[THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE! THIS PAGE IS STRICTLY POSTED TO OFFER NEW AVENUES TOWARDS OPTIMAL HEALTH. IF YOUR ARE GRAVELY SICK PLEACE CONSULT WITH A TRUSTED PHYSICIAN. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ACHIEVING OPTIMAL HEALTH AND WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ON THE SUBJECT, CONTINUE TO READ ON. WE ENCOURAGE THE READER TO RESEARCH FOR THEIR SELF THE CLAIMS THAT ARE HUMBLY POSTED IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES.]
"Juicing, the short cut to maximum nutrients!"
In an ideal world we would each have enough land to agriculturally produce enough food for ourselves in our own gardens, sufficient to the point of human sustenance. Not only would we be sustained by our own food but we would be thriving from it. Our own gardens would be the key to vibrant health and extended longevity. We know that permaculture is a difficult topic to master. This would be the ability to strategically plan your land and agriculture in a way that a small ecosystem is created in the likeness of nature.
What does this have to do with any thing? Well, frankly I believe this was the exact principal that manifest destiny and the american dream were built on. Each family able to take care of them selves on their own property independent of government, food peddlers, and the like. If your wondering where your food is tied in, allow me to break it down.
Many of you have heard that food loses nutrients after it is picked and while it's waiting to be eaten. The common scenario is usually from the branch to the truck, next to the supermarket, then to your house, and finally to your mouth. After this rigorous journey many nutrients are gone! Nutrients that your body craves most.
RULE OF THUMB: "Fresher is ALWAYS better" Basically what I'm saying is when you eat LOCAL, FRESH, ORGANIC, and HOME GROWN foods you are receiving high nutrient density foods!
Next, if you cant get home grown vine ripened fruits, greens, herbs, sprouts, beans, etc. then your next choice is to shop ORGANIC! I know, I have listened to all the hype, every one thinks that organic produce is a sham and is just another term for "twice as expensive". Any one who is familiar with organic produce knows it defiantly tastes better. Organic on wikipedia is listed as:
Organic foods are made in a way that limits or excludes the use of synthetic materials during production. For the vast majority of human history, agriculture can be described as organic; only during the 20th century was a large supply of new synthetic chemicals introduced to the food supply. This more recent style of production is referred to as "conventional." Under organic production, the use of conventional non-organic pesticides, insecticides and herbicides is greatly restricted and saved as a last resort.
It's relatively safe to say that Organic produce is NON-GMO (not genetically modified) and is also synthetic pesticide free. Genetically modified foods have shown trends to lower immune systems. Congruently, so have processed foods. I mention these two specifically because it seems that most processed foods contain GMO produce. One would consider not ingesting processed foods particularly because they are a double whammy when it comes to immune system malfunction. A simple indicator might be, as the rise of GMO foods, processed foods, and high animal fat/high animal protein intake increases, so do cancer, illness, and coronary heart disease rates. We strongly recommend staying away from these types of foods.
On the last rung of our produce ladder would certainly be conventionally grown produce. In a perfect world we wouldn't have conventional crops, but somewhere along our history things got botched and now we have to pay a premium for produce that isn't grown in an unhealthy fashion. The problem with your conventional produce is literally rooted in. . . . the roots! J/K its more so the nutrient deficient soil that the roots are absorbing their nutrients from. Human nutrient intake is analogous with plant nutrient intake. If the plant has healthy soil than the plant it self is stronger, more disease prone, and yields higher crop outputs. Nutrients could be considered to pass on in this fashion.
Example of common nutrient transference: Dead soil that has been farmed on for 30 years lacks most vitamins and minerals which creates a plant that has a weak "immune system" and needs pesticides to ward off insects and diseases. This weak plant is corn in this example. Genetically modified corn to be exact. Which then goes on to feed a cow. Now this cow is becoming sick from ONLY eating this poor quality corn. This cow is slowly passing away and before it dies of sickness, we process it and chop it up and turn it into hamburgers. Does this burger maintain all the minerals, proteins, and fatty acids that our body wants? Of course not! On another note, as far as we know, fat cells tend to be a great place for toxins (such as pesticieds) to stay hidden. So your beef burger is nutrient deficient, and harboring pesticides that are harmful to the human at the miniscule size of say, a complex carbon based molecule. All around bad news bears.
The best example I have to change your mind would be to watch this video.
