Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

Morning guys!

Today I’d like to share with you a documentary I saw two days ago and hasn’t been from my mind ever since.

Fat, Sick and nearly dead is a documentary on one mans realization his health has gone to shits, and his journey to regain it. In the movie it doesn’t really explain why, but to do so Joe Cross turns to his juicer and embarks on a 60 day juice feast. All the while road tripping accros the States (he’s an Aussie, mate), initially to confront his biggest food addictions while feasting, but more so to reach out to and inspire others, or so it turns out. In the end, Joe not only gets down to a healthy weight, he also cures himself of a chronic auto-immune disease and gets of off his prescription medication (prednison no less).

I really can’t tell too much about the second part of the movie,  after Joe’s juice fast has ended, because that would take away of the surprise factor. Let me just say the second part of the movie is by far the best, and I sat bawling like a baby for well over an hour. It’s that good. The movie is really and truly impressive, endeering and shocking at the same time. This is also another documentary portraying the fundamentals of Western’s gluttonous society and our reliance on popping pills (and how these only make you feel more crappy).

Joe Cross, after, hubba hubba. Man from the land down undah

I think this is an important movie to see for everyone. It’s not just for those that are obese and really sick, and it’s not just about juice feasting. It teaches us an important lesson on the severe trauma we cause to our bodies with eating a Western diet. Our health, life-span and, most importantly, quality of life vastly decline when we eat junk foods, processed foods, too little greens, vegetables and fruits, and too much food in general. How much being unhealthy and unfit takes away from the quality of your life is remarkable, as shown so well in this film. Unbelievable. But, this film also shows that no matter how BIG the mess you got yourself into, it’s never too late to turn things around… and start enjoying life again!

Well, while we’re on the topic of fasting again anyway, I’d like to share something I came accross some days ago on a juice feaster’s blog. I still receive some messages here and there (both on and offline) about juice feasting, whether it’s healthy, not dangerous, does it cause deficienties, etc. Very valid questions! I have to say, I was wondering about a lot of these things, too, until I fully realized the difference between a juice fast and a juice feast.

You have to realize that kilo’s and kilo’s of fruit and veg go into 4 liters of juice (the minimum requirement, daily, for a juice feast). Now, do you normally eat that in a day? I didn’t think so . Then, you havr to realize that most fruits, greens and vegetables not only contain tons of micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, etc), but also a high percentage of protein. Of course, if you eat a pretty standard diet with not too many fruits/veg/greens, these numbers don’t really add up. When you consume tons of them, like on a juice feast (or a healthy raw vegan diet), they do!

Check this out:

Left column: intake, middle column: recommended daily intake, right column: percentage attained

These are charts of a general juice feasters intake. A women let a dietician in a hospital make this for her (or rather, a dietician insisted on doing so because she was worried about the womens nutrient intake…). This women’s juice intake was even a little below what it’s supposed to be, this is also reflected in the calories (1365 instead of the minimum of 1500).

As you can see, ALL numbers are off the charts, with the exeption of B12 and selenium. For most nutrients, intake is far above the minimum daily requirements, and even protein, gasp, is at a good level. Fat intake is a little low, this could be prevented by adding coconut, hemp or flax oil.

Let me tell you, I did an internship not too long ago where me and a class-mate/friend had to create daily menus of around 1700-2000 calories, based on mostly whole foods, and it was TOUGH getting in all the nutrients day after day. Seriously, we woke up having nightmares about this puzzle. It also opened my eyes to the fact that even a diet that is considered to be very healthy by modern standards, is still sorely lacking in plenty of nutrients, on a daily basis. Isn’t this scary?! (enter: raw foods )

When you juice feast, you get in all the nutrients your body requires, both the macro (carbs, fats, proteins) and the micro nutrients (vitamins, minerals), in large quantities, every day, for the duration of your feast. Do you now understand why it is called a feast, and not a fast? This is a gift to your body. It is not deprevation, it is the opposite. You are showering your body with essential nutrients, ones that it probably had been lacking for a long time. Bottoms up!

Matstone Slow Juicer from Tarwegraskoning.nl: A review

After using my new juicer a few times now, it’t time for a review! The Matstone juicer is a slow juicer, which differs from a centrifugal juicer. Slow juicer squeeze out the juice from your produce at a very low speed. Because of this low speed, little to no fraction or heat is applied during the process, which makes your juice richer in enzymes and more durable (up to 2 days in the fridge, covered). Centrifugal juicers work with sharp blades that rotate on a very high speed, which causes friction and heat, and this makes you have to drink the juice straight away or the nutrients will oxidize. From what I have understood, slow juicers extract more juice from an equal amount of produce than a centrifugal juicer does, and the juice is of a higher quality.

With a slow juicer, you have to cut your produce in small pieces, which takes more time (with a centrifugal juicer, you can just about pop whole apples in there!). However, the clean-up is far easier and quicker with a slow juicer, I found. Hurray! As far as taste goes, I don’t notice any difference.

The major upside of a slow juicer over a centrifugal juicer though is that it is made for juicing greens and wheatgrass, centrifugal juicers kinda suck at this. Because of this, and because slow juicers have many cool extra’s like making ice-cream and pasta, they are more expensive. My centrifugal juicer cost about €100, the Matstone costs €299 normally, €229 now from the supplier I got it at.

I purchased my slowjuicer, and wheatgrass growing supplies, from www.tarwegraskoning.nl (wheatgrass king). I am very happy with the product, but the service was abismal. The website states a quick delivery (1-2 days), my order arrived in 7 days (mind you: I receive orders from California within 3 days…). One can only wonder how long the bag of complementary wheatgrass had been out of the cooling by then…When I contacted them about this, I would get a voicemail over and over again, day in day out. On day 5 I left a message, to which I got no reply. On day 6 I send them an email complaining about their ‘service’ and not returning my calls. On day 9 I got an email; they hadn’t contacted me because it is summertime and they’re not fully staffed. Which is fine obviously, but a website/supplier should definitely state this on their website, both in terms of delivery and for contact. I wouldn’t advice against buying from them at all, but if you’re interested in this slowjuicer there is other suppliers out there as well.

Ok loves, I am off for the weekend. I probably won’t post for at least two days, as The Boy, aka Militairy Man, aka my ex boyfriend, is visiting from Denmark! And you may recall we were quite the active couple! We’ve planned going climbing, walking t the farmers market, walking around downtown, going out, taking a Bikram class (I could only get him to come with me if I would come climbing.. that, and the beautiful half naked girls of course ), walking to the beach if the weather permits, run… well, enough to fill 2 days at least!

Militairy Man! Yeah, he’s shy…

See ya!

Love,

Sabine