Carrot juice
I have recently started to drink 100ml of home-made fresh carrot juice each morning. Is this the correct amount to do any good or am I wasting my time?
The body will convert the betacarotene nutrients in your carrot juice to vitamin A, which is an important antioxidant, especially if you suffer from skin problems, as and when the body needs this nutrient - so you will not overdose, even if you were to triple this daily intake. The real key to obtaining the maximum health benefits of any vegetable or fruit juice is to drink it straight away while the enzymes are still active.
In a five-year study, conducted at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospitals, cardiologists found that taking the equivalent of 50mg of betacarotene a day reduced the risk of heart disease and stroke by 50% which is another good reason to keep up your juicing.
What you do need to do is double your dosage. I say this because we know from nutrition tables that 227g of carrot juice provides the therapeutic daily dose of almost 25,000 international units (ius) of vitamin A and if you work on the basis that 1g of the raw carrots produces roughly 1ml of juice, then at 100ml a day, you are not taking enough to get the maximum benefits.
If you were to take betacarotene supplements, which can also help support the immune system over winter and reduce your risk of age-related macular degeneration too, you would be taking no more than 300mg, since dosages higher than this can turn the skin a yellowish tinge.