With over 180k tags on Instagram, celery juice has become one of the biggest health and wellness trends of the year. However, despite all the hype there is little to back up these health claims.
And with well known ‘health gurus’ spouting pseudo-science, celery juice as an all-curing magical elixir has exploded on the health and wellness scene.
Health Claims of Celery Juice
Some of these health claims have included increasing energy, cleansing the liver and digestive tract of mucus, and promoting weight loss. Many of the claimed health benefits are vague and unsubstantiated. It’s also unlikely that reported benefits are down to consuming celery juice specifically, but a result of taking in more fluid and nutrients, which is not specific to celery juice.
As far as celery juice being a detox drink, your liver is already working 24/7 to detox your body, along with your kidneys, digestive tract and lungs.
If you’re choosing to drink celery juice as a conscious move to be healthier or alleviate symptoms, it’s likely you’ve also made other healthy changes such as increasing wholefoods and reducing processed foods high in sugar, fat and salt.
Nutritional Benefits of Celery
From a nutritional point of view, juicing celery does provide a way of getting extra water and vitamins into your daily diet. Celery also contains beneficial nutrients such as folate, potassium and manganese.
However as with juicing any fruit or vegetable, we lose out on all the fibre. Fibre is an important food component for optimal digestion and supporting a healthy gut microbiome.
So should you drink celery juice?
If you do want to add celery juice to your daily routine or enjoy as and when you fancy there’s no harm in doing so. That is, if you’re not allergic that is, or needing to restrict potassium intake as with those with kidney disease.
It can be a healthy addition to a wholefoods plant-based diet rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds and grains.
Just remember, no one food will be the answer to your health issues. Overall diet and lifestyle choices and habits over time are key to optimising health and reducing risk of disease.
Mindy Perley-Martin
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