On the Juice

Autodidacticism made possible by teh interwebz never ends.

When I think I've figured it all out, I learn something new, and then my paradigm shifts.

Again.

The latest paradigm I've adopted was inspired by Juicing for Men. I've been juicing for close to two months now. It's one more practice I'm going to add to the panoply of lifestyle hacks that go against the mainstream, conventional wisdom of our mass media driven society.


FitJuice had this to say about why he started the site:

I started Juicing For Men because most juicing sites have a New Age feel to them. They talk about the “energies” and “chakras” in juices. Most juice blogs treat juicing as all-or-nothing. "Either go on a juice fast and a spiritual retreat, or don’t bother."

I think a lot of juicers want to become spiritual gurus or cult leaders. Anyhow, there was no juicing forum for regular guys. While women can learn a lot from Juicing For Men, I built the site for regular guys who want to get fitter and healthier. Ideally women will take their husbands and boyfriends to Juicing For Men. “See, I told you this isn’t a bunch of hokey nonsense!”

Prior to reading up on this topic after both Danger & Play and Roosh previously linked to Juicing For Men, I had an inaccurate preconception of this practice called "juicing."

It appeared to be yet another hokey, emasculated veganist, new-age nonsense fad to me.

Juice To Boost Your New Age Chakras,You Vibrant Hippie!

 
Juice fasting?

Detoxification?

Bah. Cutting out most grain flours and industrially processed vegetable, grain and legume oil-based feed products, and eating plenty of healthy fats, animal proteins, veggies and some non-toxic starches like rice and potatoes is detox enough, as far as I was concerned.

 It's been years since I've eaten any significant quantities of such Neolithic Agents of Disease....why would I need to "detox?"

Answer: Juicing is not for "detoxing."

Or for fasting, purifying or cleansing.

Purifying and cleansing will naturally result from a long enough period of time for which you are not eating man-made, mass-produced, factory farmed FEED, and eating natural, organic raised animal and plant foods.

What is juicing really for?

 It's for adding a surplus of vital nutrients, minerals and antioxidants to to your daily diet.

Better a surplus than a deficiency, no? Isn't that why most health conscious people buy bottles of vitamins and supplements?

Why would you "supplement" with a bunch of pills and powders, when you can supplement with fresh, natural, REAL FOOD processed by your own hand and made into a form that is more readily bio-available and immediately beneficial to your overall health and well-being?

Even if you eat the fast food and convenience-based processed fare of the S.A.D., and have no intentions of changing your dietary practices anytime soon, juicing will still benefit you.

Certainly more than the results of millions of dollars Americans spend on the vitamins and supplement industry every year, a large portion of which does nothing more than create a vast stream of expensive urine.

As FitJuice implies, juicing doesn't have to be reserved for holistic healers, emaciated vegans, crusty hippies, or weirdo, B-12, CLA, D-3, DHA, EPA and K-2 deficient herbivores.

Nor does it need to adhere to some strict dogma or rigid guidelines to be beneficial:

Samseau: How bad is regular V8 juice?

FitJuice: Not bad at all and certainly better than most beverage options. It’s just not optimal. But one should not let the good be the enemy of the best.

I was given a centrifugal juicer about 3 years ago as a gift. I politely said thanks, and promptly stuck it in the back of my cabinet, forgot about it, and let it collect dust.

Juicing? That's for emaciated, sickly vegans, not those of us who've embraced our natural place in the food chain as an omnivorous predator.

I regularly eat a lot of vegetables and fruits. Most meals are usually some main, meat-based main dish, with a side or two of broccoli or asparagus or zucchini or green beans or some other veggie, usually sauteed or steamed and drenched in butter and/or bacon grease, and liberally salted and peppered. I also eat salads on a regular basis, with homemade  dressings based on extra-virgin olive oil and vinegar. I also eat small portions of a wide variety of fruits as a regular dessert after most meals.

Compared to my former S.A.D. lifestyle, going "paleo" definitely increased my fresh fruit and vegetable consumption.

