Juicing

Similar names: Juice cleanse, Juice fasting, Juice feasting

What is Juicing?

Juicing is the process of extracting or separating the juice or liquid content of a food from the rest of the fibrous content. 

Why Juice?

For most, it is a higher level of detoxification, as discussed in my other post, “Human Detoxification” (see Scale of Detoxification image). Simply put, juicing is an excellent way for the average person to accelerate healing and make their body more efficient at energy utilization. Some reasons to start juicing:

• Clean out the gastrointestinal tract and improve digestion, absorption, utilization, and elimination 
• Rid the body of toxins and accumulated waste in the cells
• Improve energy levels, sleep duration, and sleep quality
• Improve organ function, especially pancreatic function
• Discover food intolerances/sensitivities
• Improve mental and spiritual clarity
• …and many, many more.

Juice fasting can be a wonderful tool to significantly improve one’s health in a shorter period compared to only eating solid foods. This is because whether you are drinking juices for breakfast or drinking juices only for 30, 90, or more days, you are giving your body a break from digesting food and letting it divert its energy instead into healing. By drinking juices, the body is consuming less density but getting powerful energy at the same time. 

When you’re finally ready to transition into a healthier lifestyle, it is important to know that the first step is to clean out your gastrointestinal tract. Eating raw foods is nourishing to your body, but the average person has large amounts of built-up, hardened mucus residue in their tract (from years of consuming mucus-forming foods and poor food combinations) that these raw foods won’t have a chance to absorb optimally. This old mucus is often there along with parasites, mold, fungus, putrifying proteins, and other not-so-fun materials. These are stuck onto the walls of the gastrointestinal tract and can cause pain and suffering on many levels. It chains us down to frequent cravings, unconscious addictions, trapping emotions, and hardened mindsets.

The significance of the mind-gut connection, honored in many natural health and spiritual groups, is quickly experienced first-hand when juicing since it is a sudden wake-up call to the system. Frequent juicers will often state that after completing a prolonged juice fast, they feel a significant change in their mood and their mental condition. They report feeling an incredible sense of connection to themselves and their environment.

In Lymphatic Iridology, the gastrointestinal tract is positioned around the circumference of the pupil consisting of two layers (or circles): the stomach circle being closest and the small and large intestine circle being further. The rest of the organs and glands are placed further out from these two center zones. This shows how the long digestive system is central to the condition of the rest of the organs and glands of the body. It also reflects the human embryonic pattern of development, where the cells that form the digestive system are part of the first developed germ layer (the endoderm). The other organs and glands develop later. When you take care of your gut, you’re taking care of the rest of your body.

Juicing can significantly clean out the GI in a conveniently short period of time. This gastrointestinal sweeping and cleaning can be done over a longer period of time with raw foods and fruit-only fasts, and for some, this method is easier for transitioning. However, not doing a long juice fast beforehand or at least incorporating it within the transition period will leave one experiencing a lot of bloating, gas, and other digestive issues. Putting fresh fruit and salads into a 98.6℉ container (body) of putrifying and fermenting waste is not an ideal combination. When going the distance on a prolonged fast, not only do the mold, fungus, parasites, rotting food materials, and hardened mucus exit the body (the waste on the mucosal walls), but the accumulated lymphatic waste within the cells of the gastrointestinal tract also has a chance to come to the surface and leave the body (the waste within the mucosal walls). Cleaning out the lymphatic waste within the walls is finally digging into the root cause of malabsorption. It promotes better blood circulation, lymphatic movement, tissue oxygenation, nutrient absorption, nerve signaling, and more. Juicing can be the bridge to give your body time to clean up and adapt to a healthier diet while maintaining stable nutrient intake and energy. All in all, juicing can be beneficial for just about anyone. 

Juicing vs Water Fast

The main benefit of juice fasting versus water fasting is that you are still able to maintain steady energy while still taking a break from solid food. Some may say that juicing is “unnatural” and therefore unnecessary. To this, I would say they have a point because it is ultimately the body that heals the body, and fasting (water or dry) is the simplest and quickest way to a healthier body and life. But for the average Joe who’s lived a conventional lifestyle with a conventional diet, even incorporating intermittent fasting will be a hard transition versus juicing, where they can still consume nutrients and ease into a lighter-density diet. One can have steady energy while water fasting, but this depends on the body’s toxicity level. Most people consuming the average diet of animal products and cooked foods have trouble finding the energy to continue their everyday lives on a water fast because it is a strong level of detoxification.

