Pulp Facts

News alert: Don’t juice vegetables and then discard the pulp. In the garbage goes most of the fiber. Even worse, according to a new study, you waste about half of the fabulous vitamins and phytomins. Researchers first measured levels of two phytomins: lycopene (a possible colon-cancer fighter) in tomatoes; and sulforaphane (a possible breast-cancer fighter) in broccoli. They also measured a vitamin, beta-carotene (a possible cancer and heart-disease fighter) in carrots. After the veggies were juiced and strained, levels of beta-carotene and the two phytomins in the remaining juice dropped by 30 to 60 percent. The lost phytomins and beta-carotene were found in the discarded pulp (American Institute for Cancer Research Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., August 1995).

Solution: If you want to drink your veggies, use a juicer that pulverizes the pulp right into your juice (such as Vita-Mix). Otherwise, make it a double when you mix that carrot-juice cocktail. You still won’t get all the fiber, but you might get a full measure of vitamins and phytomins by drinking twice as much.

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