Fresh Juice vs. The Store Bought Stuff

Every now and then I talk to people about the juices that I make and consume. Most people have heard about making fresh fruit and vegetable juices themselves, but there are many others who haven't. If I mention that I just consumed a fresh vegetable juice a pretty common response is, "you mean like a V8 juice?"

Even the ones who are familiar with juicers and the practice of juicing oftentimes have misconstrued ideas about these juices. Many wonder why someone would go through all the trouble of preparing a juice themselves, when they could grab a bottled juice out of any cooler in a gas station or supermarket and consume it without having to clean up or prepare a thing. 

Some people might see a movie like "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead," and then decide that juicing, or a juice fast is something they'd like to do. Many of them don't realize that juicing requires a little effort, and once they find out that cleaning a juicer can be a pain in the ass, they often wonder what other, easier options they have. A common question that often arises is, "what store bought juices can I consume instead of making my own juice with a juicer to achieve the same outcome?" Anytime someone asks a question like that they are surely going to be disappointed with the response, because there is no substitution for juice that is extracted out of fresh fruits and vegetables. 

I'm definitely not an expert on the subject, so I decided to share a blog entry that I read awhile back on the topic that can explain some of the (major) differences between fresh juice made with a juicer and the stuff bottled up on store shelves. Just click on the link below to read the brief article on the subject. 

Fresh Juice vs. The Store Bought Stuff

YouTube and Juicing

If you're anything like me then you love YouTube. Although I consider it to be one of my biggest time-sucks, I also consider YouTube to be a useful tool. It's a place that I'll often turn to when I have questions on something, regardless of the subject. I prefer to watch how something is done, rather than just read about it. So, it should come as no surprise that I turned to YouTube when I started juicing to try and answer some of the questions that I had. I'm glad that I did because I came across a ton of useful videos on the subject. So for this post I figured I'd share a few of my favorite YouTube channels when it comes to juicing. Below I list the channels (in no particular order,) along with my brief overview of each one, as well as a link to each channel (on the title of the channel.) If any of them interest you, then check them out for yourself.



Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
Surprise, surprise, it's back again. Only this time it's their YouTube channel, and it's probably the first YouTube channel that I came across when it came to juicing. Most of the videos feature the "star" in FS&ND, Joe Cross. A lot of them are videos answering the most common frequently asked questions that people have, even though many of these deal with questions that people have about doing a Reboot (only eating/drinking fruits and veggies for a period of time, as well as cutting out things like caffeine, cigarettes, etc.) You won't find a ton of juice recipes, but the site does have some helpful videos.


Fitlife.TV
The host of this channel is "transformation specialist" Drew Canole. He has tons of videos devoted to helping people live healthier lives. At first I couldn't stand him. He seems like the kind of guy that would probably hit on your girlfriend the moment you left the room, and, to make matters worse, your girlfriend would probably fall for him. Once I put my first impressions aside I realized he's very knowledgable and has tons of good info to offer newbs like me. Check the channel out for tons of information on juicing and juicing recipes, or for his workouts and life lessons.


Liferegenerator
The Liferegenerator is Dan McDonald, commonly known as Dan The Man, or DTM for short. From what I've seen he is by far the most popular juicer on YouTube, with over 17 million views and tons of videos. Actually, describing DTM as a juicer doesn't do him justice. There's simply no way I can describe this guy or his videos in a few sentences, or even paragraphs. He's an interesting individual with tons of knowledge on the raw food vegan diet, and juicing is a very large part of his lifestyle. He recently stated that this channel will become more like his personal video diary, but people are going to tune in anyways. Check out his past videos where he offers tons of recipes. One disclaimer about DTM: he's out there, far out there.  He kind of looks like Jesus with his long hair, has a tendency to ramble, and if you watch enough of his videos then he'll probably offend you at some point (without intending to.) Some of his videos can be quite long (due to his ramblings) and he likes to label some of them about one thing, even though he never talks about the labeled subject (I once watched a video of his titled something like "WHY DAN HAS FOUR GIRLFRIENDS" and not once in the 10-20 minute video does he make any mention of girlfriends whatsoever.) Decide for yourself what you think of him.


There are many other YouTube channels that have juicing videos, but these are the ones that I've gone to the most. I hope they can help you if juicing is truly something that interests you.

How My Journey Began: Part II

...I honestly didn't know if my friend that I only kinda knew was batshit crazy (definitely possible,) or if this movie really was interesting enough to convince someone that only drinking fruit and vegetable juice for awhile is actually a good idea. One way or another I found out the documentary he watched was "Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead." It's about an Aussie named Joe Cross who is overweight, on medications for a disease called urticaria (really bad hives,) and fed up and determined to make a change. The movie is thought-provoking, inspiring, with a feel good vibe, and I recommend it to anyone that likes documentaries, or anybody that's interested in improving their health. It's available on Netflix, and it's also free on Hulu here with limited commercial interruption. Check out the extended trailer below.

How My Journey Began: Part I

How did my juicing journey begin? I'm glad you asked. I've been juicing fruits and vegetables for about three or four months, but I first learned about juicing a little over a year ago. It all started one evening when I was browsing Facebook. One of my friends posted a status stating he had begun a juice fast (only drinking juice and water, no eating.) To me this sounded absurd, and I quickly disregarded it as a yo-yo diet that probably did more harm than good. Each day that he fasted he posted his weight loss and how he was feeling. By day five he had lost 20 lbs., without any exercise whatsoever. The weight was falling off and he claimed that he was feeling better than ever before. He started to get quite a bit of attention from his fellow Facebook friends and many of them wanted to try what he was doing and wanted to know where he heard about such a thing. It turns out he had watched a documentary and that's what started it all. I was intrigued, I didn't need or want to lose a lot of weight, but I wanted to check it out for myself. I had to know more about this documentary...