Using cabbage juice to heal ulcers

Ulcers are found in the digestive tract and can cause severe pain. An ulcer is an open sore that is found in the lining of the digestive tract. Cabbage juice has been used for many years to heal ulcers.
Ulcers are widespread in North America and Europe and can be stimulated by a number of triggers including stress, the wrong diet and alcohol. The use of some prescription drugs such as aspirin and ibuprofen can also cause ulcers.
There are two main types of ulcer. Peptic (gastric) ulcers that are found on the lining of the stomach whereas duodenal ulcers are found on the lining of the upper small intestine (duodenum).
The pain experienced by people who have ulcers is caused by the open sore coming into contact with acidic digestive juices. When food is ingested it can bring temporary relief from the pain as the acids are neutralised by the food but the pain returns after the food is digested.
Between 1949 and 1952 Dr Garnett Cheney studied the effects of cabbage juice on ulcers. The results of these and other studies have been documented such as the ‘Rapid healing of peptic ulcers in patients receiving fresh cabbage juice’ (California Medicine 1949;70:10-14).
The findings found that peptic ulcer patients who drank 4 glasses of raw cabbage juice daily were healed in between 4 and 10 days and that x-ray examinations confirmed the faster healing times that were experienced when compared to hospital stay treatments that would take 30 days on average. The healing effects of the cabbage juice also relieved the pain associated with the ulcers.
If you have an ulcer then you should avoid eating pineapple as it contains enzymes that are often used as ‘tenderisers’ for fatty meats (such as gammon). These enzymes will attack the site of the ulcer and increase the problem and pain.

Cleaning your juicer

There are many plus points for juicing but for most people, cleaning the juicer is not one of them.
When choosing a juicer one of your considerations should be 'how easy is the juicer to clean?'. The easier it is for you to clean your juicer is to clean the more likely you are to use it. Thankfully today’s juicers are relatively straight forward to clean but as we will see they do vary in their ease of cleaning.

Some tips for cleaning your juicer
Always clean up as soon as you have finished making / drinking your juice. Juice and pulp will initially rinse off in luke warm water easily and nothing could be easier but as the juice / pulp dry off they will become sticky and become 'glued' to the juicer parts. This means that you will have to scrub / use hotter water / more soap to get the dried on juice and pulp off.
Use the right tools for the job. Some parts of the juicer will rinse / wipe clean easily but the most tricky part of the juicer to clean is normally the juicing screen which seperates the juice from the pulp. The juicing screen is normally made from a fine mesh (like a very fine sieve) and fine strands of pulp tend to get lodged in these holes. The best type of tool to clean the juicing screen with is a brush (e.g. a nail brush / tooth brush / vegetable scrubbing brush) under running water as the brush bristles do a good job of getting into the fine holes in the screen mesh.
If you are using a non-pulp ejecting centrifugal then a spatula that fit snugly inside the basket is an invaluable time saving tool for emptying the pulp out of the basket.
Use of a dishwasher is suitable for the removable parts of some models of juicer but check with the manufacturers instructions and make sure the warranty is not invalidated by placing removable parts in the dishwasher. If in doubt then hand wash.
If you use your juicer more than once a day do you need to clean all the parts each time you use it? Some juicers have more removable, more fiddly parts (such as twin gear juicers). If you are going to juice later in the day you can simply stand some of the parts in a bowl of water in the fridge or wrap them in clingfilm and put them in the fridge. They can then be used later in the day and then cleaned properly after the last juicing episode of the day.
Juicer type effects ease of cleaning
When talking about cleaning the juicer we are really talking about disassembling the juicer, cleaning the different parts and reassembling them. The easiest of all juicers to clean would be the manual citrus juicers. Centrifugal juicers are fairly simple to clean with the juicing bowl the basket sits in, the pulp basket and the lid.
Twin gear juicers and single gear juicers are slightly more fiddly to disassemble and assemble as they have more parts.
For most juicers, 2-5 minutes is the time required to clean and reassemble your juicer so it is ready for the next juice making event.

Which juicer

When choosing a juicer to buy there are a number of important questions you should ask yourself:

What ingredients will I want to juice? Can the juicer juice these ingredients?
How easy is the juicer to use?
How easy is it to clean the juicer?
How much juice does the juicer extract, i.e. how efficient is the juicer?
How many nutrients does the juicer extract?
How long will the motor / parts last?
How much do I want to spend?

