In this interview we gain insight into the life-changing power of juicing through the remarkable journey of Sarah, co-founder of The Social HQ. Sarah shares about her health transformation and the pivotal role that juicing played in her life. From her initial skepticism about juicing to a surprising turn of events that led to her pregnancy, Sarah’s story is both inspiring and eye-opening.

Despite facing challenges in conceiving, Sarah’s experience with juicing not only transformed her perspective but also played a vital role in her natural pregnancy. Her story sheds light on the importance of nutrition and how it was often overlooked by medical professionals in her fertility journey.

JL: Hello everybody I am Jen Longtin here from PURE Juicer. It is so great to be here for another interview of Spotlight Juicer. Today we have Sarah who is the co-founder of The Social HQ. If you didn’t see Nicole’s interview, that was one that we did recently. I welcome you to visit that one as well. Now Sarah is here with us.  I love to call her “The Reluctant Juicer” just because there are many people out there who have similar beginnings, similar stories. Sarah it is so great to have you here, welcome!

When we started juicing, my business partner would make it for me and it was so good it tasted so clean. Once I started having from the PURE Juicer, I couldn’t go back to normal juice! It just didn’t taste the same, I don’t know why. And juicing just changed my life. Also, I was having a really hard time getting pregnant. I kept being told that there was nothing wrong with me and that it would just happen naturally and I just needed to give it more time. I started seeing an IVF doctor to move the process along just because I was unsure what was causing it.  We were just told that I had lower hormones and that’s what was causing the issue. But, then I started juicing, and after I started juicing for three months, I got pregnant naturally. No intervention. So, I really think that the PURE had a huge part to do with it because we tried for two years and didn’t get pregnant and then started juicing and all of a sudden we were able to get pregnant! They claimed that because of the fact that I had more nutrition and more vitamins that maybe it boosted my system and that’s why I got pregnant. But because of that I just can’t stop now I just want to keep going and especially my first trimester I was really sick. I had shingles, I couldn’t process any food and then I had the PURE. I was like ‘I’m just gonna try PURE juicing’ and then I was juicing probably three or four times a week to try to keep my body energized and give me the nutrition I needed for me and my baby. I couldn’t drink water, water tasted disgusting, metallic. Then I tried orange juice, first in the grocery store or lemonade but it was either way too sweet or it didn’t taste real. It tasted fake. So the PURE saved me through my pregnancy. So far I highly recommend it to everyone because when you put things in your body you want the cleanest of the clean. I don’t put my food in plastic Tupperware so why would I use a plastic juicer. It’s kind of a huge benefit to me of having a PURE.

JL: Well, first of all, huge congratulations! I am so lucky to know that you are pregnant before it was officially announced. I didn’t want to spoil the surprise before I announced you, but I am so, so happy for you and your family. Congratulations! I mean all of this  success is because of you. And that PURE could play any role is amazing! Whether it’s getting the nutrients in on a more regular basis. You had mentioned that your doctor didn’t really talk to you about nutrition but did talk about medications, is that right?

SD: Yep. So initially when I started with IVF all they were talking to me about was “here’s this drug you can go on to help with ovulation.” But I didn’t have any ovulation issues. ‘Here’s another drug to help with this,’ not once was it like ‘hey let’s talk about nutrition,’ because if they had just talked about that maybe I could have started the process sooner or maybe I could have gotten pregnant sooner. My PCP didn’t talk about it or my OBGYN or my IVF doctor. Not one person mentioned nutrition. It was all ‘here’s a medication that’s going to help you get better.’

JL: I don’t think that they typically use the green apples for apple juice and there are so many health benefits to the green apple and the red apple quite frankly. But I love that carrot-apple combination! I’m so glad that you have that and romaine is, I think Nicole talked about that too, but it’s actually really high in protein. So very, very juicy and also really a great source of protein for people who may not be able to eat meat which doesn’t sound like you were able to keep much of anything down.

SD: No, and then Nicole also made a lot of beet juice with pineapple and beets are so good when you’re trying to get pregnant. But again, no one spoke to me about it. They’re just like ‘here’s the medication that you can go on’ and I was like ‘nope.’ There has to be a better way, there has to be an easier way for my body to respond.

