Juice fasting has come into vogue the last 30 years since Ann Wigmore used raw foods and wheatgrass juice fasting to help heal serious health issues. She died in 1994 after establishing the Ann Wigmore Natural Health Institute in Rincon,Puerto Rico where educational programs lead people through raw foods cuisine for healing. Juice fasting is not meant to be a longer-term diet. Start with a very short fast of only 1 to 2 days if you are in good health. Consult your physician before starting any kind of fasting. Add this to my Recipe Box.
Instructions
1. Begin by clearing out any junk food from your home if you intend to do even a short 2 or 3-day juice fast. Having cookies and potato chips nearby in your kitchen while you juice fast will require enormous will power to refrain from eating them. You can give these items to a friend to store until you complete your juice fast or simply donate them to your local soup kitchen.
2. Purchase organic fruits and vegetables from your local farmer’s markets or the health food store. If you purchase non-organic produce, avoid buying grapes, apples, or peaches as these items are generally grown with heavy pesticides.
3. Make a detox bath for non-organic produce by filling a large tub with filtered water and 2 teaspoons of Clorox bleach. Submerge the non-organic produce only in this bleach bath for 15 minutes. Rinse thoroughly and drain.
4. Juice fasting requires you chop, cut and peel assorted vegetables and fruits before you juice them through a heavy duty juicer so that you are consuming the vitamins and minerals immediately. There is quite a difference between canned fruit juice and freshly prepared juices. Storing fresh juices in your refrigerator for 4 to 5 hours is acceptable but avoid doing so overnight.
5. Combining fruits and vegetables is generally okay but there are certain combinations that may be hard to digest or are simply not palatable. A classic rule of thumb was that apples of all types can be juiced with any other fruit and vegetable as apples will digest easily for most people. Melons are best eaten alone. Melons tend to digest very quickly and if consumed with other foods, you may experience indigestion of the foods or liquids that take the body more time to digest. Common sense and personal taste preference will guide you. For example, juicing carrots and bananas and kale together will probably not yield a juice you will enjoy.
6. Juicing basics: prepare only as much as you will need to consume at each setting.For example a good snacking juice is made from juicing 2 apples, 1 small carrot, one half of a small lemon and ½ teaspoon of gingerroot.For an excellent breakfast juice, combine ½ large medjool date (for the date sugar), 1 medium banana, liquid from a coconut (or to cheat, use “lite” coconut milk from a can, if diluted 1 part coconut milk to 3 parts filtered water), adding filtered water to thin to your desired consistency.
7. Juicing for lunch or dinner drinks could include combinations any vegetable with apples to sweeten. For example, juice 5 to 6 large leaves of curly kale (or lacinto or dinosaur kale), ½ cup parsley, 2 stalks of celery, 1 large carrot and a ½ teaspoon of gingerroot or cayenne pepper. Try 6 leaves of rainbow chard, 6 leaves of baby bokchoy, beets (the tops as well), and a very small bulb of garlic for a spicy dinner drink.
8. Drink at least 6 to 8, 8-ounce glasses of filtered water to help you adjust to the cleansing effects of juice fasting. If you intend to juice fast for more than a day, add 1 tablespoon ground flax seeds to any drink and consume three times a day to make certain you are moving your bowels in the absence of soluble and insoluble fiber (as is found in the skins and cellulose of vegetables.)
9. Do not be ambitious while juice fasting. Do not starve yourself by consuming too few juice drinks. Prepare from scratch and consume at least 5 to 6 fresh juice drinks in any 24-hour period along with the 6 to 8 glasses of filtered water.
10. If you find that after the first 6 hours of such a juice fast you experience any changes in heart rate (very rapid or slower than normal), dizziness, headaches, or extreme physical fatigue, consider limiting your juicing to only that 6-hour time frame. For example, juice Friday morning until noon. If you are miserable, consider breaking the fast gently with steamed vegetables, vegetable soup, plain toast and unsweetened organic yogurt. Do not break your juice fast with a steak and fries or a pizza.
11. Depending on your general health prior to juice fasting, it is common to experience headaches and several additional bowel movements as your body begins to cleanse.Transition slowly back to solid foods by introducing steamed vegetables, easy-to-digest proteins such as scrambled eggs, yogurt, or chicken soup.
12. Break the juice fast slowly so that you are not overwhelming your digestive system. If you experience what is called a “healing crisis” and find the juice fast kicks off a flu or minor cold, bring your juice fast slowly to a close, adding vegetable and chicken soups back into your diet slowly. Rest as needed and cut back on very strenuous exercise while juicing.
