Juicing, the way we currently understand it, with the range of produce and the machines that we have available today, is a relatively new invention, approximately only 100 years old.
Certain types of juicing practices are much older, for example, we have been making hot coffee from the coffee bean for centuries. We’ve been making orange juice and citrus juice for centuries, and of course, for thousands of years, people have known how to make wine from a grape.
When we talk about juicing, we’re really talking about the modern concept of juicing, which involves mechanical devices and a specific philosophy.
The first philosophy of juicing is that it’s somehow healthy. In the past 100 years, we cannot get all sides of the different types of experts to agree.
The controversy over whether or not juice is healthy, in my opinion, is because the different sides have their own agendas.
The juicing industry and advocates have an agenda and the people with medical backgrounds or nutrition backgrounds that don’t like juicing, also have an agenda. As a result, both parties have made juice still a best kept secret, even as ubiquitous as you may think it is. I may venture and guess that 97% of the world still does not rely on fresh juice as an important supplement in their regular diet.
On one end of the extreme, you have medical people who may say that there are deficiencies in juice because it’s missing a large portion of the fiber. Additionally, certain people would be really concerned when a person drinks a lot of fruit in their juice and they are taking on a lot of fruit sugar, even though it’s naturally occurring fruit.
Some people think that drinking the juice, because it’s lacking in fiber, will spike the blood sugar levels because the juice digests so quickly and the sugar can get into the bloodstream very, very quickly. It also must be recognized that a person eating Chinese food, for example, spikes their sugar levels extremely high and their levels can stay high for 2-3 days depending on a person’s chemistry. So the idea is that if a person drinks a juice with a high amount of sugar in it, what should be observed is not how high the sugar levels spike, but how quickly they return to normal because of the potential benefits of the produce and the micro and macro nutrients and all of the compounds that it contains. I challenge anyone to find any individual that would go on a juice cleanse as an example, which means that they are eliminating all other foods and mistakes, that the individual would have any type of chemistry problems.
In a juice fast, a person can improve their chemistry, even if their chemistry problem is diabetes, type 1 and type 2.
So be careful here, if a person has a really shitty diet, that's high calorie with plenty of junk food and they add a fresh glass of orange juice, that orange juice might not make them feel better because you have to consider their overall diet, not just the glass of juice. So in order for a person to get into the juice movement, they have to be willing to give up some junk food in their diet, otherwise they are only adding to their problem by adding another source of calories, whether it’s fruit and vegetables. So the first question to ask when you’re thinking about juice, “why would anyone think it’s beneficial?” It’s beneficial because salad, salad is beneficial to our bodies. Salad is leafy vegetables and is extremely beneficial to a creature like us and quite frankly, we just don’t eat enough of it. We should probably be eating at least 2 leafy green salads per day with an assortment of colorful produce. In most cases, people are not getting enough. For most people, turning that salad into a liquid is a better alternative.
First and foremost, juice is a pure source of water. It’s naturally occuring H2O in all of that juice that you’re drinking.
Secondly, it’s because your body absorbs it very quickly that makes it beneficial, not a problem. Your body can absorb nutrients in a burden free way quickly, without exerting as much energy as required when digesting other food groups that are solid. That means there is left over energy to be used by your immune system, not just to digest dense food matter.
Now, if anyone cannot believe that there is science behind the fact that it’s difficult to digest certain foods, spend time with very sick patients, they don't have enough energy to digest dense foods because their bodies are so weak. In that case, people would benefit from juice, room temperature juice. Because when it’s cold juice, the body has to bring it back down to room temperature, which requires energy. When you’re healthy, that doesn’t matter. I once knew a guy who was so weak in his illness, that the way he was taking in nutrients was through a feeding tube, it wasn’t going into his mouth, and he was pouring room temperature juices into his feeding tube as his source of nutrition.
It’s wrong to look at juice and say “what juice should I be drinking?” because all of the produce is good. If you have access to everything, you should juice everything, while simultaneously cleaning up the rest of your diet. During the gold rush era of juice cleansing, which was 2010-2014, I watched thousands of people juice cleanse. At Juice Press, we must have helped 150,000 people do a cleanse, but I wasn’t paying attention to everyone. I dealt with people of all types of mindsets, all types of chemistries. You would think in all of those years as a commercial enterprise, moving through all kinds of people in New York, that we would have to have a juice cleanse problem hotline. In all of those years, not only did we not make anybody sick from dirty produce, I never saw anybody have a complication, not even panic, which is psychological.
You know, when a person does a juice cleanse for the 1st time without their comfort foods, it’s expected that there will be anxiety or panic…. I never saw that one time. I met people who did 30 day juice cleanses, the first time ever doing a cleanse… they just jumped right into it.
Not 1 time did anybody ever mention on social media that they became diabetic, needed heart surgery, got sick, nor had to go on medications.
