To Heal is to Juice Fast...

There is such scientific condescension when it comes to pearls of wisdom such as “starve a cold, feed a fever.” “It’s one of the most well-known medical bromides around: starve a cold, feed a fever, or is it feed a cold, starve a fever? Either way,” writes, Anahad O’Connor in a NYT article, "it may not matter." Scientists have found little evidence for either one.” The Chief of Clinical Services with Duke University’s Division of Medical Services dots the “i” when asked of the origin of this famous bromide: "I’m sure you could look through some old medical books and someone has mentioned it there, just like blood letting…" I don’t readily fall into the anti-science school, but I take anything said with such bravado with a pound of salt. If the shoe fits you personally and it feels good, go ahead and wear it. Whenever I get a cold, I am not hungry. My body gets into healing mode, I think. And I think that there is something to the idea of fasting and healing.

In the documentary by Joe Cross, “Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead,” the overweight protagonist crosses the United States on a road trip from New York to California proselytizing the good news. No, he is not trying to win over folks to Christianity at a truck stop. He has in the back of his rental car a juicer and generator to juice the juicer. How refreshing it is to watch him hand over a glass of vegetable juice to an overweight trucker! By the time he was 40 years old Joe Cross was 100 lbs. overweight, and was suffering a debilitating autoimmune disease that he cared for with a pharmaceutical pantry full of pills. The documentary chronicles his quest to reverse this deadly lifestyle and see if the human body, void of processed foods and animal products, can actually heal itself. He would do this by drinking juice, just juice, every day, for 60 days. The transformation we see and even don’t see (his personality changes as much as his body) is truly remarkable.

That Joe Cross hits the road and travels on a road to freedom by heading West is mythic: think of Kerouac, Chris McCandless made famous or infamous from the book and movie, “Into the Wild”, or the last scene of “Goodwill Hunting.” As Gabriel Cousens writes of the juice-fasting journey: "the appetite fades after the first few days and the mind becomes freer." Why? It is not easy when the stomach rumbles not to reach for solid food. But if you let that stomach rumble and not try to quell it with solid food, it is a notch in the realm of success. Along with the health benefits of a juice fast, which are considerable, one truly overcomes a food addiction and by overcoming, the result is a tremendous amount of freedom and joy. Juice fasting is not about deprivation as it is about treating your body like the holy temple it is. Try the juice fast even for a day and look in the mirror at your face. Ponce de Leon may have been right that there truly is a fountain of youth…