JL: Now, how has the juicing gone now that you are not as close? So you don’t get the benefit of Nicole’s juice, but you have your own juicer now. What are you making these days that fills your cravings and makes you feel satiated or just feels good?

SD: So, recently I actually tried making a honeydew melon which I wasn’t sure how it would taste because I’ve never juiced one before. But it tasted really good. A lot different than I expected. Then I’ve been on a watermelon kick with anything. Watermelon with lime. But when I first started out doing multiple fruits, it was overwhelming and intimidating so I’d stick to one fruit, like a pineapple or a watermelon. But now that I have the hang of it and know how to do it, I do one or three fruits. But I try not to go over three because I feel like the taste just isn’t the same. I don’t really know how to do more than three yet.

JL: Honestly when we first started the periodic table and all of the recipes with the periodic table, that was the one agreement, that we could only have three ingredients per recipe. With that in mind, knowing that you can always add things to it that you crave. But three is sort of the limit for anyone’s mental capacity so I’m right there with you. Three is a sweet sweet number. Always including apples, so even if there isn’t an apple in those top three then just throw an apple in because I love them!

JL: Yeah, I just started making watermelon lime with strawberry and I also started putting aloe gel. Getting the leaf, cutting aloe, and pressing it all together is so good! And you can’t taste the aloe which is so bitter so you actually don’t want to taste the aloe, so if you can do that combination it’s incredible!

SD: That sounds amazing! Yeah, I love being able to grind up the apple and the carrot and get all the amazing flavor and then I have that wonderful pulp I’ve made into carrot muffins, zucchini muffins and all these things!  I’m not wasting anything. I don’t feel like I’m just throwing away a plastic container that I got my juice from. I’m juicing and then I’m using the pulp and I’m using the juice. I love it!

JL: Oh my gosh, well one of the surprises that I had when you started juicing and when you were hooked on it, is that you said ‘I just can’t buy any store-bought juice anymore’ because it just does not compare. So is that correct?

SD: It was a plastic juicer. I would try a blender and a blender just did not taste like juice. You can’t strain it, it just doesn’t work. Then trying to juice with the different juicer that is plastic…I just feel like it has that weird aftertaste and it makes me kind of concerned nowadays because plastic can seep into stuff. You just never know what could happen. So, if you don’t have plastic in a juicer, which you don’t for a PURE, it just tastes clean and I don’t feel guilty about drinking it.

JL: You know what’s interesting too, is Gerson put together his regimen for people who were really, really sick to heal them. It’s interesting that as we’re looking at our younger generations with the issues around fertility and reproductive health…it’s almost like cleaning house and getting your body ready to have a baby. And, this is not medical advice. It’s just conversation. It was designed for him to cure migraines. It wasn’t for curing cancer, it wasn’t for anything like that. It was for curing his migraines and it basically just cleaned his system out. I’m learning more about potassium too and how important that is, so I’m glad that you have carrots and apples. Keep that in your list of recipes.

JL: What was the biggest surprise, as a reluctant juicer, you have a busy life, you have a business that you’re running, you’re all running all over the place, your husband is busy, you guys are traveling… As a reluctant juicer, what was your biggest surprise once you started juicing, besides getting pregnant?

But, now it’s just so easy!  I don’t even think about it, it just goes in there and I press it and it makes it less messy actually. It comes apart and can go in the dishwasher which is such a huge thing. I can just take it all apart, use a sponge, clean off the counter and everything just goes in the dishwasher.

JL: Yeah. What advice would you have for someone who’s just getting started or maybe it’s you seven months ago before you hit your six months, what would you tell yourself now about juicing?

