Will celery juice help with my gut symptoms?

In short – probably not.

Celery juice is a new fad sweeping social media – and it makes some pretty impressive claims. While these range from curing a host of diseases to “detoxing” the body to improving bloating and other gastrointestinal symptoms, unfortunately there isn’t one quick fix to make us “healthy”.

Is celery good for us? Absolutely.

Is celery high FODMAP – also absolutely. Celery is high in mannitol and therefore unfortunately is a trigger for IBS symptoms in those sensitive to this. If you’re in the elimination phase of the diet or you know it causes symptoms for you, steer clear.

For those without IBS, or those who have ruled out mannitol as a trigger, celery is a great option.  

Vegetable intake brings so many benefits and, in general, we simply don’t eat enough. If you go from eating next to no vegetables to adding in some celery juice it’s a good choice (as long as it’s something you enjoy).

Celery is made up of 95% water and gives us some vitamins and minerals – not a bad thing. Do remember that juicing a fruit or vegetable removes much of its fibre, so it won’t fill us up and we’ll miss out on some gut loving fibre. For this reason, I recommend choosing whole fruit & veg where possible (with the occasional juice, again, if you enjoy the taste).

Clearly, I want to talk about the taste – If you genuinely like celery, I’m not going to stop you from eating it! But if you’re forcing down stalk after stalk for the health benefits, I’d consider choosing a different vegetable, which will give you just as many nutrients.

Celery is great, but the thing with all “superfoods” is that while they might be great at doing one job (such as providing fibre, being an antioxidant or containing a certain vitamin) they can’t do the job of every food. To improve our health and wellbeing (especially our gut health), I always recommend eating a diverse range of plant foods – each of which can provide us with different nutrients.

To summarise: if you’re considering drinking celery juice and you love the taste – go for it! But don’t expect miracles in the form of curing medical conditions, “healing” your gut or “detoxing” your body post Melbourne Cup celebrations because of some clever marketing. Unfortunately, veggies don’t have magic powers.