But when I discovered Juicing For Men, I realized that I could in fact increase my consumption of a much wider variety of plant fare...plant foods for which I normally would never buy, cook or eat - all without force-feeding myself despite the bitter or sour taste, sucking it up and forcing it down as medicine, just because it's "healthy."

Since I've "gone paleo" or "primal" for the past 5 years, I've eaten plenty of onions, garlic, taro, bell peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, a wide variety of beans, asparagus, spinach, mushrooms, olives, corn and carrots. All veggies integral to a wide variety of cultural and ethnic meat-based dishes, appetizers and salads that make up the majority of my diet. Always steamed, fried or broiled and saturated in healthy fats like lard, coconut oil, extra-virgin olive oil, macadamia nut oil and/or butter.

Juicing has added a new dimension to my veggie intake.

Veggies like kale, chard, collard greens, celery, beets, red cabbage, Chinese cabbages like Pak Choy and Bok Choy, and ginger. I rarely ate veggies like that, primarily because I just didn't like the way they taste....even if they were prepared with fats I like such as butter, bacon grease or olive oil. Throw 'em in my juicer, add some natural, fresh-ground Hawaiian sea salt, and I'm now drinking my servings of these formerly excluded veggies from my diet, in addition to the usual fare of plant foods I already have been consuming on a regular basis.

I've upped the dose of plant-based vitamins, minerals, nutrients, phyto-chemicals and anti-oxidants at every meal...and I don't feel like a grazing herbivore stuffing my face with a heaping plate of roughage to relieve the perpetual hunger that comes with the vegan/vegetarian-based lifestyle (been there, done that).

 If you are one who needs a prescription for erectile dysfunction, you may want to give juicing that includes a large portion of beets and celery a try. Both are rich in nitrates, which are vasodilators. They are known for engorging blood vessels and increasing blood flow. This increased blood flow is also good for your brain.

This is why nitrates are ubiquitous as a meat preservative in processed meats. It promotes dilation and blood flow so meats stay "red" or fresh looking much longer. Nitrates are why your bacon, ham, sausage and cold cuts that were processed and packaged many days before, don't appear brown and decaying when you buy them from the grocery store..

The same goes for your overall health and well-being. Up your dosage of Nitrates.

And really, it's not rocket science. Recipes need only be a rough guideline.

I'm currently drinking my own "V-12" juice on a daily basis. There's no need to be specific, nor do you have to measure, weigh or count anything. Just buy fresh produce and juice it to your preferred taste. It's all good.

I simply go to my weekly farmers market, and buy as much locally grown, organic produce I can find, take it home, and juice it into one large batch. This past week, I purchased about $20 worth of produce, and took about 45 minutes to make enough juice to last me a week. A week of twice-a-day, 12 oz. glassfuls I now drink as a matter of habit with my regular meals. I fill up several old glass 1.75 liter liquor bottles and keep 'em in the fridge to chill, ready for me to drink as desired throughout the week. And I'm not the only one to benefit from my new practice....my chickens are digging on the by-products as well.

All the pulp generated by my juicing serves as a nice supplement to my chicken's feed as well. I've noticed on days in which I give them juiced pulp, the following day I get more eggs and they have darker, more nutrient dense yolks. Juicing can be for the birds, too.

If you're curious to give it a try for yourself, rest assured, you don't need to spend a lot of money on an expensive, feature-filled juicer, either. As FitJuice states:

But when you’re a beginner juicing, it doesn’t make sense to sweat the details. Buy a nice introductory juicer to get you started on your juicing journey.

If you enjoy juicing, you’ll never want to be without juice. You’ll wind up bringing your entry-level juicer to the office and buying yourself a nicer one for your home.

I was fortunate to have my introductory juicer given to me as a gift. Two months into this, and I see what FitJuice means. Someday soon, I'll be upgrading to a masticating juicer for sure. I want more yield from the greens! But for now, my cheap model centrifugal juicer is certainly good enough.

Don't fall for the false notion that unless you achieve the perfect result, it's not worth doing at all.

Don't let the optimal be the enemy of the good. In most cases, good, is good enough.