SD: So I think there’s a lot of benefits that people don’t talk about that are super important. I didn’t realize how much nutrition is in juicing especially cold pressed juicing so I would say if you’re trying to eat a ton of salads every day you can still get that same nutritional value by juicing. I did not know that when I first started and that was a huge thing for me, so I’d say that’s my advice. My other advice is everything that you try is going to be overwhelming at first because you’re not used to doing it, you’re not in the pattern. But I think if you really commit to your health… I was committed to getting pregnant and I didn’t want to go on medication to get pregnant so that was my goal. I did everything I could and I researched… I know beets are really good when you’re trying to get pregnant but I don’t love eating beets unless they’re roasted so I was like ‘how can I incorporate this into my day’ so I’d say figure out what your goal is and then figure out like how you can use juicing to hit your goal! You don’t need to be super super healthy to juice, I’m just an average human that works out three days a week, so I didn’t do anything extreme in order to add juicing into my schedule.

JL: I love it. The periodic table, we now have sexual health in here and we have a blog written by an expert. Beets are on there, greens, are super super good. Dates, fennel and chili peppers…spices. Oh my gosh! You said your little girl likes spice.

S: Yeah! Bring on those chilies. Chili peppers, pomegranates, pumpkin seed and watermelon! I drink a lot of watermelon.

JL: Yeah watermelon is great. Watermelon is so great. The periodic table has that new section which was inspired a lot by your story and so many stories that we hear. I love the focus, not just on pregnancy, but on nutrition and getting more nutrients into your body and letting your body do what it does best, which is find homeostasis. If there is anything else that I’ve missed you’ve been amazing. Again, congratulations! Is there anything else that you would like to share with the audience, the peer community or anything?

SD: If you’re considering juicing I would start with a PURE. I feel it’s the best juicer on the market. I’ve tried three or four different juicers. At one point I was trying them because I was trying to see if it could improve my health and then once I tried the PURE I just couldn’t go back to anything else. It just tastes so good. There’s nothing like it. So I would say I would highly recommend it!

JL: Man if it was up to me I would work with everyone personally. Like with you and Nicole so that we could all have these stories but I’m just so grateful that you gave it a shot and that you’ve found so much success. I’m so glad you were able to get juice in, even when you couldn’t even drink water.

SD: Couldn’t do it.

Sarah’s journey is a testament to the power of making informed choices about what we put into our bodies. Join us as we delve into Sarah’s remarkable story and gain valuable insights into the world of juicing and its profound effects on personal health and well-being.

Whether or not you’re on a fertility journey, Sarah’s story is an inspiration as it demonstrates the transformative powers of nutrition through juicing. She offers practical advice for newcomers which is to set clear health goals and use juicing as a tool to achieve them. Her experience underscores that juicing can be seamlessly integrated into everyday life, even for those with busy schedules. Sarah also praises the PURE Juicer for its ease of use, minimal clean-up, and exceptional taste, making it the ultimate juicing companion. Don’t wait to embark on your health journey, start with the PURE Juicer today!

Medical Disclaimer

PURE Juicer is a juicing company. We are not doctors or medical experts. All content and information on this blog and website is for informational and educational purposes only, does not constitute medical advice, and does not establish any patient-client relationship by using this website.

Although we strive to provide accurate general information, the information presented here is not a substitute for professional advice. You should not rely solely on this information. Always consult a professional in your area for your health questions and concerns before making any professional, legal, medical, financial, or tax-related decisions.

“We all deserve to be well. Being well is a human right and should be treated as such.” – Quentin Vennie

If you read through our blogs and spotlights you will find many ways that juicing supports our physical health. There have been movies about juicing and how it transforms people’s physical lives for the better. But today, we are talking about mental health. As Quentin speaks to, in our interview, if juicing can help with physical health, maybe it can help with mental health. Based on his experience (and mine), the answer is an inspiring yes.

In a blog by Ilene Ruhoy, MD, Ph.D., co-creator of the Periodic Table of Juicing, we learn that phytonutrients found in fruits and vegetables help improve our neurotransmitters. These same neurotransmitters balance hormones, improve mental clarity, and repair gut function (which in turn changes the brain). But our interview with Quentin brings this concept to life. He shares his story, we talk about his book, Strong in The Broken Places, Equitea, his business inspired by his son, and the trinity of health that allowed him to heal and be a hero to so many.

