Intuitively, it seems like a healthy, whole foods diet shouldn't require any supplements, juice, or therapies to keep us functioning at our highest capacity. Why, then, do we recommend juice even to the "cleanest" eaters?
In a perfect world, eating from the Earth would provide all of the nourishment we could possibly need. But our modern food system isn't designed to be perfect, it's designed to be efficient.
Crops are bred to be fast grown, high yield, and pest-resistant. Decades of large scale, commercial agriculture has stripped more and more nutrients from the soil to the point where food grown today contains only a fraction of the nutrients as food grown in past generations.
Studies comparing food from 1999 and 1950 confirm that food today contains 20% less nutrients as in the past. To put it in perspective, you would have to eat 8 modern oranges to get the same amount of Vitamin C that your grandparents would from an orange of their time.
Furthermore, most food today travels hundreds of miles and several days before it reaches your plate to eat. With every mile and every day spent in transit, foods lose nutrients. Spinach, for example, can lose over 50% of it's Vitamin A within 24 hours.
The solution to finding more nutrient dense food is improved soil quality and a more local crop supply. However, unless you have the ability to control food growing practices in your own backyard, there's not an immediate agricultural fix. However, this is why shopping local and at your community farmer's market is always a good idea!
Don't let these facts discourage you. Fruits and vegetables are still healthy. Unfortunately, they're not as nutrient dense as they once were. That's why we turn to juice to make up for the loss experienced through our modern food system. See? It's a happy ending after all.
From our green juice to yours, cheers!