When on both juice and water only, old waste and acids come to the surface to be eliminated. These exposed acids can cause acute dehydration which leads one to feel drained in energy and therefore unable to follow through with daily responsibilities and activities. This period of low energy, if experienced, can be better assisted with the fructose, electrolytes, and other nutrients from juices. This is why juicing is usually the better option for the average person. The more frequent and longer one water fasts, however, the less of a problem this becomes. Water fasting usually forces one to carve out time for rest which is essential. The choice to juice or water fast rests on an individual basis. What are the current diet and lifestyle habits? How much time is there to juice? Can you afford high-quality fruits and vegetables? Each person’s detoxification goals and preferred pace differ from the next. It is always a safe bet to start with juices first and then move to water fasting.

Too Much Sugar?

For beginners, those going into juicing from less-optimal diets (high protein, high fat, cooked food), and/or those that have a weak pancreas or trouble utilizing blood sugar, there may be some hesitation when starting to juice because of the fear of sugar. However, one needs to understand that there is nothing wrong with consuming raw fruit sugar (fructose). It is processed sugar and cooked complex sugars (ie. grains, starches) that one should avoid. Having hyper- or hypo-glycemic symptoms when consuming fruit sugar is not the sugar’s fault, but the condition of the body and its ability to absorb and utilize it. Diets high in saturated fat lead to higher lipid levels in the blood and cells which leave the cells inefficient at their sugar uptake. In the muscle cells, these are called “intramyocellular lipids” that compromise proper sugar uptake. Once the diet is improved to a lower fat level, sugar absorption and utilization improves. It’s like a key that can’t get into the keyhole because someone put gum in it. Remove the gum (fat) and the key (sugar) can now work. The best fuel for man is sugar, fats and proteins are less optimal. Not all sugar is the same, either. Fruit sugar is fructose and vegetable sugar is glucose. Insulin is the hormone that is produced by the pancreas and secreted to assist in the transport of glucose through the cell membrane walls. Glucose requires insulin for active transport, a movement that requires ATP, into the cell. Fructose requires little to no insulin and is absorbed into the cell through diffusion (higher to lower concentration), a more passive movement. This leads to the conclusion that fructose is not responsible for “causing” insulin resistance, and juicing will not throw someone into type 2 diabetes. Juicing has the potential to reverse both types of diabetes. The dynamic energy is truly in the fruit sugar, the proper energy for our human anatomical design. 

Supplies

• A juicer or high-quality blender + nut milk/strainer bag
• Several tight-lid 16-32oz jars
• Fruits, vegetables (organic if possible)

Methods

Juicer – Insert the fruits and vegetables according to the juicer’s instructions and voila…you have juice. Enjoy immediately.

Blender + nut milk bag – 

1. Start with the juiciest fruit (oranges, grapefruit, watermelon) and fill up the blender halfway. Blend until you get a liquid base, then add more pieces to blend. Blend until you get a thin consistency. 
2. Take your nut milk bag or cheesecloth and pour in the liquid over the bowl. Squeeze the juice out with your hands, and let the bowl catch it all. Throw out the fiber, or “pulp” into a composting bin, garbage can, or into the soil outside. 

• If you want to add more, take that juice in the bowl and pour it back into the blender. This is your liquid base. Add another fruit or vegetable and repeat steps 1 and 2. 

3. Pour the juice that collects into the bowl into a glass. Enjoy immediately. 
4. Juices can be stored for up to 3 days in the refrigerator. Be sure to use glass jars or containers for storing them. Fill to the brim to reduce oxygen exposure during storage. The more the juice is exposed to oxygen, the more oxidation occurs, and the more nutrient degradation that occurs.

Starting with the most water-rich fruits first will yield you the most juice, while other fruits and veggies like apples, pears, spinach, or kale yield less juice. When juicing greens, both with a juicer or blender, de-stem them beforehand. Blending only non-juicy foods (ie. a blender full of kale) will require you to add water to extract the juice. Adding water is not ideal, and is best avoided by juicing water-rich fruit first to get an initial liquid base. First juice the fruits, then let that juice be the liquid base for the next batch of non-juicy foods, and so on for as much produce as you choose to juice. Keep it simple. 

Fruits to Juice	Vegetables to Juice
Watermelon Cantaloupe Honeydew melon Lemon, Lime Orange Grapefruit Grape Peaches Plums Apple Pears  Pineapple  Papaya  Tomato	Carrot Beet  Kale Spinach Lettuce Chard Arugula Cilantro, Parsley, Mint, Rosemary Celery Bell Pepper Cucumber

Easy Recipes:

• Melon alone – Watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew
• Apple + carrot
• Beet +apple + lemon + ginger
• Orange + ginger
• Cucumber + celery + spinach + lemon + apple
• Celery alone
• Cucumber alone

Preparation

Eat raw foods for one week and eat fruit only for the last few days leading up to the juice fast. If coming from a cooked food diet, lengthen this transitioning time as needed.