I hope you enjoy this interview. Jen

Today I am joined by Quentin Vennie, a wellness and mental health advocate, author of the best-selling memoir “Strong In The Broken Places” and visionary entrepreneur. Quentin’s notable work as the Founder and CEO of Equitea has established him as a guiding force in the realm of holistic wellness. We’ll delve into his personal story, exploring his struggles with addiction and poverty. Specifically, how these experiences have influenced his perspective on life, growth, and the pursuit of well-being. We also dive into his journey with juicing and how he has grown to share this passion with friends and family, creating a routine that he can enjoy with his loved ones.

JL: Thank you. I thought it would be good to maybe start a little bit with your story, and then we’ll dive into some of the tools that you have in here. And then we can talk a little bit more about other things after that. I have so many questions.

QV- No, of course. My story, it’s important to note that it’s still being written, which I love, right? You know, the progress, the possibilities that exist. But to give a brief synopsis, I was born and raised in Baltimore, as you mentioned. Baltimore forever. Raised by a single mom. My father was addicted to drugs, so he spent a large portion of my life and childhood in the streets and in prison. A victim of the heroin epidemic that Baltimore was known for in the ’80s and ’90s. I went to schools that were populated by individuals who didn’t look like me, so at a very young age I learned what it felt like to be othered, to be racially profiled, to have my history and my value ripped from me, or the attempt to have them ripped and stripped from me. I went on to be diagnosed with anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, major depressive disorder, PTSD, spent two years fighting an addiction to anxiety pills. I attempted suicide twice. I survived an accidental drug overdose. I struggled with alcohol. But through the modalities of yoga and meditation and juicing and, the ritual of tea and gardening, I was really able to find a place of sustainability, of healing, and of purpose.

JL: I feel like I would not do this interview service if I wasn’t really real about this. And, I mean, putting juicing aside, you’ve walked this hero’s journey of having sort of a foundation ripped from you and having to look within to find strength. And I know that your mother was there for you in a lot of ways, and I know that there were educators that wanted to be there for you as well. And that’s wonderful, but it doesn’t take away what you went through and how challenging that was and to hit that bottom that I am so grateful for, that you are still here, that you are able to find something that brought you back to yourself. I mean, it truly is the hero’s journey because you’ve not only brought yourself back, but now you’re giving it back to others through your book, through your speaking engagements, through your business, Equitea. It is the hero’s journey.

QV- Thank you so much. That’s truly humbling. I’ve never really heard it put that way, so I really appreciate you putting words to something that I feel, right? I mean for me, it was my life. And, I’ve been to hell and back, you know? I feel like it would be a disservice of my presence on this planet to hoard that and not make it accessible. I’m a firm believer that a shared experience can be a saved life. And if it weren’t for the likes of other individuals that came before me, who’s to say that I’d even be here? And so I think us really sharing our lived experiences and our shared humanity is the bridge and pathway to finding that level of healing that I think we all deserve.

JL: Well, and I think that as a man, that being sensitive is not always looked at as a strength. And I can relate to the sensitivity and how much the world impacts me. And when you talk about getting back to nature, to movement, to meditation, to these things that quiet this crazy world that we’re in, for you to find that and have it healing, I know I can really relate to that because there was no drug, or whether it was legal or not, that really helped me the way those pieces have helped me. Do you wanna talk about maybe the trinity of wellness that you speak about in the book?

QV- Yeah. I talk about yoga, meditation, and juicing. For me, it was my trinity that ultimately got me away from prescription drugs, got me outside of my addiction, gave me something else to put that addictive energy into. I’m a firm believer that the addiction doesn’t go away, we just find other things that take its place. And for me I used to call myself the Green Juice Junkie. That was my thing. It was every morning, every afternoon, every evening. And so yoga helped me get into my body. Helped me to discover who I was physically. What I love about the practice is that it’s called a practice, right? It’s not yoga perfect, it’s yoga practice. And so it always gave me something more to look forward to. I would never, and I will never, conquer yoga, right? Like, I can do a perfect bench press, but I will never conquer yoga, right? It’s always a journey. So it’s really my metaphor for life. Meditation helped me to really find grounding and find this spiritual connection with a higher purpose, a higher power, with universal energy. And then juicing gave me everything that I was lacking from a nutrition standpoint, as well as the practice of juicing, right? Like, it wasn’t really going to the store and buying juice. It didn’t do it for me. I needed to go through that process. I needed to know everything that I was putting into it and really make it my own. It was like, I always say, I’m drinking the sun, right? And like, what better way to fuel your body than to drink the thing that helps give us life?