With these points in mind I have outlined the different types of juicer available and point out their strengths and weaknesses:

Citrus Juicers
Citrus Juicers only juice citrus fruit - oranges, grapefruit, limes and lemons. They work by the half fruit being pressed down onto a spinning cone that reams the fruit. On some models the user presses the half fruit onto the reaming cone by hand, on other 'citrus press' models the 'lid' of the machine is pulled down onto the half fruit to press the fruit onto the reaming cone.
They give a better juice yield from citrus fruit than other types of juicer. They are also very quick to use as the citrus fruit does not need peeling, just chopping in half. They produce good quality juice.
Many people use a citrus juicer as well as a masticating / twin gear juicer so they can enjoy rapidly made citrus juices as well as vegetable and fruit juices.

Centrifugal Juicers
Centrifugal juicers work by feeding the chopped up fruit and vegetables through a chute onto a spinning basket that grates / chops the fruit / vegetable when it comes into contact with the baskets grating base. This grating process releases juice from the plant cells. The spinning action of the basket creates a centrifugal force and the pulp is collects against the basket walls. The juice is also forced to the walls of the basket by the centrifugal force but it passes through the tiny holes in the basket walls and out of the juice ejection spout of the juicer.
Advantages:
Quick juice preparation time as produce can be fed into the juicer quickly.
Relatively large feeding chamber when compared to masticating and twin gear juicers so fruit and veg doesn’t have to be chopped up as much
Convenient way to get juicing
Much cheaper than masticating and twin gear machines
Disadvantages :
Rapid speed means heat and air introduced into juice – this reduces the shelf life of the juice.
Not as efficient at extracting juice and nutrients as masticating and twin gear juicers. Juice can be frothy compared to other methods of juice extraction.

Citrus fruit must be peeled
Noisy – the high speeds required to generate the centrifugal force and eject the pulp mean the motor noise is the loudest of all juicer types.
Not capable of juicing wheatgrass or leafy greens

Masticating Juicers
These juicers work by cutting and ‘chewing’ the produce. They expel the pulp at the end of the juicer and so allow for continuous juicing. They fall between centrifugal juicers and twin gear juicers in their health benefits / convenience.

Twin Gear Juicers
For those looking to gain the best health benefits from juicing we recommend twin gear juicers. These work by crushing and pressing the produce to break down the produce fibres and release more juice and nutrients. Some models also come with bioceramic materials built into their design which are believed to extract more nutrients and extend the shelf life of the juice. This means that juice can be stored in a sealed container in the fridge and be consumed the next day.
Twin Gear Juicers are capable of juicing almost any type of produce including wheatgrass and leafy greens and so enable the user to benefit from the widest range of nutrients possible from their juicer.
Advantages
Excellent juice quality, both in taste and nutrient content
Excellent juice yield from your ingredients meaning you will save money in the long run
You can use your juicer for some other food processing functions
Juice has a much longer shelf life that centrifugal / masticating juicers
Excellent results from wheatgrass and leafy greens
Disadvantages
Slowest to use due to smaller feeding chamber, slower feeding time and slightly longer cleaning.
Not very efficient at juicing soft fruits, this can cause clogging. This is why people with a twin gear juicer often purchase a separate citrus juicer for making breakfast citrus juices.

Fruit juice and kids

Children who drink 100 percent fruit juices tend to weigh less than those the same age who drink no juices at all, a new study has revealed.
Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, USA, studied data provided by the parents of about 3,600 children ages 2 to 11 from 1999 to 2002.
The surveyed parents recorded everything their children ate and drank within a span of 24 hours and listed their height and weight.
Dr. Theresa Nicklas, who was involved in the study, said in a statement: "We did not find a relationship between 100 percent juice consumption and obesity among children. Even among the children who consumed the most juice, we found no association at all with the children being overweight or at risk from being overweight."
An association between 100 percent juice consumption and weight was noted in children ages 2 to 3, but the children who drank a lot of juice tended to be thinner than their peers rather than heavier. The researchers found that the kids ages 2 to 3 who drank the most juice were close to three times less likely to be overweight or at risk for being overweight than children their age who were not juice drinkers.
If you are making any juices for your children the usual recommendations given are for adults and do not apply to children. As a guideline, children younger than 13 should not drink more than 145ml/ 5 fl oz of raw juice a day, and should always drink their juice diluted with water. Teenagers can begin to drink undiluted juices, but no more than one to two servings per day. Dilution is necessary because fresh juices can be rather thick in consistency and strong in taste, are always very concentrated, and may be too potent for young digestive systems.
I didn't have time for breakfast this morning so just had a juice for lunch. 'Veg out' is yet another very healthy drink with strange ingredients - 100g cauliflower, 2 small carrots and 1 large tomato. The cauliflower, like broccoli, doesn't juice that well with my juicer so the finished result was a little lumpy. To get round this just put the juice into a blender and blend until the lumps have gone. It should make about 200ml, but I think I managed to get about 100ml out. Bright orange in colour, this vegetable juice is definitely an acquired taste. The sweetness of the carrot juice does balance out the other more bland flavours however and this one was strangely nice! Rating 3/5