Blend vs Juice – a natural remedy for eczema

Blending or juicing, either one on its own can be a natural remedy for eczema, and in fact for all kinds of health conditions. They are great even for the healthiest person. They have been known to reverse diabetes, kidney disease, and many other serious conditions… even cancer! When it comes to blend vs juice, there is no right or wrong answer. Which to choose, it all depends on your unique set of circumstances, which we will explore in this article.

Here is our favourite green detox recipe, which can be used in a blender or juicer.

How is blending or juicing a natural remedy for eczema

A natural remedy for eczema has to heal from the inside out. Because eczema is much deeper than a skin problem. It is usually caused by a multitude of internal health issues, with a prominent presentation on the skin, one of our largest organs. Causes of eczema include: allergies (food and environment, for instance, dust mite, pollen, polluted air and water), vaccine-induced, steroid-induced, leaky gut, overworked elimination organs, weakened immune system, and stress.

By blending or juicing, we give the body the right conditions to heal itself and right the imbalances internally, by flooding the body with the vitamins and minerals it needs. Our health centers around the gut, or the digestive system. It is the root of all good things and bad, in our body. That is why the gut is also known as our ‘second brain’. It is intricately linked to our nervous system, as well as our immune system. Therefore, we are what we eat.

More information about how our gut is linked to the immune system can be found on this website: www.hopkinsmedicine.org.

But why can’t we just eat a clean and healthy diet, with lots of fruits and vegetables? Why does blending or juicing have to come into the equation?

It is because there is a limit to how much great food we can chomp down daily. Digestion takes up lots of energy from the body, energy which could otherwise be channeled into healing itself, for instance, through repairing of cells and eliminating toxins.

Blending and juicing predigests the food, so as to free up the body from the burden of digestion, or at least lighten the load. That is why a water fast is such an effective remedy to many deep-seated health issues, as it shifts gear for the body to focus on healing, instead of fighting the daily fire of digestion. But please note that a water fast is not for everyone, as it can be dangerous. It has to be closely monitored by qualified nutritionists or holistic doctors. More information can be found here: www.globalhealingcenter.com.

Blend vs juice – the face off

To decide which is for you: blend vs juice, here are the pros and cons of each:

Blending pros and cons

The blender essentially helps to ‘chew up’ our food into tiny pieces, so the stomach has an easier task of digesting it. The great benefit of this, over regular chewing, is that our intake of fibrous fruits and vegetables can be in much larger quantities. Look at what you put into the blender. To chew up those stalks of celery, those two apples, and those green leaves would take ages. By blending, you’re also mixing it with water or some other healthy fluid like coconut water or some rice milk, so you simply gulp down the entire meal.

Full of fiber

Compared to juicing, blending up a smoothie gives a feeling of fullness, as it includes all the fiber that gets thrown out with juicing. So it can be a meal replacement without posing any potential health risk. Of course you can still have your grains and meaty proteins afterwards, but blending your fruits and vegetables and having it before your ‘chewable’ meals ensures that you prioritise the tummy space and fill up on the most important stuff first.

Slower healing

Since the blender only cuts up the food into much smaller pieces, they still have to go through the entire digestive system. So in this sense, our digestive system is only partially off-loaded, and we still need to use up some energy to process the food. Hence, whatever healing that we are seeking from drinking our smoothie will be at a slow and steady pace, compared to juicing.

Verdict: steady healing, sustainable lifestyle

A diet based entirely on blending is totally sustainable, for as long as you want to do it. Especially if you are on a plant-based diet, you can easily incorporate nuts, seeds, and even some grains like oats, into the blender recipe. So blending as a lifestyle serves to improve your health steadily, and maintain it at an optimum level.

Juicing pros and cons

Juicing basically ‘squeezes’ the fruits and vegetables to extract the natural liquids, along with vitamins, minerals, and other goodness from the plants, like phytonutrients. The solids are entire separated from the liquids. But these don’t have to go to waste. You can use the pulp to make patties, or your home baked goods, like cake, cookies, or other pastries. Or feed it to your pet.

Deep healing

Juicing aids in deep healing, as the juice is readily absorbed into the bloodstream quite instantaneously, with zero digestion involved. It frees up your digestive system, so your body can use its energy to repair cells, or do some housekeeping like sweeping out the dust from under the carpet.

Many people think that juicing is not healthy, as it is full of sugars. In fact, these natural sugars are exactly what our body needs, as they bind to all the vitamins, minerals, flavonoids, phytonutrients, etc. to make these goodness bio-available to us. And a juice fast is the most potent and effective way to heal any disease. But make sure you talk to your doctor, as certain conditions, like diabetes, require close monitoring if embarking on even a short fast.

More pronounced symptoms of healing crisis

Due to the depth of healing that takes place with a juice fast, there may be more pronounced effects of a healing crisis. You may feel weak, light-headed or lethargic. Eczema symptoms may worsen before things get better. You may feel cranky, moody and just out of sorts. Your body needs time to adjust to no solids intake. Things will most definitely be difficult, especially if it were your first time fasting on juice only. After the initial period, about 3 to 5 days, you will start to feel better. Check out www.rebootwithjoe.com for more information.

So it is important that you are able to adapt your lifestyle to accommodate these changes taking place as you heal. If you can plan for a long weekend at home at the start of your juice fast, that will certainly help to ease things up. Go slow, forget about your social life for the short duration that you adapt to juicing. Rest and relax as much as you can, try to engage in light activity, but not strenuous exercise.

Verdict: Juice fast helps with urgent conditions, but a diet based entirely on juicing is not sustainable

A juice fast paves the way for urgent deep healing when your health is in dire states. It directs the body to just focus on healing and getting well. But a diet without any solid food intake is definitely not sustainable. Two weeks of juice fasting is my personal limit of comfort zone. Beyond that, it is safer to seek professional guidance and monitoring.

In fact, who says it has to be as drastic as a juice fast? Juicing can be incorporated into part of your normal diet, simply to increase the uptake of readily available nutrients. In this way, it can become part of your routine, part of your lifestyle for the long term.

Your unique situation

Blending and juicing both have great benefits for our health. They help us increase our uptake of the essential vitamins, minerals and other goodness from fruits and vegetables, which we would otherwise take ages to chew and digest. Both act as a stomach outside of our body, predigesting the foods so that our body is freed, partially or wholly, of the burden of food digestion.

Which to choose: blend vs juice, as a natural remedy for eczema, depends on your unique situation. The state and urgency of your eczema, or any other health conditions, is the most crucial deciding factor. Other factors include lifestyle (whether you can slow down to cope with the healing crisis), how you incorporate blending or juicing into your diet, and finances (a juicer generally costs more than a blender). No matter which you choose, it will be for better health. So have faith and keep blending (or juicing)!