Juicing Schedule

Many of us have busy lives and may not have time to juice every day. If you do, great! It is best to drink your juice immediately after extracting it. This is because the nutrients and antioxidants will slowly lose their potency from exposure to light and oxygen. However, don’t let this deter you into not trying it if you are busy. It’s better to eat a 3-day-old apple than a “fresh” cooked meal. 3-day old juice is still sufficient to keep you on the amazing, transformational track of detoxification. On a day off from work, prepare your juices all at once and store them in tight-lid jars in the refrigerator. Remember to fill the jars up to the rim. If you must fill the jar with a little water at the end to do this, that is fine.

The Easiest Juice Fast

The easiest juice fast for you, your schedule, and your body is one that consists of one type of fruit juice. The best fruits for this are melons, as they are around 90% water. Melons are in season during the summer. So for an easy first juice fasting experience, doing watermelon juice only during the summer months would be recommended. The warm, sunny weather of summer is also optimal for staying active (moving blood and lymphatic fluid) and obtaining fresh air and sunshine…important factors to incorporate into a juice fasting period. With the inner peace and tranquility felt on juices, you will want to get out in nature and feel the sun on your skin.

Detoxification Symptoms

• Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, digestive upset
• Headaches, tinnitus
• Pains, achiness, cold and flu-like symptoms
• Fatigue, shortness of breath, dizziness
• Skin breakouts
• Anxiety, depression
• And more, depending on the level of toxicity

These symptoms occur for a reason. They are signs that your body is detoxifying itself of old mucus, bacteria, toxins, parasites, fungus, cellular memories, and more. Let your body do its thing. Rest if you’re tired, and move if you have energy. Use common sense. If you are advanced in chronic diseases, such as cancer, seek the help of a detoxification specialist for proper monitoring.

Protocols & Duration

Juicing is a tool in your health toolbox. Make it easy and accessible to benefit your lifestyle.

1. Start your morning with juice each day or a few times a week. This method is great for one who is looking to simply boost their nutrition and energy and see some health benefits.
2. Juice until noon, then eat your fruits and vegetable meals after. This would be a stronger protocol, and would bring even more health benefits, and quicker.
3. Set aside 3-4 days to drink only juice, then slowly return to raw foods (then to cooked foods if you wish). This method is for the person who is ready to clean their gastrointestinal tract and possibly explore food sensitivities/intolerances. 3 days isn’t much to the avid juicer, but 3 days of only juice can be a much-needed wake-up call for a toxic, sleeping body.
4. Juice for 10, 30, 90 days, or more depending on your level of commitment.

For the juicing newbie or one who eats mucus-forming foods (meat, eggs, dairy, cheese, grains, starches, processed foods) often, it is not recommended to juice for more than 3-4 days. 3-4 days will clean out much of your gastrointestinal tract enough to feel lighter, but more than a couple of days may be too hard on your body. The choice is yours to go further. For those that eat a whole-food or plant-based diet, or raw vegan diet, you could probably do more than a couple of days if desired. Starting with a few short juice fasts over several months can be a great way to get the body used to juices. Once you’re comfortable and feel like going the distance, do it and enjoy the fun and bumpy ride. It can be difficult at first to listen to your body when determining how long to juice, but with more experience comes more wisdom.

In general, if you plan to start a multiple-day juice feast, it is important to eat only raw for a few days leading up to the feast. This will activate the detoxification process in your body and smoothly ease it into the juice cleanse. This can also prevent heavy detox symptoms. 

Meet Your Needs

For beginners, drink a minimum of 4 liters (128 oz or 1 gallon) of juice daily in order to meet your energetic needs. For active people, they may need to drink more than the minimum amount of juice. Also take into account the varying calorie amounts in different fruits and vegetables. Drinking enough juice will also ensure that old waste in the digestive tract will be rehydrated and then eliminated. Making sure you get a minimum of 4 liters of juice daily is important for beginners because their digestive tract is filled with more mucus and rotting materials than the experienced juicer. Not drinking enough can lead to this old waste staying stuck in the intestines and not being rid of, leading to dehydration and fatigue.  

As in eating, drink mindfully. Take your time and let your body gently take in the juice. Try to drink when you are sitting down and calm your mind. Drink when you’re thirsty, stop when you’re satisfied. Space your juices out and pace yourself. Rushing and chugging so much juice at once will only create a burden on the kidneys from fluid overload.

If you routinely take prescription medications (ie. Synthroid, anti-depressants, stimulants, blood pressure medications, medications/hormones to regulate blood sugar, etc.) and plan to start a juice fast of 3 or more days, it is important to talk to your doctor to discuss your plan. Most likely you will simply need to check your sugar and blood pressure periodically and adjust your medication regimen as needed. This is you taking charge of your health!

