Question from Melissa
By now many are well aware of the health benefits of Cranberries. My question is, how do you make your own Cranberry juice so that you don’t have to worry about artificial sweetners, perservatives, and colors? I’d like to use a juicer, but should they be boiled first? Thanks!
Debra’s Answer
Actually, if you are wanting all the health benefits of cranberries, it’s better to drink the raw juice–it’s not necessary to cook them first.
Bottled juice is always cooked for pasturization, which gives it a longer shelf life. When you cook the juice, it destroys many vital nutrients and enzymes.
You can go ahead and put raw cranberries through your juicer. It will be very tart, however! You might want to juice it along with apples, oranges, grapes, or cherries to add some sweetness, or use a natural sweetener that also has health benefits, such as raw honey.
Even better than juicing is to blend the cranberries with water to make a juice. This gives you the fiber as well (which is discarded in juicing) which is vital for intestinal health.
In At Home With Debra : My Vitamins, I wrote about a Chinese doctor who treats cancer, heart disease and diabetes with simple, readily available foods. The healing part of these foods is the phytochemicals, which are contiained in the fibers of the foods. So you need to chew each bite 40 times (or put the foods into a very high-powered blender) to release the phytochemicals. He recommends a 2-horsepower blender (Vitamix) or preferably a 3-horsepower blender (Blend-Tec) to can masticate the skins, seeds, and stems, to make the phytochemicals readily absorbable. Home blenders typically have motors less than 1 horsepower, but it’s better to use these low-power blenders than nothing.
The containers on both blenders are polycarbonate, but these are very hard plastics and there is a minimal amount of contact time with the food. The benefits of the blended drinks far outweigh exposure to any toxic chemicals that may be present.
