What is a Cranberry?
In technical terms, cranberries are grouped in the subgenus Oxycoccus of the genus Vaccinium. If you are just like me, who don’t care about the cranberries’ heritage, you can refer them as a group of small evergreen shrubs. By the term “small” you can expect them to grow up to about 8 inches in height, and that is quite low in the shrub family. When first produced, the cranberry fruits are white in color, turning to a luscious red when they ripen.
Cranberries are also categorized as a superfruit. To be labeled as a superfruit, the fruit must contain a rich amount of nutrients and antioxidants, together with an alluring taste which can command a strong appeal to the customers. Therefore, the fruit will be able to retain loyal customers based on these two elements. Some of the superfruits include acai, goji and pomegranate. Of course, cranberries now belong to this big family due to its exceptional nutritional content and taste.
Why Cranberry Juice?
According to the health authorities and experts, we need to consume seven servings of vegetables and fruits in order to supply our body with the necessary nutrients. This is where juices are more well received as compared to eating fruits and vegetables. When you add in the time factor, you will find that juicing is a much more convenient method as juices can be consumed anytime during the day. With that being said, there is actually a time period which is deemed unsuitable for drinking juices, and that is just before you sleep. When you sleep, this is the period when your body rests. Therefore, forcing your body to do extra work during its resting period will result in a less effective absorption of nutrients.
Raw Cranberries Taste Horrible
Like I mentioned earlier, cranberries are not suitable for direct consumption due to its acidity. Hence, extracting juices out of these healthy fruits seems to be the next best method. Juices are also easily digested and absorbed into our blood circulation due to its liquid state. This explains why you will experience an energy boost for the rest of the day after drinking your morning juices.
Cranberry Juice Provides Health Benefits
When you drink cranberry juices, you are protecting your body against numerous diseases and conditions, all because of the high nutritional content of these fruits. Cranberry juice contains a rich amount of nutrients, consisting of important vitamins, minerals and enzymes such as beta-carotene, folic acid, vitamin C, calcium, chlorine, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium. After enriching your body with all these nutrients, cranberry juices still have one trump card left – antioxidants.
Cranberries actually contain more antioxidants than 19 of the most commonly eaten fruits, and antioxidants help to fight against heart diseases and cancer. In addition, antioxidants also protect your body against the harmful environmental pollutants such as smoking and UV rays. You will learn more about the other cranberry juice health benefits in the next chapter.
The Best Cranberry Juice
However, despite all the benefits of the cranberries, pure cranberry juice does not taste that great. Many people do not like the bitter-sourness taste of the pure cranberry juice, but hey, don’t you know that healthy food doesn’t taste good? This is why many companies have added extra flavorings into the juice to make it taste better, as well as to appeal to the consumers. But at the same time, adding extra chemicals and preservatives lowers the nutritional value of the juice, which kind of defeat the purpose in drinking cranberry juice.
If you are looking for good natural cranberry juices which pack a ton of nutrients, I will recommend the Lakewood Pure Cranberry Juice. These cranberry juices doesn’t taste as nice as the other commercialized cranberry juices, but they are extracted from organic cranberries and contain much more nutrients than the other cranberry extracts and juices. In my opinion, drinking pure cranberry juices, such as the lakewood cranberry juice, is the next best option other than extracting the cranberry juices with a juicer machine.
Cranberry Juice Benefits
Alright, after knowing the nutritional content of cranberries, we shall now talk about the cranberry juice benefits. Some of the listed benefits contain biological terms and explanation which gives you a better idea on how cranberry juice can help to protect your health.
1.) Reduce Urinary Tract Infections
One of the biggest healing effects of the cranberry juice can be traced to the presence of Proanthocyanidins (PACs). PACs reduces the adhesion of E. coli to stick to the urinary tract and bladder walls. And since E. coli is one of the major bacteria which causes up to 90% of the Urinary Tract Infections (UTI), drinking cranberry juice does help to prevent most cases of UTI.
2.) Prevents Stomach Ulcers
Just like E. coli, stomach ulcers are caused by the H.pylori bacteria which sticks to the stomach walls. Research has shown that 50% of the people above the age of 60 have stomach ulcers, and just in America alone, 25 million people are suffering from this disease. Not only that, the H.pylori bacteria is also known to cause stomach cancer and inflammation too. Thankfully, drinking cranberry juice inhibits the adhesion of the H.plyori bacteria to the intestinal and stomach walls, which helps to prevents ulcers from occurring.
3.) Keep Your Heart Strong
Cranberry juice contains a large amount of flavonoids which help to reduce the amount of low density lipoprotein (LDL) in the arteries, which is also known as bad cholesterol. LDL restricts the flow of blood and causes atherosclerosis, which can lead to chest pain, blood clots and even heart attack. In addition, flavonoids not only reduce the amount of LDL, it also increases the high density lipoprptein (HDL), more commonly known as good cholesterol. In this way, the blood circulation is kept at a healthy level, which promotes the strength of your heart.
4.) Remove Dental Plague
Cranberry juice contains nondialysable material (NDM), which can stop oral bacteria from residing in our teeth and gums leading to the formation of dental plague. As you know, dental plague is resistant to brushing and mouthwash, and they are extremely hard to remove unless you opt for a visit to your dentist. If your teeth are stained with plague, now is a good time to drink cranberry juice and wave your dirty teeth good bye!
