc, MTOM, is raw food coach, lecturer, and author of The Live Food Factor, The Comprehensive Guide to the Ultimate Diet for Body, Mind, Spirit & Planet. Go to

www.livefoodfactor.com to check out more free articles. Share and Enjoy:

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