Juice cleansing: Good or bad or just a fad?
Read on before you start squeezing and sipping for your juice detox
Text: Hema G
Juice for breakfast. Juice for lunch. Juice for dinner. Three-day juice detox. Five-day juice fast. Cold-pressed. Pasteurised. Greens for juicing only. The trend for juice cleanses and the formats available are not going away. In turn, it does beg the question: have we all gone a bit juice mad?
Whether you've successfully completed a juice cleanse or not, you’ll be hard pushed to find someone in Singapore who hasn’t got a favourite juice and fruit stand at their local hawker centre or food court. The benefits of each and every fruit combo liquidised for minutes in a blender and served up with lashings of ice is nothing new for those of us on this sunny island, where tropical fruits are so easily available to us.
Cold-pressed juice bars have been popping up all over town, pushing the infamous green looking juice, which has only gained in popularity over the years and become synonymous with the wellness movement today. But, what’s it all about really?
What is a juice cleanse exactly?
A juice cleanse, also known as a juice fast or juice detox, replaces all solid meals and snacks with juices. The juices are typically blended or cold-pressed from mainly vegetables with smatterings of fruit and occasionally contain nuts, seeds, herbs and spices. Juice fasts can last anywhere between 1–14 days or more. Advocates of the ever-popular cleanses believe juices in the right combination, provide concentrated form of vitamins, minerals and nutrients, which are more easily digested by the body and in turn improve overall health and wellbeing.
The history
Dr Norman Walker was a pioneer in the field of juicing in the early 1900s. He championed drinking fresh vegetable and fruit juices to maintain optimum health. As an ambitious young businessman, Dr Walker sadly suffered a breakdown and went to a home in the French countryside to recover. He watched one of his hosts peel carrots and noticed the moisture release from the peels, decided to blend some carrots himself, and therein created his first juice! This was the start of his journey and after regaining his health (which he attributed to the intake of juices, natch) he moved to California where he began developing a range of fresh juices for specific conditions. He opened a juice bar and home delivery service and was widely known as America's “juice man”!
The pros & cons
Few studies have been done on the effects of juicing, but limited data shows that a juice fast for up to three days is safe and can be somewhat beneficial to your health. As with all significant changes to diet, it’s worth checking with your own doctor before you embark on a juice cleanse.
Advocates say the benefits include:
Weight loss
Reduced inflammation
Improved digestion
Increase in energy
The break from solid food gives the body and particularly the digestive system an opportunity to rest and repair. This in turn strengthens the body’s ability to absorb nutrients and helps it to heal. Do note, you can achieve many of these benefits and more by simply adding more fruits and vegetables to your regular diet, rather than just juicing. Try replacing just one of your meals a day with a juice or try a healthy smoothie instead and see how you feel.
As mentioned, with any diet or fast, there are always risks so it’s important to be aware of these before you start. Juice cleansers have noted symptoms including the following:
Extreme tiredness due to a lack of protein and carbohydrates
Blood sugar spikes. Removing the fibre during the juicing and extraction process means the juice may contain a lot more sugar and far fewer nutrients, which cause digestive problems and increase in blood sugar levels
The lack protein in juices can make you lose muscle mass and will slow down your metabolism
An increase in weight post cleanse. This is because toxins released from body fat that is broken down by fasting can circulate in the blood until cleansing stops. This can also make you feel sick. At this point fat stores accumulate again, especially as you begin to eat solid foods. Hello yo-yo dieting effect …
People who are underweight and suffering from any form of weakness or medical condition are advised to seek the advice of a doctor before embarking on a juice cleanse or any diet change. We also recommend that children, adolescents and pregnant and breastfeeding women avoid juice cleansing due to the additional nutrients they need.
Despite all the new dieting trends the juice movement looks set to stay but approach with caution. During the juice cleanse, follow the instructions from the juice company, monitor how you are feeling and avoid strenuous physical activity. It’s important you set aside time to rest during this period. Consider a short 1–3 day cleanse to start with and see how your body reacts. Then slowly ease yourself back into solid foods post-cleanse with lighter meals and snacks.
