Welcome to the Juice Lab

Keep your powders in your cupboard and try these juices created by Ilene Ruhoy, M.D., Ph.D.

Fruits and vegetables are essential to health. Luckily, cold-pressed juicing can help meet or even exceed the recommended daily intake of these powerful foods.

Numerous studies support the health benefits of juicing—tremendous anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anticarcinogenic effects among them. Whether you try it to reduce risk factors and treat symptoms of chronic illnesses, which include cardiovascular disease, depression, headache disorders, diabetes, weight gain, or autoimmunity. or consume juices therapeutically, I believe juicing is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle, and I have been juicing for years.

I was trained in both pediatric and adult neurology at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of Washington, and I received additional training in mitochondrial and neuromuscular medicine. Five years after my fellowship in Integrative Medicine under the instruction of Andrew Weil, M.D., I opened my own practice to combine the best of Western and integrative medicine—something I’m very passionate about. This integrative approach, plus a broader acceptance of food as medicine and plant-based diets, makes me optimistic about lifestyle changes that have a positive impact on brain health, including cognitive function, energy levels, depression, anxiety, and sleep.

Replacing food with powders 

Powder supplements are all the rage right now. They are capsules or packets that can be dissolved in water to satisfy a particular nutrient need. Companies create these for anything and everything, from more energy to more calm to optimal health.

How food is made into a powder

The powdered fruits and vegetables often used as base ingredients for health-boosting packets start their journey as whole fresh fruits and vegetables. They then undergo a process of drying and pulverization, but unfortunately, the plentiful phytonutrients in these fruits and vegetables don’t all survive the process. Those that do appear in the final capsule are highly concentrated. And while that may sound beneficial, our physiology can only use so much at a time, and the benefit of that compound is not necessarily achieved and much of it ends up being excreted.

So why juices instead?

For every quart of juice we drink, we are consuming three pounds of produce. Fresh and raw foods are rich in proteins, carbohydrates, essential fatty acids, vitamins, enzymes, and minerals—the most essential building blocks for our body. The sheer quantity of nutrition you obtain from 16 ounces of juice is also remarkable.

I recommend true cold-pressed juice specifically: It is the very best juice because of the way the juice is extracted. Making juice at home ensures that it is fresh, raw, and unpasteurized.

In celebration of this season’s theme of “education,” I picked six popular powders and put together nutritious and delicious juices and nut milks, along with an explanation about these superfoods and their nutrients.

A few notes about juicing: Every recipe I’ve included makes one 16 oz serving of juice. Green juice is best consumed within 24 hours of juicing; other juices last up to three days refrigerated and stored in an airtight container, filled to the top. All juices can be frozen for up to 30 days, preserving up to 90 percent of the total nutrition. All ingredients should be organic.

Please note that we are using a PURE Juicer. The instructions will be slightly different than other juicers but these are great for any juicer—we just recommend adding 25 percent more produce for the same serving size.

Topical treatments with these nutrients can make a difference in the health of our skin too, but the body plays a vital role in our skin’s health and vibrancy.

FOR ENERGY: ANTHOCYANINS

The key concept for the “Energy” juice is to use the phytonutrient, Anthocyanin to help remove as many free radicals (unstable atoms that are damaging to the body) from the body as possible and to regulate cells in our body for optimal function. This allows for energy production by the mitochondria.

The molecule that carries energy in the body is called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The process of creating ATP is called oxidative phosphorylation. There are five enzyme complexes required for oxidative phosphorylation. Enzymes are in food that we eat and juice.

INGREDIENTS 

1 cup black grapes
2 small to medium Granny Smith apples
⅓ cup red cabbage
⅔ cup small purple potatoes
Black pepper

1. Put a strainer inside a large bowl, under the PURE Juicer feed tube. Grind the black grapes and apples.
2. Wrap mashed ingredients in a press cloth or bag.
3. Cut the red cabbage into lengthwise pieces to fit the feed tube of a PURE Juicer.
4. Grind the potatoes and cabbage together.
5. Wrap mashed ingredients in a press cloth or bag.
6. Press bags into a large pitcher using the hydraulic press.
7. Serve with a fresh grind of black pepper on top.