Special Cranberry Juice Benefits for Women
Apart from the general health benefits, drinking cranberry juice also appeals to the ladies due to its specific health effects. This does not imply that they are not applicable to men. In fact, these are the same cranberry juice benefits for men too, just that in my opinion, they matter more to the women. Ladies, its time to drink some cranberry juices to pamper your body, your skin and your health!
1.) Anti Aging
Anti aging is one of the most popular topic in the twenty first century, especially with the ladies. With the debate on the various anti aging methods and techniques, antioxidants has also become one of the hottest topic as it is often associated with anti aging properties. Earlier on, I have mentioned that cranberry juice contains a vast amount of antioxidants, and antioxidants have strong anti aging effects acting both internally and externally for our bodies.
2.) Protect Your Skin
Everywhere we go, we are exposed to free radicals from our polluted environment, and our skin is the most exposed organ to the highly damaging UV rays. UV rays from the sun is one of the largest source of free radicals which causes skin damage and skin cancer. Free radicals are extremely reactive molecules which destroys our skin cells, causing damage and aging effects to occur on our skin. In our bodies, antioxidants act as neutralizing agents. They neutralize the free radicals by reducing their volatility, and to a large extent, minimizes the possible aging effects of our skin.
3.) Rejuvenate Your Complexion
Cranberry juice contains a large amount of vitamin C, which not only serve as an antioxidant, but also help to synthesize collagen. Collagen is one of our primary structural protein, playing a large role in maintaining a natural and youthful complexion and skin tone. When we are young, our skin are firm and supple because of our strong protein structure. However, as we grow older, these protein structures break down and causes our skin to lose its suppleness. By drinking cranberry juice, we are injecting our bodies with a high supply of vitamin C and it can help our skin cells to replenish faster and grow thicker, which helps to rejuvenate our complexion.
4.) Lose Weight by Boosting Metabolism
Metabolism is the way your body processes and converts the food calories into energy. Our weight is dependent on the amount of calories consumed versus the amount of calories burned. To lose weight, you have to either reduce the calories consumed or increase the calories burned. Freshly extracted cranberry juice contains beneficial enzymes which boost your metabolism, and by boosting your metabolism, you are actually burning more calories. This might sound confusing, but in short, increasing your metabolism and keeping a healthy diet leads to an effective process to lose weight. In our next chapter, you can read more about how you can lose weight healthily and effectively with cranberry juice.
Does Cranberry Juice Help You to Lose Weight?
Cranberry juice does provide you with a ton of health benefits. However, there has been an uprising trend on drinking cranberry juice to lose weight and I’ll like to clarify on this issue. Although I have previously mentioned that drinking cranberry juice boosts your metabolism which allows your body to burn more calories resulting in weight loss, you shouldn’t depend solely on cranberry juice as a losing weight miracle drug. Instead, cranberry juice should serve as a part of your daily diet to help you to shed off the extra pounds in a more effective and healthy manner.
Be Wary of Cranberry Juice Diet
Currently, you can find many juice diets and juice fast which teaches you to replace your meals with cranberry juices or other juices for extreme detoxification and weight loss. However, the truth is, juice fasting and cranberry juice diet do not help you to lose weight in a healthy manner. Also, when you switch from a solid food diet to a liquid food diet, you are causing more harm to your body due to the sudden change in the state of the food intake. Some of the symptoms include giddiness, lower energy levels, and more stress on your mind and body. Some of the “experts” might claim that these symptoms are evidence of the successful detoxification process, but in reality, these are the warning signs shown by your body when it is adapting to the change in diet.
Why Do People Lose Weight When Adopting a Cranberry Juice Diet?
When people adopt a juice diet, the amount of calories in the juice diet is much lower than our standard diets. Like I mentioned earlier, lowering your calories intake is part of the equation to weight loss, therefore, you will experience weight loss with a juice diet. However, this occurs at a huge expense. Cranberry juice diet, or any other juice diet, is not able to supply your body with all the necessary nutrients. What you experience could be a temporal weight lost effect, and once you switch back to your standard diet, you will gain back what you have lost. This type of method for losing weight is extremely unhealthy for your body and the constant switching between liquid and solid food diet will cause a huge strain on your health.
How Should You Drink Cranberry Juice to Lose Weight?
Cranberry juice should be consumed as a part of your weight lost program. Your program must be based on the tested and proven formula of reducing your calorie intake and increasing the amount of calories burned. This is where cranberry juice can play a part in boosting your metabolism, which aids in burning more calories. Increasing your physical activity such as adopting a regular exercise regime is also another option which helps to burn more calories.
Most importantly, cranberry juice should not be used as a meal replacement, but as a meal supplement. One of the easier methods is to replace your drinks, such as coke, with cranberry juice. Cranberry juice contains lesser calories while bringing further benefits in burning calories. When you compare cranberry juice with sweetened soft drinks, you will quickly understand which is the healthier and beneficial option.
Amount of Calories in Cranberry Juice
If you like to keep track on the amount of calories in your diet, an 8oz or 250g cup of cranberry juice contains approximately 130 to 140 calories. Pure and sugar free cranberry juice contains a lesser amount of calories, but you have to endure with the cranberries’ tart and acidic taste. An alternative is to mix the pure cranberry juice with water to reduce the tartness of the juice.
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