The Juicer's Way

In response to some questions I have gotten regarding juice cleanses:

The typical length of one of my juice fasts is between 2 and 7 days. The length of the actual "fast" is 3-4 days. I believe in "the harder they come, the harder they fall", so it's a good idea to ease into it and ease off of it. I have used a "cleansing system" (through GNC) once before, but it was of no use to me. It was basically a mulitvitamin and a fiber pill. I mix up the juices that I use, between homemade juices and Naked juices (www.nakedjuice.com), which are available at most grocery and health food stores. I use the Naked juices primarily for breakfast as I am up too early to be running the juicer (and Ross might take issue with that). My recent favorite is the "Green Machine". It's a green juice that contains 100 mg of spinach and broccoli, but is fruit based (apple, kiwi, banana). It tastes wonderful. The key ingredient for me is the wheatgrass extract, though. It's a FABULOUS detoxifier and has really saved me from being incredibly fatigued by the end of my shift. More on wheatgrass:

"Wheatgrass juice has been proven over many years to benefit people in numerous ways: cleansing the lymph system, building the blood, restoring balance in the body, removing toxic metals from the cells, nourishing the liver and kidneys and restoring vitality. One ounce of wheatgrass juice has the vitamin and mineral equivalent of 2.2 pounds of fresh vegetables. It contains most of the vitamins and minerals needed for human maintenance, including the elusive B12. Many of the benefits of wheatgrass juice stem from the fact that it is a living food, which is a complete protein with about 30 enzymes and is approximately 70% crude chlorophyll. To be effective wheatgrass juice has to be drunk immediately after juicing and, up until now, has not been easy to grow at home in the quantities required for healing, so wheatgrass has not achieved the popularity it deserves. "
-Shirley's Wellness Cafe

In my experience, fruit based juices are much easier to handle than vegetable juices, so I need to pay careful attention so that I don't overdo my sugar intake. Hot sauce has become a must-have for me. I have found an excellent (though somewhat low-maintenance) website that has some pretty decent green/vegetable juice recipes on it: http://www.biosupply.com/juicerecipes.htm

As far as fruit juices go, you might notice that a lot of recipes use apples as a base, even with oranges. Interesting.

My old standby vegetable juice:
pseudo V8:
-handful of baby carrots
-one whole tomato
-5 stalks of celery
-handful and half or so of parsley (yielding 2 tablespoons)
-hot sauce to taste

Fruit juices are different, depending on what I want to get out of the juice nutrient-wise, but one of my favorite things to do is to just throw a bunch of different fruits together to see what I get. It usually turns out pretty good. I don't really focus on how much I'm drinking, though when I'm paying attention I notice that my caloric intake isn't exceptionally low. It's a highly enriched liquid so it fills you up. I typically drink around 3 or 4 a day.

On to the benefits:
There are skeptics out there on the true benefits of juice cleansing. I look at it this way: Your body uses 25% of it's energy in the digesting of food alone. Once your body isn't focusing on digesting food from our culture's typically processed diet (you can process it down to low-fat, low-carbs, low-sugar, but it still has more additives and preservatives than I can certainly pronounce), it can finally start to work on what has been building up. Bizarre things occur when you do this. A lot of people experience "crisis healing", which is your bodies reaction to the release of toxins. This usually happens the second day and can last a couple of days. When Ross did his first juice cleanse, he was stricken with the most horrendous headache of his entire life. I may feel fatigued, but I usually get a little achy. Common reactions are: headaches, skin breakouts, a white tongue, body aches, stuffy ears and lots more. Weird stuff. I make sure to drink lots of water as it expedites the process.

I've noticed that this only lasts for a day or so and by the third day, I'm overwhelmed with well-being and energy. My mood clears up, I sleep better, I'm refreshed and energized. I ease off about the 4th fourth day. I have to be careful because I'm so acutely aware of my tastes and very few things sound good. Avocados, bananas, salads, and other things light in nature have worked really well for me. I definitely don't crave pizza.

I would like to stress that this very different from a water fast. For one thing, while I'm abstaining from solid food, I'm still filling myself with nutrients and calories. Some people do water fasts as the process goes much quicker, but I look at that as a much more spiritually guided experience.

Here are some informative sites have found on the subject of juice cleansing:
http://www.freedomyou.com/fasting_book/juice%20fasting.htm
http://altmedicine.about.com/od/detoxcleansing/a/juice_fasting.htm

I understand the skeptics on the issue. This is definitely something that's viewed in our culture as something on the fringe, but the benefits I have experienced are undeniable.

Regarding juicers: here is what I wrote in a 3FC thread: If you decide to invest in a juicer, best of luck. I was borrowing a friend's for a while that she got from Bed, Bath, and Beyond and it was loud and didn't juice properly. My bf and I ended up buying the Jack Lalanne power juicer and LOVE it. It's big enough so that i'm not chopping everything up and very quiet. I did not get the one off of the infomercial, but from Target (the infomercial one is $200, compared with the scaled-down one at Target, which is $100). If you aren't sure if you would even like the taste of it, borrow one. Chances are you know a ton of people with a juicer sitting in their cabinet that is never used.