Juicer Recipes – 3 Vegetables for Heart Health

Juicing your vegetables is an excellent way to get a super dose of their healthy nutrition. There are three vegetables in particular that provide many of the nutrients required to fight heart disease. So, what are these well researched vegetables?

SPINACH

Spinach adequately supplies vitamins A and C and together these are both powerful antioxidants that protect artery walls and cholesterol from free radical damage. Cholesterol becomes sticky if it is oxidized by free radicals and will then adhere to the artery walls leading to possible blocked arteries and a heart attack.

The muscles of the heart will not function properly with out magnesium and potassium. If our potassium and magnesium levels get too low, this can cause irregular heart beats and even a possible heart attack. The good news is that spinach contains potassium and magnesium in abundance. Further more, these two minerals also help lower blood pressure.

Spinach also contains other blood lowering components – peptides. Research has found that blood pressure levels in animals was lowered in as little as two to four hours. The animals consumed just 20 – 30mg of peptides for each kg of body weight each day

Juicer recipes idea: Adding an apple to your spinach juice will make it a lot more tasty. You will also need a considerable amount of spinach to produce enough juice, 5 or more cups will do it.

BROCCOLI

Broccoli contains good amounts of the cardio-protective vitamin C and vitamin A (see spinach above for benefits). Broccoli also contains sulforaphane, a phytochemical that can protect the heart. It appears that sulforaphane “tells the body” to release a protein called thioredoxin.

In addition to this, broccoli is also abundant in vitamins A and C, which carries the heart health benefits described above for spinach.

Juicer recipes idea: Juice the florets and the stalks to get maximun nutrition benefits. Also the stalk contains more juice than the florets.

TOMATOES

Is it a fruit? Is it a vegetable? Either way way its great for your heart! It’s high levels of a phytochemical known as lycopene that makes tomatoes an awesome vegetable for a healthy heart. Research at Harvard discovered that giving women lycopene over a period of five years reduced their risk of developing heart disease by 50%. Lycopene has also been shown to lower blood pressure

Juicer recipes idea: Tomato pulp can be saved and used in soup.

Darren Haynes enjoys writing about health subjects and especially about food and its healing qualities. Check out my juicer recipes blog Juice Recipes