PERSONAL HISTORY - By Anna-Marie (author of the MIRACLE 3 Day DeTox and MOTHER'S MILK - The MIRACLE of Raw Vegetable Juicing - Healing - http://maxpages.com/juice4life/Personal

I am part of a personal campaign to add more vital fresh foods to my life. One way I have found to get more vital fresh food in my diet, without having to make any dramatic changes is to add raw juices to my day. These juices are easily and readily digested, completely natural and a concentrated source of live nutrients, essential enzymes, antioxidants and basic essential nutrients that are sorely missing in our refined and processed diets.

I began juicing fresh raw fruits and vegetables a year ago and the difference in my body, in my enthusiasm, in my ability to concentrate and memorize; the improvement in my skin, hair and health has convinced me that everyone should know about raw fruit and vegetable juicing. It will change your life. There is no powder, supplement, pill or capsule that is going to give you the health rejuvenating benefits of ingesting the juice of fresh, raw plant food.

I drink at least 4 cups of juice a day at least 4 times a week. I do miss a day here and there and have gone several days without juicing - but I always come back to juicing because nothing gives me the balance and energy that juicing does. I typically juice 2 cucumbers, one zucchini, one yellow squash, 5 lbs carrots, 1 stalk of celery and 2 green peppers, a half a clove of garlic and 1/4 of a beet. I sometimes add a quarter of a cabbage, or a bunch of broccoli or several handfuls of fresh spinach depending upon what my body tells me I need. The beet add color, the carrots add sweetness. This amount of vegetables makes about 8 cups of juice which lasts me and my partner 2 days.

Does this freshly extracted juice taste good? It depends upon what you call 'taste good'. From the very first glass I tried, I knew that vegetable juice was what I was missing in my diet. I wasn't that wild about the taste but I loved how it felt after I drank it. After drinking juices for over a year, I can honestly say that nothing satisfies, hydrates and gives me the energy hit that vegetable juicing does. Drinking a glass of raw vegetable juice in the afternoon helps me keep satisfy sugar cravings and improves drowsiness.

I actually crave vegetable juice when I've gone a few days without it. This craving is different than a craving for unhealthy food for it originates from within my body. I sense it is a cellular craving rather than the usual pyschological desperate craving based taste sensation. Going over in my mind how good I feel after I drink the juices is what motivates me to prepare these juices. I usually ‘crave’ vegetable juice when I’m feeling low in mind, body and spirit (and I usually only feel low in mind, body and spirit when I haven't had a glass of fresh vital juice for an extended period of time).

I typically make juice every other day in the morning. A good idea is to prepare the vegetables the night before (15 minutes) and all I have to do the next morning is pop the prepared vegetables into the extractor, strain and store the juice, and clean the juicer (this takes no more than 20 minutes). I try to have a freshly-made cup of juice right there and then, first thing in the morning, and the rest of the juice I sip throughout the day (diluted over ice in a nice glass with a straw). I still drink tea and some coffee at work but I try to drink at least one cup of vital juice mid morning, at least one cup in the afternoon and I like to drink a cup when I get home before I eat dinner. I usually drink 4-6 cups of juice every day.

The days I don’t drink freshly extracted vegetable juice; I feel a loss of energy. I lose my zest. My appetite is harder to control. Visions of what I want to do with my life seem further away. Is juicing a crutch? Is making vegetable juice just another addiction? Maybe, but what a healthy addiction -- and what mind blowing side affects!

Vegetable juice has given me the body of my dreams. My skin has never been smoother. I had a severe case of acne as a teenager. I believed to the depths of my being that I was the least attractive person on earth when I was 17 years old. Today at 42 when most women fear that they are losing their looks, I feel I have never looked better. (I’m sure I’ve looked better but I’ve never felt better about the way I look!) After a day of not drinking juice -- especially a day at the end of a string of many days when I haven't juiced, I know! I know how important juicing is to my feeling of well being (and ultimately feelings of attractiveness) because when I don’t juice, I lose something. I lose sense of this great feeling of well-being and slip into old patterns of feeling lethargic, a little depressed and much older.

