Fruit and vegetable juices aren’t new to the American diet. From hospital cafeterias to fast-food outlets to our own kitchens, breakfast isn’t breakfast without orange juice. Juices now come in special packages designed for toddlers’ tiny hands, and health-conscious adults swill the stuff all day long as a tasty alternative to soda.
But as more and more people are discovering, fruit and vegetable juices aren’t just delicious. Alternative practitioners say these tasty nectars are natural tonics, offering a safe, inexpensive way to stimulate digestion, bolster the immune system and encourage the elimination of toxins. Freshjuices are also believed to be a potent weapon against disease; studies show that juices can speed the healing of infections and can even help cure stomach ulcers. And when used in conjunction with other natural techniques, such as herbs, homeopathy and nutritional therapy, freshjuices can create an optimal nutritional foundation to bolster the body’s innate healing abilities.
While health-conscious Americans caught the juicing bug in the 1970s, juicing wasn’t born yesterday. Juice therapy has long been a component of the 5,000-year-old tradition ofAyurveda, says John Peterson, M.D., an Ayurvedic practitioner in Muncie, Indiana.
In Ayurveda, a traditional system of medicine that originated in India, specific juices are used to fortify each body tissue, or dhatues. Ayurvedic practitioners believe that stress, emotional imbalance and poor digestion can block the body’s normal absorption of nutrients, resulting in undernourishment and illness. By prescribing specific juices to strengthen the weak tissue, Dr. Peterson says he has had excellent results with conditions as varied as anemia, constipation and arthritis.
Juices are also used therapeutically by naturopathic physicians, who treat patients with some combination of natural healing methods such as homeopathy, herbs, vitamins, nutritional counseling and acupuncture. At the Northwest Naturopathic Clinic in Portland, Oregon, Steven Bailey, N.D., a naturopathic physician, uses a supervised juice fast with many patients, including those suffering from arthritis, cancer and AIDS. During the fast, Dr. Bailey’s patients abstain from solid foods for several days, drawing their nourishment from large doses of fresh vegetable and fruitjuices.
“Juice fasting enhances the body’s natural healing capacity,” explains Dr. Bailey. “Juices provide optimal nutrition yet take very little energy to digest. And because you’re not spending six hours trying to digest a fatty, high-protein meal, the body has more energy to devote to repairing itself.”
The juice fast also helps identify food sensitivities, a major factor in immune system disorders such as arthritis, asthma and chronic fatigue syndrome, according to Dr. Bailey. By gradually re-introducing foods after the fast, many patients discover that their symptoms worsen when they eat certain foods. “Most of my patients don’t realize they have food sensitivities until they start a juice fast, see an improvement in their symptoms and then get sick all over again once they go back to eating foods as common as corn, wheat and tomatoes,” he says.
“Removing the allergen from the diet lifts a tremendous burden from the immune system, so it can fight disease more effectively.”
While many have benefited from juice fasting, it isn’t for everybody. A hidden medical condition such as diabetes or hypoglycemia can make fasting dangerous without careful medical supervision, so be sure to get a professional’s advice before starting a fast.
For those whose active lifestyles make fasting impractical, a cleansing diet offers many of the same benefits as a juice fast, says naturopathic physician Robert Broadwell, N.D., director of the Institute for Alternative Medicine in Fountain Valley, California. For two to three days, Dr. Broadwell’s patients stick to a diet of raw fruits and vegetables supplemented by plenty of fresh juices; diluted beet juice is particularly effective at stimulating the liver, says Dr. Broadwell. “This allows the body to eliminate stored toxins caused by a poor diet and sometimes by prolonged use of antibiotics.”
A raw-foods diet featuring plenty of fresh juices is safe for virtually everyone, says Dr. Broadwell. He finds the cleansing diet especially helpful in treating chronic degenerative conditions such as heart disease and arthritis.