Of course, the conclusion that I’m drawing is “anecdotal” but I read medical studies and I see how they conduct their studies, some of the studies are “anecdotal” and some are just bad science. In addition, I have read many studies on health and not every scientific study out there is reliable. Many of them are conducted very poorly and the desired conclusion from the study can be biased. So you can’t say that just because what I’m saying is anecdotal that it is invalid.
The primary purpose of juice is to illuminate all dietary mistakes, which otherwise burden the body. When we drink juice, we are trying to extract the essence of a particular piece of produce.
Nutrition in the classic sense pertains to carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals derived from eating or drinking. Juice provides a balance of each of these components. Depending on the juice and your desired effect, you take in calories as well, so it is energizing, too. And of course, each juice contains a percentage of water, so it’s hydrating.
The first reason to use juice, then, is for its calories and content of nutrition, while the second is expensive hydration with delicious flavor. Juice becomes particularly beneficial when used in a cleanse, which allows the body to rest and heal. In the last 15 years, I’ve met hundreds of doctors who cannot believe the healing power of juice because they follow the classic textbooks on nutrition, or the chemistry that they follow is wrong.
Of course, the most powerful type of a liquid fast is always a distilled water fast because you deprive your body of all the nutrients that keep you alive. A water fast of 72 hours or longer flushes the body of toxins and signals stem cells to reactivate a new immune system.
But a water fast is very difficult to achieve, so it’s recommended that a person practice building up to a water fast with juice-only cleanses, in order to regain some of the nutrients you lose on a liquid diet. With a juice fast, you sustain yourself on liquids while getting enough calories to not be exhausted. The setback with the juice is that it doesn’t trigger the same stem cell release because your body will consume the nutrients rather than consume itself the same way that it does on the water fast.
A water fast and a juice fast are both physical and spiritual processes. I recommend that on a juice fast or water fast, a person really prepares him or herself with breathing exercises, prayer, meditation, and spiritual reading. It is a good thing to keep a journal and write notes about how you feel--take an inventory of yourself, so to speak.
To achieve incredible results, a juice fast should last anywhere from 5 to 10 days, 21 to 30 days, or even up to 60 days is perfectly safe.
Do not attempt anything without consulting a physician before you do it.
As we break down the benefits of juice, I ask you to push away all of the bad knowledge or prejudices that you may have. If you’re doubtful about the power of a juice cleanse, try it even just for one day. You could add smoothies with foods like bananas or nuts for extra calories if you like.
The primary benefit of juice is that you can abstain from dietary mistakes of all kinds, and this is where the healing is: in the elimination of dietary mistakes. It is what you leave out of your diet that allows your body to do what it is naturally designed to do, which is to heal from both internal and external visual, audible, spiritual, and emotional injuries.
Let’s begin with the simple way to use juice. Pretend for a moment that you have a perfect diet. There is no danger in you drinking a carrot juice once a day to get more beta carotene and enjoy whatever benefits beta carotene has been proven to give the body.
Is there any risk that juice alone will spike one’s blood sugar levels? Spike is a violent word.
Your blood sugar levels are designed to rise, stabilize, and then fall back to normal. If you think that animal protein does not spike blood sugar levels, you obviously do not understand chemistry and science.
The reason why the sugar in fruit, and even in juice, is safe is because the companion nutrients that are in that particular produce are still intact. The only thing that might be missing is all of the insoluble fiber.
This fiber is believed to be beneficial to slowing down the introduction of the sugar into the bloodstream, which gives the body more time to absorb it into the cells rather than just sticking around the bloodstream, which causes a problem.
Juice is like a pilgrimage, and not just if you do a juice cleanse, but if you make it into a way of life each day. Take fresh juice in your hand the same way you would take the salad or the water and thank it. Set an intention of fixing your relationship with food. Drink this juice as though it is a divine answer.
If you choose in your mind to believe that juice can heal an illness, it may actually work. What you believe has enormous power over your chemistry to a large degree.
A lot of people have asked me to help them understand when to use juice versus a blended smoothie.
There is not a very big difference, except that smoothies can be made more caloric because you can blend things that are not only liquid. Additionally, within a smoothie you can add powders that blend in or are more palatable.
In terms of cleansing in the classic sense, the more you leave out, the more the body can do its healing work. With a smoothie, its detox benefit is a little slower than drinking juice, but this is also abstract and not perfect as a science. It’s a theory. The closer you get to pure plain water, the more powerful the detoxing will be because of how it does not interrupt the body’s ability to clean up its own mess.
Juice and smoothies are a wonderful tool to aid in the beginning of a weight-loss program followed by the introduction of solid foods and a lifestyle pattern. But on its own, a juice cleanse should not be used as a weight-loss program. It doesn’t make sense. The Western world is fascinated and obsessed with weight loss programs that do not actually change eating patterns in the long run. This is total nonsense.
Remember, when your chemistry is in its best power and can clean up a lot of dietary mistakes, your body will function better as a calorie burning machine, and you will likely burn off the needed materials provided that the calorie pool remains below a certain threshold.
All statements herein have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The products on this website were not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.