Anti-Flu Juices and Broths

Inspired by the last blog I decided to come up with my own Anti-Flue Juicing Recipes.

Here are some juicing recipes that can help treat the symptoms and causes of the flu –

Immune System Builder Tonic

The garlic and Vitamin A content help restore lost minerals and electrolytes to the body.

Handful of parsley
1 garlic clove
5 carrots
3 stalks of celery

Bunch up the parsley and push it through the hopper of your juicer with the carrots and celery and drink immediately for best results.

Potassium Broth

Sometimes a person with the flu can tolerate lukewarm broths better than sweet or salty juices. This is a juice that can be served hot or cold that is valuable when it comes to replacing fluids that have been lost through diarrhea or through a high fever.

Handful of parsley
Handful of spinach
4 to 5 carrots
2 stalks celery

Push parsley and spinach leaves and push them through the juicer hopper. The juice the carrots and celery. Drink immediately or warm in a saucepan and serve as a clear soup.

Anti-Dizzy Tonic

The flu can make people dizzy either due to dehydration or to congestion. The following recipe contains ginger root juice, which is the classic remedy for dizziness.

¼ inch slice of ginger root
4 to 5 carrots
half an apple, seeded

Push the fruits and vegetables through a hopper and serve as immediately for best results.

Fever Fighter

The cucumber is a vegetable with a cooling effect on the body.

Cucumber with skin removed
Dash of salt

Juice cucumber and serve as is to fight dehydration.

Sinus Clearing Tonic

Radish is traditionally used to clear phlegm from the body.

2 whole red radishes
1 tomato
2 celery sticks
2 carrots'
handful of parsley

Push ingredients through the juicer's hopper and serve immediately. Even holding this juice in one's mouth for one or two moments will increase its effectiveness.

Body Rebuilder Juice

This vegetable cocktail contains a lot of greens and sprouts which contain all types of enzymes that can help clear and rebuild a body that has been battered and weakened by a bout with a cold or flu.

1 cup alfalfa sprouts
½ cup cabbage sprouts
½ cup asparagus stems
5 kale leaves
1 medium carrot

Push all ingredients through the hopper of your juicer. Drink immediately. For optimum results hold the juice in your moth for a few moments so that the enzymes can accomplish their beneficial work.

Flu Prevention Cocktail

The grapes have potent antiviral and antibacterial activity.

2 apples without seeds
1 large bunch of grapes, off the vine
1 lemon

Juice all of the ingredients. Serve as is or over ice.

The key to getting a sick person to drink juices is to serve them with plenty of water in case the taste is too strong. Also drinking juices with small sips is better then drinking no juice at all if the person is having trouble keeping juice down

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Choosing a Juicer

To keep my kids healthy I have been juicing more fruits and vegetables and also blending the juice into smoothies. Fresh juices are also great to make fresh pasta sauces with. 

A juicer is not like a blender because it is specifically designed to moisture from the fibers of fruits and vegetables. Juicers work by separating the liquid inside a vegetable or fruit from its pulp. I sometimes use the pulp leftover from a juicing session to make muffins especially if I am juicing carrots or cranberries. If you want you can use a blender to make some kinds of juices but I am a purist. I also don't want to bother straining pulp from juices.

The easiest juice to create manually is from citrus fruits, which you can just squeeze into a glass from your hand or by rubbing half of the fruit over a manual citrus juicer. The best juices on the market are the high-speed electric juicers. There are four kinds – the centrifugal, the centrifugal with pulp ejector and the masticating juicer with hydraulic press. The centrifugal juice chops the fruit or vegetable up and then spins it is an interior bucket at a high speed that helps separate the juice from the pulp.  The pulp stays in the basket until you remove it. The ones that have pulp ejectors pop the pulp out of the machine through a side opening into a collection container. The most popular brands are the Olympic, Phoenix, Braun, Oster, Sanyo and Panasonic models. They can cost anywhere from $50 to $150. 

The masticating juicer is a high-speed machine that chomps up the vegetable or fruit into a paste and then presses it all through a screen to eject the juice.  Some of these juicers have hydraulic presses attached. Champion and Norwalk are well known masticating juicers. They are largely used for pressing wheat grass juice.  You can also get electric wheat grass juicers that are faster and more sophisticated and are designed to juice produce that is difficult to put through a machine normally such as sprouts, lettuce and avocadoes. 

If you are feeling old fashioned you can also make juice by hand. You can buy juicing kits in houseware and department stores that consist of inexpensive grating boards and heavy duty cloth bags.  If it is wheat grass juice that you are after you can also buy special manual wheatgrass juice grinders. Some people would rather use a manual juicer with wheatgrass juice as it is thought that high-speed juicers oxidize the sprout or green juices.

Oxidization causes the enzymes to be degraded with free radicals. To determine whether or not a juice has been oxidized during the juicing process taste it. If it has a bit of a metallic taste after you extract it then you may have bruised some of the vitamins and nutrients it contains.

Here is a good store to find a juicer.

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