On a final note, I would say it is most certainly better to eat conventional produce if there are no other options because it is still better than eating a cheeseburger from the dollar menu.
So finally you know WHAT types of produce to eat whenever possible. Now lets talk about JUICING THEM UP!!!
Juicing your fruits and vegetables is one of the best ways to receive nutrients from them. When juicing, nutrients are delivered to your blood stream within minutes. If you wanted to get a high amount of chlorophyll (a phytonutrient) from a fresh bunch of kale it would take massive amounts of time to chew up the leaves properly to receive maximum nutrition. However, if you take a juicer and juice the whole bunch of kale, you can consume the juice in a few moments. According to Jay Kordich, one of the new pioneers in juicing, humans would have to eat five pounds of fruits and veggies a day to intake sufficient nutrients. I know if you were to try to eat five lbs of fruits and veggies your body would be wasting a tremendous amount of energy to process and digest everything properly. So this is where getting your juice on comes in. Juicing removes all the fiber so your body only has to process the liquid nutrients. Removing fiber occasionally and drinking juice allows for your body to waste very little digestive energy while allowing maximum nutrients to be assimilated.
The human body has to break down all the food you put into it until it is liquid. Only then can your liver and kidneys be able to process the nutrients. Fiberless juice is already at optimal absorption. Any one who has drank a fresh raw green juice can feel the difference almost instantly. How do we know it's important? My first discovery was stumbling upon the gerson therapy. If you aren't privy to the information pertained in the therapy I strongly suggest purchasing the book "Healing the Gerson Way". Not only in the Gerson therapy, but also in Hippocrate's health program, patients who suffer from cancer and most other fatal illnesses are treated to copious amounts of fresh organic vegetable juices. Some times patients receive up to 13 juices a day. These enzyme rich nutrient packed juices are a key element in bringing back suffering people from the cusp of death.
Juicing in the opinion of Brian Clement the director of Hippocrate's Health Institute, is imperative to survival rate, unless there was an instance where the patient couldn't intake fresh juices. He also firmly believes that juicing is a healing modality, but blending is not. He states that blending at high speeds produces great friction and heat which destroys vital nutrients. He also mentions something along the lines about how large amounts of blended fruit sugars can ferment in the stomach because they aren't being processed quickly enough. This is bad. His suggestion is a slow masticating juicer that resembles something like chewing.
These topics are what moved Vicky and I towards purchasing a Greenstar Juicer.
This Juicer is about 550$. I know that is a lot to pay for high quality juice, but once you have it, you will never go back. This is what is called a twin gear masticating juicer. It has two spiral cylindrical stainless steel blades that sit remarkable close to each other. Produce is pressed into them, smashed and mushed up and then pushed forward through a screen like a corkscrew. This system destroys far less nutrients and yields the highest amount of juice, particularly in the case of leafy greens, micro-greens, herbs, and sprouts. Vic and I have been juicing for almost two years now and can safely say it has worked wonders.
We didn't start out with a Greenstar. We actually bough a 30$ one from Target. After a few months we burnt out the engine on it. We were also unsatisfied with how poorly the juicer performed. The juices were chunky, and the pulp was always quite soggy. Soggy pulp means that you aren't extracting the juice from the fiber efficiently. This cheap juicer is called a centrifugal juicer. Meaning the juicer has a grated blade that spins and chops the plants down while rapidly flinging the pulp into a screen which separates the juice into a tray.
Not only were we wasting money on produce by not effectively juicing it, we were also damaging the nutrients that we sought after most. Our next juicer was a Jack Lalanne. This juicer was easier to clean, and yielded more juice, but was still destroying nutrients. This was also a centrifugal juice extractor. Now if you want to start off juicing I always suggest to get what ever you can get your hands on. Even if it is a cheap juicer at least you are still learning how to juice while gaining the benefits of juicing. Some juice is better than none! Do like we did. We tried it out. We loved it. We upgraded. Then we upgraded again to the best one we could find. Since then, we couldn't been happier. Remember the age old adage: "You pay for quality".
Before I go on, I have to mention that STORE BOUGHT JUICE IS PROHIBITED! As far as im concerned fresher is ALWAYS better. With store bought juice you can certainly expect that the juice has been pasteurized. Pasteurizing is essentially cooking your product just below boiling. Cooking raw juices kills off almost all the enzymes. Everyone in the raw community agrees that enzymes die off once they are cooked above 118 degrees fahrenheit. Some argue that they die off around 105. And some people believe in only sun drying foods. Its up to you to make the call, but I suggest that you try to keep your raw food under 115 to be safe. Some rumor that on Louis Pasteur's death bed he made a comment that he may have been wrong about pasteurization. I tend to agree.
