Food & recipes

Wellbeing: Jo Wood on Juicing

Natural Health’s green guru Jo Wood offers ideas for energy-boosting wonder juices, and looks forward to growing her own

Natural Health’s green guru Jo Wood offers ideas for energy-boosting wonder juices, and looks forward to growing her own
I hope you are starting the new year on a high, and by that I mean a natural high! It’s a great time to detox and boost your immune system so you can face the rest of the year feeling good and with a clear mind. I’m going to share with you a few tips on how you can become your very own kitchen pharmacist.

From my book Naturally: How to Look and Feel Healthy, Energetic and Radiant the Organic Way I have some great recipes I’d like to share with you. We all know juicing is a fantastic way to take on board your five-a-day. You can juice whatever you have been growing in your garden, as well as from all the wonderful produce that’s in season. With each one come a different array of great vegetables, and you can also add into this with a number of wonderful supplements and ingredients to suit your needs like ginger, ginseng, aloe vera juice and wheatgrass to name but a few.

My top five juice drinks are (the ingredients below are for one serving):

Jo’s Detox: a great detox juice to get the gut moving. Carrots are a fantastic soother for the intestine after all the indulgences over Christmas. Juice 3 large carrots with 2 medium-sized beetroots and get ready to cleanse!

Turn Up the Volume: a juice full of antioxidants, and a wonderful immune booster. Juice 1 pink grapefruit, 1 carton of cranberries and 1 apple for a real feel-good factor.

Wake Up Call:a great drink to energise and boost you in the morning. Ingredients: 1 or 2 teabags, 50ml soya, almond or rice milk, 4 cardamom pods, 2 cinnamon sticks, four black peppercorns, 2 teaspoons fresh ginger, 600ml water and honey. Place the spices in a pan with the water, cover and heat for 20 minutes, remove from the heat and infuse the tea bag(s) for about 4 minutes. Add the milk and honey to taste and drink hot.

Cool Runnings: a brilliant decongestant to beat runny noses. Juice 2 carrots with 2 oranges and stir in 4 tablespoons of chopped coriander leaves at the end.

The Classic:hot water and a slice of lemon throughout the day to cleanse and keep you hydrated.

The sunshine vitamin

As well as juicing to keep you well when it’s cold, a vitamin I personally invest in at this time of year is Vitamin D. During the warmer months our bodies use sunlight and convert it into the vitamin, which we need to help balance our hormones. People in warmer climates seem to have a much happier disposition; just look at how we all have a spring in our step as we welcome in the warmer months.

A great reference website which I’m sure you are familiar with is James Wong’s (jameswong.co.uk) from the BBC2 series Grow Your Own Drugs. James has lots of tips and remedies on how to beat colds and flu, and how to grow your own remedies.

I loved this series so much that I’m going to be running my own grow-your-own campaign later on this year, and I hope you will join me in taking on this challenge, and getting out into the great outdoors. These early months are time to start thinking about preparing the ground, your gardens and allotments, and even your window boxes if you are a city dweller.

A great diet, with some added boosters and lots of fresh air, is a fantastic way to keep yourself healthy and get ready to embrace spring.