Green vegetable juices such as collard greens are full of essential vitamins, minerals, and plant compounds. Many celebrities, models, and health gurus today glow with health and vitality. They look like they are living their best life. One thing that many of them have in common is that they swear by green juices bursting with natural antioxidants that boost your immune system, energize your metabolism, and cleanse your body.
While there are tons of different green juices available, collard greens are currently one of the best yet least-known options out there. Packed with crucial vitamins, antioxidants, and fiber, collard greens help neutralize free radicals, stabilize glucose levels, and reduce the risks from a number of lifestyle-related health issues.
Check out these 10 important health benefits of juicing collard greens!
1. What Are The Health Benefits of Juicing Collard Greens?
Maybe you want clearer skin. Maybe you want to lower your cancer risk. Maybe you are looking for glucose-stabilizing drink options. If you want to sustain healthy bones, hair, skin, heart, and other organs, collard greens are a good option to help eat your way to optimum health.
1.1 It’s Low Calorie
Collard greens not only help oxygenate your blood, but this leafy green plant contains 1 gram of protein per juiced ounce and essential chlorophyll, which fights free radical damage from sun and pollutant exposure.
Collard greens are also low in calories. This means that one ounce of juice contains only about 10 calories.
1.2 It’s a Good Vitamin Source
Collard greens act as a good source for these twelve different vitamins and essential minerals:
- Vitamin A
- Vitamin B-6
- Vitamin C
- Calcium
- Choline
- Glucosinolates
- Iron
- Vitamin K
- Magnesium
- Niacin
- Pantothenic Acid
- Thiamin
1.3 It Detoxifies Your Body
Collards contain sulfur compounds that act as a natural diuretic in the body. Because their green juice contains a lot of water, this helps flush toxins from daily pollution from your body. It also contains alpha-lipoic acid that acts as a detoxifying antioxidant.
1.4 It Supports Your Immune System
Collard greens help promote overall wellness in your body by supporting your immune system to function properly. The plant’s essential nutrients also help reduce your risk for chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
Vitamin A helps keep your immune system running smoothly and primed to fight off germs.
1.5 It Strengthens Your Bones
Collard greens contain Vitamin K. While you might be familiar with Vitamin K as a vitamin that assists with blood clotting or helping blood disorders such as hemophilia, you might not know that Vitamin K also makes your bones strong.
Vitamin K in collard green juice not only modifies bone matrix proteins, but it also helps your body absorb calcium better. If your bones retain the necessary calcium amounts, this lowers your risk for osteoporosis and bone fractures.
One cup of boiled collard greens made into juice offers 770 micrograms of Vitamin K. According to the 2015-2020 United States Dietary Guidelines, women between 19 to 30 years old need to take 90 mcg of Vitamin K per day. The guidelines also recommended that men in the same age range should consume 120 mcg daily.
1.6 It Fights Diabetes, Anemia and Improves Liver Function
If you juice collard greens, you may also lower your risk for or current diabetes issues by reversing oxidative stress in the body. Researchers have found that eating a lot of plant fiber helps lower inflammation. It may also reduce glucose levels for those with Type 1 diabetes.
For Type 2 diabetes, the 8 grams of fiber found in one cup of juiced collard greens stabilizes lipids, blood sugar, and insulin levels.
If you drink the green juice, you will also receive the benefits from alpha-lipoic acid that work to regenerate liver tissue. These are shown to improve peripheral neuropathy experienced by some people with diabetes.
Collard’s green juice provides an important source for iron that helps improve anemia that can cause energy, exercise-induced breathing issues, and organ problems.
1.7 It Nourishes Hair, Skin and Nails
Vitamin A and C, found by juicing collard greens, provide collagen and support sebum production. Collagen gives your skin and hair youth and elasticity. Vitamin A also promotes sebum that is a key factor in keeping your hair from breakage. It also strengthens your nails. The iron found in the juice improves the nails.
1.8 It Supports Gut Health
True, overall health starts in the gut. Both the high water and high fiber content in collard green juice help prevent constipation and makes your digestive tract function smoothly.
1.9 It Lowers Cancer Risk
Research studies suggest that cruciferous vegetable juices such as collard greens helps reduce breast cancer, colon cancer, upper digestive tract, and kidney cancer.
The glucosinolates, a sulfur-based compound in collard green juice, may also lessen stage progression for lung cancer, prostate cancer, esophageal and pancreatic cancer, and may have some benefit for melanoma development.
If you juice collard greens, they contain high levels of chlorophyll. Chlorophyll helps act like a firewall for your body by blocking carcinogens that are produced when we cook foods at high temperatures.
2. Are Collard Greens Good For Juicing?
Collard greens are great for juicing. After washing them, they only require tearing up or cutting up and placing into a food processor or blender.
Collard greens are one of the best vegetables to juice since they combine water, fiber, and up to one gram of protein per every ounce of juice. This makes it a wonderful low-calorie drink or smoothie snack.
One cup of juice is about one cup of vegetables that will help you reach your dark green leavy vegetable quota for the week.
Juicing collard greens brings out their energizing and anti-inflammatory enzymes and helps your body digest it easier and faster.
3. Do Collard Greens Clean You Out?
Collard greens do act as a diuretic and help you clear out your digestive tract. The high, water-soluble fiber content detoxifies and eliminates waste.
4. Is It Safe To Juice Raw Collard Greens?
While it is safe to juice and consume raw collard greens, this should be done in moderation since it can cause gas and bloating for some people.
5. Possible Side Effects From Juicing Raw Collard Greens
While collard greens have many health benefits, they can also have some potential downsides to consuming too much. These are:
- Since the green juice contains a high fiber content, this can cause stomach discomfort.
- By itself, the juice can taste very bitter. Since this may upset some people’s stomachs, you may wish to follow the recipe below to reduce its effects.
- Too-high doses of alpha-lipoic acid found in collard greens may cause cell damage.
6. Collard Greens Juice Recipe
Use tender young collard green leaves for best effects. You can blend a cup or two of raw or boiled collard greens. Toss the raw or cooled leaves into a blender or juicer.
Keep in mind that collard greens can taste bitter. If you don’t want to drink it straight, you can mix the juice with some 100% apple juice, orange or mango, or beet juice to spice it up. To make a smoothie, throw in a frozen chopped banana, a few mixed blueberries or strawberries, and ground flax seeds with a spoonful of almond butter.
Conclusion
This information is not intended to serve as medical advice and you should always check with your doctor when changing your diet or medications.
From vitamins to reduced disease risk, infusing your daily life with collard greens can have surprising health benefits.
Juicing collard greens is a great way to add more leafy green vegetables to your diet and boost your overall system for a better and healthier life.
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