The health benefits of juicing are myriad. Carrot juice is the powerhouse of juices because carrots are rich in alpha and beta-carotene. (Pumpkins are also rich in carotenoids.)

The carotenoids in pumpkin and carrot juice are scientifically proven to make you more attractive and eating a few servings of carrots each day gives you skin the same glow as being out in the sun.

But there’s a catch.

Most of us start juicing to get healthier and conventional wisdom says that fats are unhealthy. Yet you need fat to get the full benefits of carrot’s carotenoids.

Don’t have a juicer? Read our Guide to Buying the Best Juicer.

In “Carotenoid bioavailability is higher from salads ingested with full-fat than with fat-reduced salad dressings as measured with electrochemical detection,” scientists tried figuring out what would happen to a person’s blood levels of carotenoids if they ate no fat, low fat, and high fat salad dressings with their carrots, tomatoes, and other vegetables. What they discovered might surprise you: 

After ingestion of the salads with fat-free salad dressing, the appearance of alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, and lycopene in chylomicrons was negligible. After ingestion of the salads with reduced-fat salad dressing, the appearance of the carotenoids in plasma chylomicrons increased relative to that after ingestion of the salads with fat-free salad dressing. Similarly, the appearance of the carotenoids in plasma chylomicrons was highest after the ingestion of salads with full-fat than with reduced-fat salad dressing.

There are several simple ways of adding fat to your juices:

• You can drink your juice before eating a fat-containing meal. Try steak, eggs, and green juice or wild Alaskan salmon with carrot juice.

• Eat an avocado. 
• Ean eat a handful of walnuts.
• Add olive oil to your juice.
• Add two raw egg yolks to your juice and mix them in with a fork.
• Mix in some liquefied coconut oil, or just eat the coconut oil.
• Take a few fish oil pills with your juice; or use krill oil.
•  Drink this fish oil. (It actually tastes pretty good.)
• You can mix your juice with almond, hemp, or coconut milk. (Get the unsweetened stuff.)

A quarter-cup of walnuts or almonds, 8 ounces of almond or hemp milk, a tablespoon of olive oil, coconut oil, flaxseed oil, or a few fish oil pills will do the trick.

Keep juicing!

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