Recently, the trend of drinking fresh celery juice in the morning took the world by storm. YouTubers, health bloggers and even celebrities joined the bandwagon – it was seen that the hashtag #celeryjuice garnered more than a 100, 000 posts on Instagram earlier this year. Celery juice has been labelled as a ‘miracle tonic’ that aids digestion, improves moods, gives a caffeine-free energy boost, leads to clearer skin and many more.
However, is having celery juice daily at the start of the day worth the hype? As with anything else, there are opposing views on this one.
INSIDER published an interesting entry by a writer named Jessica Booth, who shared her harrowing experience of having celery juice in the mornings. She writes that her new daily routine possibly induced another bout of her underlying ulcerative colitis condition and she ‘didn’t experience any of the other benefits she (sic) had heard about.’ She also points out that the pulp (with beneficial fibres) tends to get filtered out by the juicer, or manually by the consumer owing to its foamy – and icky – appearance.
At the other end of the spectrum, Whimn (a well-renowed Australia-based lifestyle blog) shared the story of a writer named Alexandra Carlton, who claims that she ‘drank celery juice every day for a month and it changed her (sic) life.’ She notes that her skin cleared up and she stopped yearning for her daily dose of coffee because her energy levels were much higher. She also adds that a friend of hers, who followed this celery juice routine, reported an improvement in symptoms of her Hashimoto’s disease.
There will always be people on the fence, and I belong to that category. I too tried this fad for 10 days or so, to no visible effect. However, I still wouldn’t mind having celery juice every morning.
So, what is the conclusion? Celery by itself is chock-full of nutrients and is a very healing vegetable, but as Booth correctly mentions, the fibre and pulp that is left behind by juicers forfeits the purpose of this popular habit. This has been attested by Judy D. Simon, a clinical dietician and nutritionist at University of Washington’s Medical Center in Seattle. So, if you want to get the full benefit of the vegetable, include the pulp (or just eat it raw without juicing it).
Finally – what if you abhor celery, but want to get into this healthful practice of consuming vegetable/fruit juice? These are some tasty and juice-able fruits/vegetables you might want to consider trying: cucumbers, oranges, beetroot, carrot and strawberry. Just remember – keep in as many bits of pulp and fibre you can, that’s where the good stuff is.
Mallika Venkatramani – Arts & Lifestyle Editor
