Most of us find it difficult to drink water, we are more eager to grab a bottle of coke. We want a flavour, we want the sweetness in a liquid. Most packed juices have many added ingredients such as sugar, artificial colours or preservatives. Embracing drinking water, teas, and any natural (fresh) juices will be beneficial at this season.
At a time like this, a higher intake of vitamins and minerals is essential for maintaining a healthy diet and boosting your immune system. Adding fresh juices to your daily routine helps you consume more servings of fruits and vegetables. Squeezed juices of fresh fruits and vegetables should replace any kind of fizzy, carbonated, sugar-rich drinks that you normally buy from the supermarket shelves. Avoid or cut down drastically on alcohol too.
What Should I Drink ?
Ayo Elizabeth Olaogun is a certified Nutritionist and fashion entrepreneur based in Australia. She talks about boosting your immune system on her YouTube Channel. Her insightful conversation not only advises us on the kinds of fruits to juice but also benefits of those fruits and other tips.
Below is a highlight of the interesting video;
- Contrary to a couple of opinions, making juice doesn’t take so much time. It can be 5 – 10 mins which is inclusive of washing the juicer and fruits
- When making a juice, wash thoroughly and throw in some of your favourite fruits such as Apples, Pear, (Source of Vitamin C and K) and any green vegetable that is easy to come by like celery or spinach (Source of Vitamin B, E , C and K) . If you aren’t really into vegetables, you can stick with fruits and if you don’t have a juicer, you can make a smoothie instead with a blender.
- You can add a tea spoon of Ginger and a teaspoon of oil (Source of Fat soluble vitamins such as Vitamin A, D, K, and E). The oil could be olive oil, or coconut oil, Not vegetable oil. Ayo explains that the reason for the oil is to help the body digest the diver vitamins and minerals in the fruit juice or smoothie.
- The best time of the day to make and take your juice/ smoothie is before the first meal of the day.
- As much as possible, cut down on carbonated drinks and all other unnecessary sugar to help build up and preserve your immune system.
- To preserve the immune system you need to take a lot to water and fluids. Since drinking water might be a problem, you can add fruits like strawberry, blueberry , lemon etc in water to make it flavoured and enjoyable.
- Alternatively, you can wash and eat your raw fruits, straight away!
Note that you can have different types of fruits and as many fruits as you want. This juice can replace every frizz drinks, alcohol and any other sugary foods out there.
Are you going to be trying a fruit juice today? Let us know in the comments and share your recipe.
About the Writer
Ayo Elizabeth Olaogun is the founder of Eat Right Africa and the Creative Director of popular fashion brand, Ayo Van Elmar. The trained nutritionist started the Eat Right Africa initiative “because she could no longer do nothing with her long acquired knowledge and initial professional background as a nutritionist.” Eat Right Africa aims to ignite a positive change in the mental attitude of Africans towards food and health.