Fresh Fruit Juices and their Benefits for Health - on Friday January 8th 1999

A pharmacist and associate professor is teaching subjects in pharmacognosy, natural products for health at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Chiang Mai University. She has been studying the use of medicinal herbs in the natives with local herbal doctors in the North. Her Thai books published are Vitamins, Diet and Cancer; and Natural Products for Health. Her presentation in the workshop will show how to get a fresh ready-to-drink juice directly out from vegetables and fruits and use them for several clinical purposes.

Juice Therapy

Fresh and raw vegetables, fruits, sprout and herbs can be blended, extracted or squeezed or spin and the inside liquid from the materials will directly flows to be juice. Juices of vegetables and fruits have a variety of tastes such as sweet, sour, bitter, salty, spicy hot, and astringent according to their ingredients. The common vegetables are carrot, tomato, lettuce, celery, lemon grass, onion, ginger, cucumber, and any other kinds; and common fruits are lemon, pineapple, tamarind, coconut, papaya, and Some other parts of plants, stem, leaves, roots are also used such as aloe vera and sugar cane. We should drink juice before meals or when our stomach is empty for the easy absorption and quick effect. We can immediately take 3-4 more times of the nutrients than from the corresponding vegetables and fruits. Juicy drinks are tonic and dietary supplement with a high concentrate of enzymes, sugars, amino acids, proteins, vitamins, minerals, anitoxidants, soluble dietary fibers, etc. Several anticancer phytochemicals are also present like vitamins A and C, lycopene, carotenoids and bioflavonoids.. These compounds work synergistically to promote healing, energy, and disease protection. They have been used for their therapeutic benefits as for example followings:

• Give energy to our organs and reduction of fatigue and weakness.
• Detoxification of toxins, and free radicals
• Assist the digestion of foods.
• Reduction of glucose in blood in diabetics.
• Anti-inflammation effect
• Antifever effect
• Diuretic effect
• Immune enhancing effect
• Either anti constipation (laxative effect) or anti-diarrhea
• Antiulcerative effect