This combo is packed with nutrients that our brain loves. Purple potatoes, although usually served cooked, boast incredible benefits when you eat them raw. They contain the bioactive anthocyanin, which is known to improve cognition and prevent inflammatory damage to brain cells. Raw purple potatoes are a resistant starch, meaning they are not digested in the small intestine; instead they become a prebiotic in the large intestine. Red cabbage contains 2-3x the amount of vitamin C than the other cabbages and is rich in the antioxidant anthocyanins.  Granny Smith apples go well with vegetables and have a low glycemic index.

Preservatives for Shelf Life

To keep fine powders shelf-stable and make sure  the ingredients will dissolve together smoothly, a variety of preservatives are added, such as silicon dioxide, corn syrup solids, pectin, stevia, and maltodextrin. Powders also contain additives for food safety, such as sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, lactic acid bacteria, and metabolites.

Although certainly important to ensure the safety of consuming these products, the idea that they need further ingredients for consumer protection goes against the intent of a healthy and natural lifestyle approach. This bioprotective culture is a consequence of the increasing amount of packaged, boxed, and bagged foods—decreasing our work burden but increasing our risk of poor health.

FOR METABOLISM AND MITOCHONDRIA: LYCOPENE

Each food has substrates and cofactors for the electron transport chain. The electron transport chain consists of five enzyme complexes, all of which require cofactors for their enzymes to function and substrates for the enzymes to “work on.” The chain’s function is oxidative phosphorylation to synthesize the energy molecule adenosine triphosphate.

INGREDIENTS

1 medium red beet
1 Granny Smith apple 
1½ cups greens (or more—you can’t go wrong doubling this)
Cinnamon stick

1. Cut all ingredients into lengthwise pieces to fit the feed tube of a PURE Juicer. For greens, cut the ends off, fold in half, and move through the feed tube.
2. Grind all ingredients together. 
3. Wrap mashed ingredients in a press cloth or bag.
4. Press into a large pitcher using the hydraulic press.
5. Using a microplane, garnish with cinnamon from a cinnamon stick.

The mitochondria is the “powerhouse of the cell” because it stores and creates energy for our cells and body from adenosine triphosphate (ATP). If constant triggers cause inflammation, what happens to our energy/ATP when our body is in a continuous battle in the gut? We run out of energy. Digestion is the conversion of complex carbohydrates via fermentation. This is a core activity of the human gut microbiome and efficient production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), such as butyrate, acetate, and propionate, which are found in the apple in this recipe. They help to ensure a healthy gut microbiome. These SCFAs are critical for the mitochondria to produce enough energy for our complex homeostatic physiology. Our whole body depends on our mitochondria to provide us with energy.

This is because our cellular turnover mechanisms at times go wrong and can manufacture an atypical cell. Our immune system is tasked with watching out for foreign presences and will target atypical cells to try and combat their division. A robust immune system and optimal health can only help in this biological effort.

Environmental toxins

We are exposed to contaminants and toxicants daily. Exposure to minute amounts of any chemical can be harmful, and we are exposed to a multitude of chemicals, even in minute amounts—parts per trillion (ppt)—over decades of life. This creates a tremendous burden for our metabolic physiology and can contribute to inflammation, leading to disease and dysfunction over time. Unfortunately, we do not have direct control over what is in our air, our water, and our soil. We can do our best with filters, etc., but  we do have control over some exposures, including the foods we choose to eat.

The implication of a hack is that the real deal is burdensome and complicated, so why not try something that makes the process easier? We wish these hacks were a perfect solution, but like with exercise, there are no true hacks for real health. While it may be more convenient to use a dissolving powder or capsule (especially for those who travel), they are not the same or as efficient as fresh fruits and vegetables.

About Ilene Ruhoy

Ilene Ruhoy, M.D., Ph.D., is a board-certified neurologist for adults and children. She holds a Ph.D, in Environmental Toxicology and is a graduate of the University of Arizona Integrative Medicine Fellowship. She is also a graduate of the Helms Medical Institute Acupuncture for Physicians certification program. She is the founder of the Center for Healing Neurology in Seattle;a coeditor of Integrative Neurology, an Andrew Weil, M.D., Integrative Medicine series published by Oxford Press in July 2020; medical director for the EDS/Chiari Center at Mount Sinai Hospital South Nassau; and PURE Juicer’s Chief Medical Officer.

*Please cut produce lengthwise so it fits through the feed tube. If you are using another juicer, consult the instructions for the best way to prepare produce for juicing.