Dear Wes,

Yes, of course all juices are mostly water.   But green juices contain
excessive concentrations of protein.   They would be up to 45% protein if
they were whole foods, but by removing the fiber, the percentage of protein
is even higher in the juice.

When we grow the fastest and need the most protein, the first year of life,
breast milk, at about 2.5% is our ideal and only food.   Consuming any
quantity of something which is 45% protein is excessive.

That protein is a stimulant isn't my experience, it's a pretty-well accepted
fact.   What I hear over and over from green juice drinkers is that they feel
energized after drinking it, just as people do after eating pond scum.   In
both cases, this is the effect of excessive amounts of protein.

There are several other good reasons to avoid juices, some of which I beleive
I touched on before.   In study after study, research has shown that whole
foods are always superior sources of nutrients.   There is nothing that
compares.

By juicing, you are tearing up the food into thousands of tiny pieces, and
exposing the nutrients to oxygen.   This a large loss of nutrients very
quickly.   Additionally, while whole foods are always well-balanced and
provide properly proportioned combinations of nutrients, juicing can help
create imbalances for two reasons:

First, because nutrients oxidize at different rates, there may be a great
loss of one nutrient, and a much lesser loss of another.   Second, because
some nutrients are inevitably bound up with the fiber, they are discarded
with it and never consumed.

My experience with many clients over ten years is that people inevitably do
much better eating a good diet, and when they do, no supplementation -- of
juices or anything else -- is either necessary or beneficial.

Our society seems to beleive that if something is good for us, more is
better.   This is simply not the case.   Our bodies must process everything
we consume.   The ideal situation is to consume exactly what we need, and no
more or less.   Though this ideal may never be realized, we can come much
closer by eating an ideal diet, and learning how to pay attention to, and
properly interpret the body's signals.

Consuming more than we need simply means the body must work harder to process
out all the excess stuff.   No benefit in creating additional work with no
added payout.

Of the people I have worked with, the ones who invariably do the best are the
ones who eat a good frugivorous, raw vegan diet, with no juices, no
supplements.   Eating this way allows people to eventually become far more
efficient and consume fewer calories, working the body even less.

That's certainly been my experience over 11.5 years of being raw.

Namaste,

Loren



In a message dated 3/18/2003 5:40:44 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:


> Carol,
>
> No juice is extremely concentrated. All juices are mostly water.
>
> As for Loren's claim that green juices are stimulants, all I can say is
> that
> I always experienced just the opposite effect -- sedation -- when I
> experimented with green juices in the past. Possibly related to the high
> calcium content.
>
> Wes
>