This feeling of well-being is not associated with psychology; it is not associated with self-esteem. It’s a feeling from my body’s cells of being healthy and alive. Only vital foods can give this to you. Caffeine, sugar and white flour (the main ingredients in so many of our breakfasts) are only cheap imitations of the energy and lift you get from vital nutrition.

I believe vegetable juicing will transform lives and ultimately our world, because of the feeling of well-being that it provides in your body. When I feel great about me, I feel great about others. When you feel excited, healthy and happy and see everything about yourself as beautiful, you can’t help but treat other people the same way. If you’re convinced you're great just because you’re you; then it's easy to see that everyone else is great just because they’re them! What if everyone felt like this? Talk about peace and goodwill and heaven on earth.

I am under the unique impression that most of our societal ills is largely in part associated with cell malnourishment - particularly, a lack of fresh plant food in the diet. Emotional wounds from childhood are as connected to malnutrition as is the ignorance and unlovingness of our parents. If our parents had eaten more fresh fruit and vegetables, they might not have suffered so much from low mood swings, negative energy and inappropriate thinking and behaving.

If, as children, we were given fresh vital foods instead of Little Debbie snacks or Hostess snacks or drinks of Coke or soda pop, maybe we wouldn’t have whined and cried so much, maybe we wouldn’t have irritated our parents so much and learned to feel so bad about ourselves.

We as a race have lost contact with knowledge on how to care for ourselves. Feeding ourselves is basic and primary. If we don’t do this right (and the way to do anything right is with love, care and attention) chances are our bodies, our minds are not going to function as well or as happily, than when we do. Feeding ourselves right means lots and lots of fruits and vegetables and pure water.

Our bodies are dependent upon plant food for optimal functioning. If your diet is not based on fruits and vegetables, I know and you know that you are not functioning at an optimal level. It is impossible to function optimally when your body is lacking vital key earthly elements of which the body is made up of. A diet lacking plant food means your body is full of toxins and waste products lingering in your digestive system, in your blood, and stored in your organs and cells. Stored impurities affect how you think and how you feel.

We are going to find that people who eat plenty of fresh plant food are happier, more balanced and more intuitive than those who eat a lot of refined food, sugar and indigestible fat. I’m not of a scientific mind so I am not going to prove this, but I see evidence of it all the time. Although I rarely meet others who consume as much plant food as I do, when I do, I sense a spark of life, of enthusiasm and wisdom, I find lacking in others who don’t consume plant food. I’m looking for 'others' that are sick of feeling sick, sick of feeling depressed, sick of feeling lethargic, sick of being without dreams and without vision - and who are willing to give LIFE a chance.

The miraculous properties of vegetable juice (namely the potent vitamins and minerals in their most natural state - trace elements, oxygen, carbon and the live enzymes) is what our bodies are literally dying for. I would love to share with you my experience, my research and my enthusiasm in regards to this 'secret' that will restore health and vitality in body and mind and spirit and change your aging experience. For information on classes in Stafford, Virginia call 540/846-1592 or e-mail me at plantvitality@yahoo.com.

I invite you to venture where you may have never ventured before -- into a world of vital foods and vital living. It is a new plane of existence for those who are not opposed to change and new experience. I welcome you to a plane of enthusiasm, of vision and of purpose. I’m looking for others who are making or who are ready to make amazing changes in your life and in your body.

This Web Page might be your first visit into a realm of health and vitality. Welcome. I invite you to visit, play and partake in a perspective that exists outside the usual and accepted perception of our present day society (a perception that believes it doesn’t matter what you eat as long as it tastes good!)

I see a perspective that based on the important of HEALTH and VITAL EATING and not on taste sensation. Ironically, cleaning up your diet, enhances your taste and appreciation for food. Through this Web Page I’m hoping to unite myself with others who have chosen (or would like to choose) to embrace the importance of health and diet and the connection between vital foods and optimal health and happiness. Once, again, welcome to a reality of optimal health and true beauty.

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Page Updated Wed Jun 5, 2002 12:50pm EDT