Now you know what to juice, and which juicer to juice with. Its time to give you some juicing rules, and a recipe.
One problem with the SAD (Standard American Diet) is that it lacks phytonutrients, particularly, chlorophyll. This nutrient is abundant in any thing that is dark or vibrantly green. This type of nutrient is also said to be an important catalyst in cellular regeneration. Your mother was right! Eat your dark green vegetables! If you were to examine what a gorilla eats you would notice about 40% of their intake is leafy green vegetables. The gorilla is 95% vegan animal with the exception of small rodents and insects in a very small quantity particularly in times of lessened foliage abundance. I bring up the gorilla because it is the pound for pound strongest mammal, and its DNA is said to be only 2% different form ours. It is true that their strength may be a result of astronomically high testosterone levels, but I like to note that they are vegetarian animals and are incredibly strong on without meat. Also, you may want to notice that their digestive systems are incredibly similar to ours as well. If an ape/monkey/chimp/gorilla can thrive off of raw foods, so can we.
Here are some great greens to juice!
KALE - Truly a superfood, this green is mineral abundant, antioxidant rich, and chock full of chlorophyl. If you go to Whole Foods markets it is rated on the highest level of nutrient density. Other leafy greens of a similar caliber are COLLARD GREENS and MUSTARD GREENS. These few greens tend to be a staple in our juices. Others are CILANTRO and PARSLEY, which both help to detox your liver. Another liver cleanser is DANDELION GREENS. Other acceptable greens that make their way into our juices include, WATER CRESS, BOK CHOY, SPINACH, GREEN LEAF LETUCE, SWISS CHARD (any color), WHEAT GRASS, BARLEY GRASS, BASIL, FENNEL and many more.
RULE OF THUMB: Be sure to switch your variety of greens for juicing so that your body can receive different nutrients from different plant based sources. You also do not want your body adapting to the intake of the same nutrients repeatedly.
What else should we put in our juicer? Well, I can't tell you what EXACTLY to put in because each person's body is different, but also because different ailments require higher intakes of different nutrients. For example, if you were very phlegmy and wanted excess phlegm removed from your throat you may want to consider a, celery, watercress, dandelion, sour apple, garlic, ginger, and lemon juice to help break down the congestion.
With that said we will mention other things you may want to juice for overall health promotion. APPLES and CARROTS are a staple in our refrigerator because they taste great and they juice surprisingly well. A simple carrot and apple juice is very common in the Gerson therapy. I prefer sour apples because they are lower in fructose (natural fruit sugar) than most other apples. The tartness described in a green apple is actually a higher amount of malic acid. Malic acid is a natural fat burner and is quite alkaline forming on the body.
Other acceptable produce for juicing includes: BEETS and the BEET GREENS. Beet greens are the leafy green part of the beet, also known as beet tops. The tops of the beets are actually thousands of times healthier for you in some nutritional instances. The same principal can be applied with CARROT GREENS, or carrot tops. These too maintain far greater nutrients.
MOST FRUIT IS ACCEPTABLE, but you should remember that you do not want to intake a large amount of sugars ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE IN CANCER THERAPY. We enjoy
LEMONS, ORANGES, GRAPES, BLUEBERRIES, STRAWBERRIES, and others in similar nature. Vegetables that frequently find their way into our juicer are, CABBAGE, BROCCOLI, PARSNIP, ROOT VEGETABLES, CUCUMBER (which is a fruit), ASPARAGUS, and CELERY.
FUN ONES TO JUICE include WATER MELON, CANTALOUPE, AND HONEYDEW.
RULE OF THUMB: Be sure to juice all of the usable parts of your produce. This may include the whites of your oranges (not the orange part of the peel, it is toxic) the skins of apples, the rind of watermelon, and the skins of organic carrots. Normally there are many great nutrients to be had within these parts of your produce. Many nutrients are housed in the skins of fruits and veggies. A watermelon's majority of nutrients is held within the rind and the white of the rind. So don't forget to get the most out of your foods.
The last group of things that we put in out juices are miscellaneous. These things include GARLIC, GINGER, or even ONION. All of which are incredibly powerful in the world of healing.
