The Culture of Cabbage Juice
Feb 24th, 2007 by Matt S
Using Cabbage Juice to Help Heal an Injured Gut
So you’ve been outside all day, working hard. You’re tired – Ready for a comfortable seat and some cabbage juice.
Cabbage juice is probably not the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of a refreshing drink, but it is a potent anti-inflammatory and a powerful aid to help heal an injured gut.
My first experience with cabbage juice came when I was 14 or so. I was sick and my parents were trying everything they could do to get me well. Our doctor recommended talking to a local couple that had healed their son with Crohns disease by having him drink cabbage juice. The night we were scheduled to go over to their house the weather was terrible. It was a mix of snow and freezing rain, and the roads were slick. I still remember spinning out in the little black Nissan Sentra we used to have, but we made it home safely.
We went out and bought a juicer and my dear mom would juice me cabbage. At the time I couldn’t stand the taste, and she would add some lemon juice which would just make it worse. Hint: Mix carrots with the cabbage for a better tasting juice. Don’t add lemon juice! Eventually, she just stopped making it because I wouldn’t drink it.
Years went by and I forgot about the whole episode. But in college when I was really trying to get my health under control I found some information on cabbage juice, dusted off the juicer (yes, it still worked!) and bought some cabbage.
Apparently in 1949 a man named Dr Garnett Cheney began to study the effects of cabbage juice on stomach ulcers. The findings showed that patients with stomach ulcers that drank 4 glasses of raw cabbage juice a day healed in 4 to 10 days. Patients that had normal treatments were in the hospital for an average of 30 days. Apparently there is an active compound in cabbage juice called vitamin U that heals ulcers. This works not only on the stomach, but also in the digestive tract.
I have never drunk 4 glasses of cabbage juice in one day; I think at the max I’ve drunk two. But its nice to know that if I ever felt like overdoing it that it would be OK 
. Seriously, you can make some great tasting drinks by combing carrot and other juices with the cabbage to make it more palatable. I highly recommend the book The Juicman’s Power of Juicing for some great juicing recipes. Right now its going for $1.98 used on Amazon.
I was following a thread about Dr. Cheney’s cabbage juice studies and ran across a discussion about the effectiveness of
DGL (deglycyrrhizinated licorice) in the treatment of peptic ulcers. Makes me wonder if anyone has any experience with licorice and its effects on IBD. Or, if you can imagine, a little licorice with your cabbage juice.
Yea, that would make a heck of a drink. Cabbage juice and licorice mmm…
Cabbage juice by itself is surprisingly pallitable. For a while I had to mix it with other stuff to get it down, but I just had a glass of it last night.. straight no chaser.
ill have to try that. if i can make a good tasting variety then i will give it a go in my regular diet. whats the ratio of cabbage to carrot (or other options)?
Cool… the taste of cabbage juice is something you’ll have to get used to.
If you get a juicer start with some tastier juices like Apple Ginger or some other fruit juices. Once your ready to move on to veggie juices a good combo would be half a head of a medium cabbage and 4-5 good size carrots. You could add half a handful of parsley to get a little extra flavor in there too. I’m at a point now where I like just raw cabbage juice, but it took a little while to get there
.
The Juicemans Power of Juicing is the best book on juicing and it has some great recipes in it. I think I picked it up for like $6 new.
I’ll also add that its important to buy organic veggies, especially when you are juicing because everything gets concentrated including any pesticides / herbicides (half a head of cabbage and 4 carrots makes about a cup and a half of juice)
Is there somewhere that I would be able to order organic cabbage juice?
I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW MORE PEOPLE HAVE RESPONDED ON THIS CABBAGE JUICE OVER A LONG PERIOD OF TIME. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO KNOW HOW TO OBTAIN IT AN EASIER WAY THEN FIXING IT YOURSELF.
i want to know how much a cabbage juice works on ulcerative colitis patient as my husband is suffering from it.
Hi,
I would just like to add that I read that the beneficial ingredients are concentrated in the dark green outer leaves rather than the paler inner leaves.
Stay away from savoy cabbage and loose leaf greens, they taste bitter. Also if the cabbage is yellowing or wilting it is pretty rank, get as fresh as possible ‘normal’ cabbage and it’s taste is sort of similar to fresh peas.
I found it hard to find cabbages with these leaves still on them, I have started growing my own as loose headed plants and just pick off leaves as required.
There is also the option of keeping one plant in the greenhouse and just picking leaves off it, know of someone who kept it going for 2 years like this. (Northern England).