My mornings are always so interesting. It seems to me the craziest things tend to happen to me in the morning. Perhaps its because I’m not quite awake. I am a morning person by requirement, not by desire. Left to my own devices, I am a night owl. I come from a long, proud line of night owls.

Back to mornings, though. This morning, as I was preparing to make a fresh juice for myself and my lovely bride I had something happen that has NEVER happened to me before. As I dropped the first carrots into the chute at the top of the juicer, I started to feel like I was getting sprayed – which is weird. I suddenly realize there is carrot pulp shooting all over my kitchen.

I shut down the juicer and survey the ring of orange around the kitchen counter and across my chest. What? Just? Happened? Apparently, when I put the juicer together, the top did not seat properly into the base, leaving a microscopic gap between the two pieces that was large enough to allow the pulp from the carrots to be propelled by the speed of centrifugal force in about a 300° circle. (Ironically, there’s a pulp chute on the back of the juicer, nowhere for it to go that direction).

I wiped up the carrot shrapnel (surprisingly dry, not wet and sticky at all) and set about re-assembling the juicer to alleviate the issue. Which I did. Mostly. At any rate I was able to finish my juice preparation with minimal mess.

Juicing is perhaps my favorite wellness habit, besides essential oils, that we have incorporated into our lifestyle. Concentrating the essence of a variety of vegetables and fruit to extract as much nutrition as possible enables me to take in much more plant based food than I did before. Juicing has done that for us.

The health benefits from juicing are legion. In addition to simply getting more fruits and veggies into your system, juicing regularly has also been shown to improve skin, digestion, sleep, overall energy level, and in extreme cases – reverse health crises.

For me, it all started with the movie Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. This guy, Joe Cross, was more than 100lbs overweight and suffering from an auto-immune condition. He, somewhat famously, went cold turkey on vegetable and fruit juice for 60 days. The result was, in a word, miraculous. If you haven’t watched the film, I encourage you to do so.

After watching the film, we decided to buy a juicer. Actually first, we bought a blender. For me, though, juicing is better. When we run the veggies and fruit through the juicer we end up separating a lot of pulp. That pulp represents the majority of the insoluble fiber that our bodies don’t absorb anyway. Notice I said most…not all. The resulting juice still has plenty of fiber in it and actually has concentrated the enzymes and other phyto-nutrients so they enter our cells more quickly.

Nothing wrong with blending or smoothies and I do that too. But for me, day to day, I find that I prefer juicing. Recently, I’ve begun incorporating my Young Living Vitality Essential Oils into my juicing as well.

For example, last week I juiced a blend of oranges, spinach, celery, cucumber, and bell pepper that tasted a little flat. So I added a drop or two of Lemon Vitality essential oil to the batch and it helped to brighten the flavor. Yes, I could have just juiced a lemon, but I didn’t have one.

This morning’s recipe called for carrots, apples, and ginger but I generally find that juicing fresh ginger root doesn’t really work. So instead, I added two drops of Ginger Vitality essential oil and that did the trick.

Now it’s your turn. Do you juice? What’s your favorite recipe? What’s your favorite wellness habit that works for you? Let’s talk about it…

For more information on juicing, including ideas, recipes, and juicing diet plans, check out rebootwithjoe.com.

For more information on Young Living Essential Oils, click on Deeper Wellness or contact the person who introduced you to Young Living Essential Oils.