JL: I love it. For yoga, you probably can do this. Can you do shoulder stands and handstands?

QV- I can do a shoulder stand. I can do a handstand against the wall. I can do a shoulder stand, forearm stand, headstand. Handstand, I gotta be up against the wall. I can’t get my hips to go in the direction without tumbling over yet.

JL: Okay. I have not been able to do that for some reason. I gotta keep my feet on the ground for some reason. I just can’t let it go. For meditation, do you meditate in the morning? Is that sort of your practice, or whenever you can kind of a deal?

QV- It’s usually in the morning. And today, I’ve been up since five this morning, working and running. So I’ll probably take a good 10 to 15 minutes to ground myself before going through the rest of my day. And then I like to get into that practice. I would say it’s less of a meditation in the evening. For me, it’s more visualization. I’m a firm believer that what we input into our minds and our psyches at night, we go into this outer body experience when we sleep, right? Like, the cells regenerate, our body heals, all of this. What also happens is we start to put into our souls, our cells, our spirit, all the things that we wanna manifest, right? And so when we wake up, we’re really in a space of like, chasing after that thing. I’m a firm believer in manifestation, and that’s worked for me for many, many years. And so at night, I turn off all electronic devices. My daughter sleeps with us, so we turn on the cricket sounds. The room is pitch black, and while she’s going to sleep, I’m breathing, but I’m consciously thinking of what it is that I wanna manifest, whether for that moment, for my life, for my children, for my business, for the next day, for the next three months, whatever it is, and I hold that. I embody it as if it already exists, and then I go to sleep with that on my heart.

JL – I just listened to a podcast. I really love Bruce Lipton, who’s been working on health and biology. He’s kind of into this quantum biology. But he was saying that when you’re between the ages of one to seven, your brain is sort of in theta wave, which is a hypnotic state. And the only time you get that as an adult after that is right between deep sleep and awake. And so one of the things that he said is if you want to change the habits that you formed, or the thought processes from that early phase in your life, that that is the best time to do it. So you’re-

QV – I love it.

QV – No, yeah. Equitea was created out of necessity. My son was diagnosed with ADHD. We had done everything from pulling him out of traditional schools. He would do yoga and meditation. He was juicing. He was on a gluten-free diet. I mean, behavioral therapy, occupational therapy, talk therapy. And he was still struggling. And so his neurologist suggested he was struggling primarily in school, not in life. He’s never had behavior problems, always had a difficult time academically. And his neurologist has suggested that he drink tea, and green tea specifically. And the idea was the L-theanine, which is naturally occurring in green tea, with the small amount of caffeine would actually mimic the reaction of Adderall, right? But without the risk of dependency or any negative side effects. It would give him a calm focus. But the problem was all of the teas that we would buy at conventional grocery stores, and even natural grocery stores, they were very low quality, had very minimal nutritional value, didn’t taste very well. And so it became a struggle trying to get him to drink these teas. And so my wife and I kind of made the decision that if we were going to even see if this was a viable option, we needed to figure out how to make green tea palatable to a nine-year-old without adding a bunch of sugar and other additives. And so it really started with a lot of trial and error and experimenting with different teas and botanicals and learning as much as we could about teas and countries of origins and flavor profiles. And kind of became a “Dexter’s Laboratory” of sorts and figuring out what worked and what didn’t. And we landed on a blend. It worked for him. It was something that was a part of his day-to-day ritual and routine, became a part of our family’s ritual and routine. At the time, I was an executive working in nonprofit. My wife was an executive. And so I ultimately stepped away from my job due to some racial issues I was dealing with at the time and made the conscious decision to make available to other families what we had created for our own, right? Very similar to my own mental health journey, I realized early on that if I’m struggling with this, that I know countless other families are struggling with it, right? Whether they were struggling directly or with a child, a grandchild, a cousin, a best friend’s child, we’re all impacted by it, right? And so we realized that because we had to create something that there was a need. And we wanted to fill that need. And so Equitea is a mental-health based company. We use adaptogens for all of our teas, for functionality and efficacy. And our aim is to de-stigmatize mental health, democratize the beverage space, while also making accessibility to mental health products more viable and more equitable.

