“I wonder why my lips are kind of numb, ” I thought.
So, during the first 3 or 4 days of my juice fast I used a lot of beets because they add a lot of sweetness to otherwise exceptionally bitter drinks of kale, celery, and broccoli. It’s not that I like them so much. It’s more about DISliking them less than other things.
Then I found this article from the Juicing Book guy. In summary, he says never to drink beet juice by itself and to limit the amount you drink in general. Well, here…
Beet juice should always be mixed with other vegetables and/or apple juice. Pure beet juice (from the bulb or greens) can temporarily paralyze your vocal chords, make you break out in hives, increase your heart rate, cause chills or a fever.
Holy crap! But they’re veggies! So, it turns out there are a lot of veggies you should be careful about. Weird, huh?
Paralyze my vocal chords?
It’s not a big deal because once you learn to use recipes instead of trying to make your own concoctions there are plenty of things you can make that don’t require a flavor as strong as beets to break the bitterness.
But seriously, it doesn’t take much beet juice to affect you.