Here is a FUN RECIPE: 10 Carrots, 2 Green Apples, Half Bunch of Kale, Half Bunch of Cilantro, one lemon (with or with out peel) and 2 cloves of garlic. This drink should be sweet to the taste with an interesting "greenish" taste that you will soon come to crave. Try out making your own juices with the produce mentioned and see what fun flavors you can come up with. You may find your juice tasting pretty awful at times. Its best to try adding more tasty produce to the drink to make it taste better. First time is certainly not a charm when it comes to juicing. Continue to experiment. You are bound to find new combos that will excite the senses and provide you will a great deal of energy.
SIDE NOTE: Juice that is well strained is juice that is more fiberless. The smoother the juice on the pallet, the easier it is for your body to absorb. A helpful tool Vic and I purchased was a loose leaf tea strainer. All the juice we drink is strained through a similar strainer to help remove even the finest bits of fiber from our juice. A nut milk bag would also be an acceptable substitution.
STORAGE: When it comes to consuming your fresh organic raw fruit and veggie juice again we'll have to harp "FRESHER IS ALWASY BETTER". So try to drink your juice as soon as your done juicing. With juice you are literally racing the clock against oxidation. You may notice a 4 day old carrot juice left in the fridge is brown in color. This is due to oxidation of the juice. We all can agree a 3 day old juice is still better than no juice at all, so keep in mind drinking it quickly will hold better results. Furthermore, one has to consider the differences in oxidation speed between different produce. I'm not certain exactly what rate each veggie oxidizes at but I was told leafy greens oxidize the quickest. Approximately 50% of nutrients are lost in the first 15 minutes when it comes to greens. I continued to learn that carrots and other fruits are the next quickest but at a much slower rate than greens. Followed by high fruit acids which take the longest. A couple pieces of produce at oxidation rates in order of fastest to slowest would look like, Kale > Carrots > Apples > Garlic > Lime. Im Sure you can plan accordingly. I think its agreed upon that juice is still decent to drink up to 4 days or so, depending on the produce within said juice.
HOW MUCH TO CONSUME?
Knowing how much to consume is very tricky. Some experts say 2 ounces of wheat grass is enough for your green nutrients a day. I tend to disagree. I have always said it is better to bombard your system with nutrients and let IT decide what it wants to use. Chances are you still aren't receiving enough. Vic and I tend to drink about a liter of juice a day. Some days we have more. If you are familiar with Angela Stokes Monach then you know the benefits of juice feasting/fasting. It is very easy and considered remarkably healthful to live off of natural fruit juices alone for periods as long as 40 days. I would consider this to be a sort of powerful cleansing that gives your digestive system a break while providing a great deal of healthy vitamins, minerals, and natural fruit sugars to survive on.
What it all comes down to my friends, is making sure you receive the nutrients that your body needs. Juicing is one of the best mediums out there. In my humble opinion if you are juicing frequently and properly, it is unnecessary to take multivitamins because you are receiving a bountiful amount of nutrients in a format that is highly absorbable (or bioavailable) and are predigested. We'll speak another time about supplements that cannot be attained in you juicing, but for now start utilizing the power of juicing.
Make juicing a part of your life, it truly is one of the most important parts to optimal health.
Kyle C. Simmons
I'm baffled by the "meat is bad" argument. The writer comments about meat going bad when it is left out in the open air. This is true. But he/she leaves out a few important points when speaking about human consumption of meat: 1) Usually it's cooked. This changes the chemical properties of meat on various levels. 2) It passes through the human digestive system. Meat left out on the kitchen counter, well (sorry to sound obnoxious) generally is not sprinkled with human digestive enzymes and 3) Digested meat is further exposed to the human colon. And meat on the kitchen counter, once again, is generally, well... not converted to human $^it in the normal way meat is processed in the human colon.
ReplyDeleteSo the bottom line is the human body by design is made to process and metabolize meat of animals, as it is also designed to handle various plants.
I once was told by a vegetarian that I should stop eating meat; that my body is incapable of properly metabolizing it. I am 5'6" and weigh about 130 lbs. This individual was about 5'8" and weighed approximately 180 lbs. I eat meat on a regular basis. Do you want to take a stab at who is healthier, how is at lower risk of developing cancer, who is at a lower risk of developing heart disease, who is at a lower risk of developing Type II Diabetes (acquired)?????