Whip up your own vegetable-juice blend

There are tons of reasons to make juice at home. Aside from benefiting from all of the additional vitamins, minerals and enzymes in your diet, you can customize and make your very own mixtures, like this one, inspired by the popular vegetable drink V8.

V8 has been around since 1933, and it has that great tomato-y, salty flavor of which we can’t get enough. By making your own, you can decrease or even eliminate the amount of added sugar, sodium, food dyes (and potentially other scary things, too!). You can also mix up the blend and add more of what you love (and less of what you don’t), or add pulp back in for additional fiber. Other benefits include:

• High in potassium, so it reduces blood pressure and protects against stroke

• High in vitamin A, so it will keep your teeth, bones and white blood cells healthy

• High in vitamin C, to support a healthy immune system

• High in lycopene, so it will lower your risk of cancer and improve heart health

Homemade V8 Juice

3 tomatoes

1 carrot

1/3 of a cucumber

handful fresh parsley

1 radish

2 stalks celery

½ of a beet

1 broccoli spear

½ tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (or to taste)

salt

black pepper

Scrub and/or rinse all ingredients. Remove tops of carrots and beets. Run all vegetable ingredients through juicer. Stir in salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce to taste. For a kick, try adding cayenne pepper, hot sauce or jalapeño.