How to alkalize your body first thing in the morning

As you may have read, I have once again become a proponent of juicing. If you are unsure what exactly juicing involves, read the above article that will tell you the basics of this health-producing activity.

Although I will explain in more detail in future articles, in brief you want your body to be slightly alkaline not acidic on the pH scale. Therefore starting your day by alkalizing your insides is a healthy thing to do—every day. With that said, my new, favorite morning routine looks like this :

• First, right after I wake up, I drink a glass of water with a lemon ice cube melted in it. I do this prior to doing anything, including walking my dog, Quincy Blu. This helps to alkalize my system right away. (Although it seems counterintuitive, lemon juice creates alkalinity not acidity in your body.)
• Second, after returning from our morning walk, I make myself a wonderful glassful of cantaloupe juice. Another easy way to alkalize my insides along with supplying essential nutrients. All before my morning cup of coffee (I only have the one). 

I usually use half a melon unless the cantaloupe is especially large. As with most fruits and vegetables when juicing, the entire rind of the cantaloupe is used as well as the fruit inside. At first this may sound strange, but almost all of the vitamin and mineral content is held in the rinds of fruits. So by drinking the entire cantaloupe, I am getting tremendous benefits, outweighing just eating the inside fruit alone.

Citrus fruits, in general, are the only produce where you don’t put the rinds through the juicer. If you do, it can cause indigestion. (Cantaloupe juice, by the way, isn’t quite as orange as in this photo. Because you are juicing the rind as well as the fruit inside, the juice has more of a greenish hue to it. Still yummy, no matter the color.)

Cantaloupe is one of the only instances where you do remove the seeds before juicing—or at least I do. If not, they will not be ground in the juicer (they are too flat) and you might find them scattered about since they kind of fly out of the juicer. If you don’t mind this, don’t remove them. Sometimes you can remove most of the seeds while leaving the netting they are held in, which is part of the cantaloupe and does have nutrient value. For me, the mess is not worth the small amount of juice I’ll get from the netting with seeds, so I just scoop all of that out of the middle of the melon.

Cantaloupes are high in vitamin C and provitamin A (beta carotene) and contain high quantities of digestive enzymes. They are also on the higher side of alkalinity, something imperative for healthy body mechanics. Cantaloupes are actually one of the most nutritious fruits available. Drinking this juice first thing in the morning is giving my body a good start each day. Because it’s a seasonal fruit, I usually juice cantaloupes in the warmer months. 

On a personal note: I adhere to several of the rules of food combining. One rule is never mix melons with any other food, including other fruits. So, although when I juice I usually combine several fruits and vegetables together to make one drink, I juice cantaloupe by itself. I drink it first thing in the morning then wait at least 30 minutes before eating or drinking anything else.

I have a routine when I get home from the store to get off as much of the pesticides and other residual “stuff” that might be clinging onto my produce. When you juice, you must not skip this step, otherwise you could be taking in chemicals and toxins that cancel out some of the benefits of the juice you are drinking.

Give cantaloupe juice a try for a first-thing-in-the-morning pickup me up. But be careful: you might get hooked!

For more information, see:

• Juicing for Better Health
• A Quick Tip to have fresh lemon juice at the ready—always
• Hot water and lemon to the rescue