I just don't understand the skepticism and criticism towards juicing!

[aspie_and_proud]

I just cannot stand reading articles about doctors, or people who are so skeptical of juicing and even eating better in general. I don't understand how "experts" can - and I quote - chalk up the healing powers of fruits and vegetables (and juicing) to being more "psychological than physical." How does that make sense? Did I mentally make myself fat from prescription medications? Did I psychologically make myself lose 40 pounds? I don't get how you can dispute all the evidence, facts and proof that vegetables, fruit (and mostly raw) stuff is unhealthy. Yet for some reason it is no question as to the unhealthiness of dairy, meat, fast food, junk food and processed food. I can't wrap my brain around it. :/

[freespirit]

Agreed! I work at a juice bar in a gym, and the older women will look at the raw menu and say they can't have the things on the menu...then they talk about the cottage cheese they are going to eat when they get home.

So you cant eat raw fruits and veggies, but the mammary secretions of a 1000 pound animal are ok?

Our society is so brainwashed by corporate America's false nutritional guidelines!

[Gianni]

I know what you are talking about. Just go to wikipedia and look up juice fasting. They try to claim that juice fasting offers no benefits and is potentially dangerous to your health. They couldn't be more wrong or further from the truth.

[Dirkg]

The simple answer is that people will do whatever they can to avoid making an effort. They will take the latest miracle diet pill, 'low fat' junk laden with sugar, doctors will prescribe dangerous and useless drugs like statins that can kill you, they continue to eat garbage. Tell them about eating healthy vegetarian raw diet, and they get angry and act like you are some kind of freak.

[Oldone]

I will agree with freespirit, people are so brainwashed by our greedy corporate america (got to make that almighty dollar), they absolutely do not know any better. I have found that gentle persistence works, and that allows you to slowly reeducate them. It took me four years to get johnny to start juicing but he has been hanging in there for the last 7 years. The secret is to not be so strong that you put them off.

Written by Dragon NaturallySpeaking

[Living Food]

It's because doctors know virtually nothing about health, they're only taught to be drug-pushers for the pharmaceutical industry. Doctors tend to be even less open to learning about health then the average person because doctors have been exposed to even more brainwashing; they learn so much about how complicated diseases are and which drugs are used to "cure" them (ie suppress the symptoms) that by the time they get their degree they can't even comprehend something so simple as diet could have any effect on disease.

Another big problem is specialization. There are hundreds of different fields a doctor can go into, each focused on a single disease or one single segment of the human body. Each of these fields then becomes more and more complicated, obscuring the simple fact that the body is not just the sum of its parts, and that the solution to just about any disease is always the same - remove the toxins from the body, stop putting toxins in the body, fix your nutritional deficiencies, avoid harmful EMF, reduce/eliminate stress. But because most doctors are busy learning about one tiny piece of the body, they have no idea how it operates as a whole.

If you decide to keep going to a doctor [I don't bother], your best bet is to do the research yourself, find reputable papers and evidence that back up your point, and give them to him/her. Every visit you can come in with even more evidence and you'll be teaching your doctor, not the other way around *smile*

The additional benefit of such an approach is that your doctor likely "treats" many other people as well...educate your doctor about health and he/she will end up educating his/her patients about health, and before you know it you've made a huge impact for dozens of people. If people are to lazy to learn about health themselves and instead insist on going to doctors to fix their problems, educate the doctors and the doctors will spread the knowledge like wildfire.

Of course most doctors will be stubborn and refuse to believe that such simple things could cure or prevent disease, but if you persevere and show them enough credible evidence eventually they'll have no choice but to change their thinking. It's already known that most oncologists would refuse chemotherapy for themselves if they got cancer (they know how ineffective it is), so that's progress already.

If everyone here did this with their own doctors, the effect would be felt by thousands of people and that would start a chain reaction that could reach millions. Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but even if just one person benefited it would be worth the effort, no? The vast majority of people know nothing about health or nutrition, but there are thousands upon thousands of us who do...but keep it to ourselves instead of teaching others. I completely understand that some people are too timid or shy to start lecturing to people, but that's why I said just start with your doctor. If you can convert him/her, your doctor will do the lecturing for you. Look, you have the knowledge to save lives - doesn't that mean by keeping quite you are causing needless deaths? Just something to think about.

[MysticTree]

Lots of people assume that fluoride is added to their water. Over here in the UK it largely isn't :)

[Living Food]

Lucky; over here in the US it largely is.

Fluoride is actually not allowed to be added to the water of many countries because they know how toxic it is, just like many countries refuse to allow GM food. We in the US are just particularly dumb (ie our politicians are particularly greedy so lobbyists essentially make the laws around here).

[MysticTree]

Can I just say when I've been to the dentist lately she asked if I wanted a local when she planned to drill and no offer was made for the scaling. Over here they like to keep costs down. Though we still pay for NHS dental care, it's reduced and at the dentist I go to, it is pretty cheap!

[Revvell]

Not cheap here. That's why we go to dental schools such as USC or, many I know, go to Mexico. You'd pay about half of what you'd pay here. The last dentist I went to doesn't even take insurance (not that I have any.)

Can I just say when I've been to the dentist lately she asked if I wanted a local when she planned to drill and no offer was made for the scaling. Over here they like to keep costs down. Though we still pay for NHS dental care, it's reduced and at the dentist I go to, it is pretty cheap!

[walnutty]

If the "experts" are doctors or MD's then they are doctors of medicine, specifically prescription medication. They are NOT doctors of nutrition! Any classes, lectures, books, etc. that they can get on nutrition, we can get! Watch, "Food Matters", it really puts the responsibility of learning about healing and nutrition back in our hands! We can learn anything that an MD can learn!

RIGHT NOW, you can sign up to watch "Food Matters" for free! Here's the link: http://foodmatters.tv/2012-free-screening

[DeniseJones]

Seems to me that these days many patients know more about a specific condition that the doctors themselves. I would always go for a cure (healthy raw food diet) over a band-aid (prescription medication). Problem is with the current system is that there's more money to be made from sick people than healthy ones.

Anyway, thanks for the link. I've seen Food Matters and it's a great movie. I will be passing the link on to all my friends and work colleagues though!

[Juicerguy]

Hello Denise, and anyone else interested. Forks over knives is also a great movie if you have not seen it. It has some of the same information as does Food Matters, but is a different story and take on it. Glad to see others spreading the awesome news about juicing!

[MysticTree]

It was less than £50 for a white filling and scale combined. I still try not to visit very often :)

[Dirkg]

Dental (or anything medical) is certainly not cheap in the US, even after my insurance. I had to get an emergency root canal and I don't even want to think about how expensive that was.What concerns and angers me most is that most people subsidize healthcare costs for those who take no care of themselves and end up with avoidable diseases.