Juicing is a great way to get added nutrients into your diet, BUT if you are not going to juice 100% organic, you may be causing yourself more harm than good. Every year, the conventional U.S. agriculture industry goes through more than 1 billion pounds of pesticides and herbicides. ONLY ABOUT 2 PERCENT of that actually kills insects; the remaining 98 percent goes into the soil, air, water, and food supply. So not only is the outside of nonorganic produce covered in pesticides, it is actually absorbed into the produce itself! And for that produce traveling a long distance…a wax coat can sometimes be put on it to make it look nice. Then when you go to wash your “fresh” produce, the pesticides are trapped under the wax coating. So don’t be fooled that you can wash pesticides off easily. It actually takes a lot of work to get that wax coating off.
Another good practice when buying your produce is to buy local organic. This will not only get you the most nutrient dense produce (since it is usually picked within days of going to your favorite market), but organic produce imported from foreign countries may not have as high of standards as the U.S. In some countries, yes even on organic, carcinogenic sprays are still legal!
When making juices, you may be surprised as to how many fruits and vegetables it takes to make that 24oz glass. That is why it is soooo important to juice organic. If you juice with conventionally grown produce, you are significantly increasing the amount of pesticides getting into your body.
For Example:
In our 24oz “Sweetly Green Juice” we have to put in 1 Cucumber, 2 Apples, 8 large Kale Leaves, 1 large bunch of Spinach leaves, a handful of Parsley, and a half a Lemon! Multiply that many fruits and vegetables by how many juices you drink a week and you can see how those pesticides will add up fast!