Support Elimination

The following list is taken from my post “Human Detoxification”:

• Colon – massage the colon daily and aim for at least one bowel movement a day, diaphragmatic breathing (“belly breathing”) will activate the parasympathetic nervous system to assist in peristalsis and keep stress levels low
• Kidneys – kidney herbs, dry fasting up to 24-36 hours, lower back massage to move acids
• Kidney Filtration: Urinate in a jar first thing in the morning, let it sit for at least 12 hours, and check for any sediment or mucus present. Anywhere from small white flakes to large strands of mucus counts as filtration. Clear urine is a sign of low kidney filtration, cloudy urine is a sign of better filtration. The cloudier the urine, the better. Depending on what you eat and what your body is eliminating, the type of waste sediment will differ. Dry fasting is the most powerful method of achieving kidney filtration.
• Lymphatic System – lymphatic herbs, dry fasting up to 24-36 hours, exercise or any movement or stretching, body self-massage, diaphragmatic breathing (“belly breathing”)
• Skin – body self-massage, sweating (exercise, sauna, steam, moving in the sunshine)
• Lungs – diaphragmatic breathing (“belly breathing”)

Movement – Move when you have the energy to move, and rest when you don’t. Staying active in any way with walking, yoga, swimming, jogging, stretching, playing sports, etc., will promote blood flow for improved oxygenation and lymph flow for improved elimination. Lifting weights and resistance training are acceptable as long as you’re drinking enough and your kidneys are filtering. Sunshine is essential for our overall energetic homeostasis, so be sure to get outside daily.

Massage – Massaging yourself (or with the help of a professional) will also promote blood and lymph flow for improved oxygenation and elimination of waste. Juicing, intermittently or prolonged, will increase detoxification mechanisms in your body, and concentrated points of acid buildup will come to the surface and manifest as pain points. Practice deep breathing and gently knead these points. Leaning against the wall, use a tennis ball on the back to get hard-to-reach areas. Even the corner of a doorway frame can help dig into those hard knots on the back. Be as gentle as you please and remember to breathe. 

The Healing Crisis

The healing crisis is important to understand and is an inevitable experience that results from any effort to detoxify the body, whether it’s lessening the density of one’s diet or performing a prolonged fast of any kind. It is essential to understand what it means in order to respond appropriately and therefore optimize the detoxification experience. Misunderstanding a healing crisis can lead to unwise actions rooted in treatment-based thinking. Learn about the healing crisis in my post “Human Detoxification”.

Breaking The Fast

For longer juice fasts, it is important to know when it’s time to “break” the fast. If your symptoms become too much to handle despite efforts to keep hydrated and support your eliminative organs, it may be a good time to break your juice fast.

Listen to your inner guidance but know that the mind’s desire coupled with misleading cravings can creep in even though you may not truly be hungry. After about 3 days, the body usually loses its appetite for solid food and diverts its energy to cleaning and healing. 3 good rules to go by are juice fasting:

(1) Until you stop having bowel movements and/or

(2) Until your tongue becomes pink again

(3) In an emergency, if detoxification symptoms become unbearable

During fasting, the tongue becomes coated with a thick substance that is white, yellow, green, or brown in color. This is one way the body eliminates waste, and the tongue’s condition is a clear reflection of the inside of your gastrointestinal tract.

Refeeding Period

A good rule for breaking your fast is to eat fruit only for 1 day for every 3 days of fasting you have done. So if you fasted for 30 days, break the fast with fruit for 10 days. The last thing you want to do is eat a high protein or high-fat meal after juice fasting, or any kind of fasting, as this would be too hard on the body to digest and can cause harm to the tissues. For extended juicing periods, a general rule of thumb is 6 days to break the fast. If a person has juiced for 90 days, they don’t need to take 30 days to break it and 6 days should be sufficient. The first days should consist of juicy mono-fruit meals, with subsequent days slowly increasing the density of foods (ex. 2 days of juice and fruit only, 2 days of fruit and water-rich vegetables, 2 days of fruit and a simple salad for dinner) Of course, always listen to your body and adjust the time needed to break the fast as appropriate. Continue to incorporate juices to ensure adequate calorie consumption. It is best to slowly go back to solid food versus rushing it.

…

Whether you juice every day or do a prolonged juice fast every year, everyone can benefit from it. There comes a point in time when our intelligent body sends us signals that it’s time to give it a break, to stop eating, to get out of its way, and to go lighter. In this day and age with polluted air, water, food, toxic pharmaceuticals, and toxic minds, juicing is a powerful method to lead the body on the path back to health and vitality. Reach out to a detoxification specialist for closer guidance. Give your body some love and attention, and make it feel vibrant again! Go the distance and have fun. Your mind, body, and soul will thank you.