JL: And how is it going? It seems you’re doing incredibly well. You’re getting recognition and support. And I know we love it too. My son has given up the yerba mates that are all the rage, and he’s actually shifted over to Equitea. We’ve tried adding juice to it. But I will say, to anyone out there watching this, don’t add juice. It’s already perfect as it is. And I thought it would be fun to do that as a collaboration, but I’m like, that was my biggest lesson. I’m like, nope, there’s no collab required. Just drink it the way that you made it ’cause it’s perfect as it is.

QV – Thank you so much. Well, it’s interesting. I need to get you some cases of, we just reformulated. So it’s the same formulation, but we enhanced some flavors. It’s slightly sparkling now.

JL: Oh.

QV – And so we finished production a few weeks ago, and we’ll be launching a new flavor. It’s a peach ginger white tea that we go into production on Thursday. So I’ll make sure you and your son get some ’cause, what we had before was incredible, and this is even better. So yeah. But thank you for that. And it’s going well. We’re sold nationwide in 400 Sprouts. We ship nationwide via our website equitea.com, and we’re gaining some great traction and interest from a few other major retailers. And so we’re in early conversations, but hopefully I’ll have some more exciting news to share in the weeks to come.

JL: Amazing. Amazing. Let’s talk a little bit about juicing as well. So you had this green juice. Can we talk about your green juice? And here’s an example of green juice.

QV – My green juice, when I first started juicing, was interesting. It was the day that I was still taking pills, I was still addicted to pills. And I had just gotten out of the hospital, and I was like, “You know what? I’m not gonna take these pills anymore.” And I ended up being rushed to the emergency room ’cause what I didn’t realize is the amount of pills that I was taking was so high that stopping could have caused me to die, right? And so the one thing that was killing me was also keeping me alive. So it was a bit of a challenging thing to conceptualize, right? And so I came home, and I was like, “All right, I have to figure out how to do this.” I wanted to find other people who had healed themselves from different things. And that led me down a path of watching “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” with Joe Cross, who I ended up meeting and getting a chance to actually like, hug in person because he contributed to him sharing his story. Again, a shared experience can be a saved life. Him sharing his story led me down the path of thinking that it was for me. Though he was battling obesity and an autoimmune disease, and I was battling anxiety and prescription drug addiction, the possibility existed. Right after that, I saw “Crazy Sexy Cancer” with Kris Carr, who was fighting stage four cancer using things like enemas and veganism and yoga and meditation and juicing. And everything that I was watching at the time, the commonality was juicing. And so it was like two in the morning. I was at my apartment in Cockeysville, which is a suburb of Baltimore County. And they have a 24-hour Walmart. And I went out and bought a Jack LaLanne juicer from Walmart at two o’clock in the morning. I went out to the produce section. I bought a ton of fruits, vegetables, things I’d never eaten before. It was like, screw it, I’m gonna try to juice it. And I didn’t know how to juice properly, so I would juice every ingredient individually and put them into separate containers. And then I would take a cup, and I would pour each one in individually until it got to the flavor that I wanted.

JL: That’s good.

QV – Most of it was, I would say for the like, the first two weeks was trash. I was like, “Whoever’s drinking this is like, crazy. I don’t know if I can do it.” And then I started watching YouTube videos, how to juice properly. That green juice with the kale, spinach, celery, cucumber, ginger, apple, that was the first juice that I actually learned how to make properly. I adjusted the recipe a little bit to fit my palate, but that juice was the foundational juice that I drank to help me get off of prescription drugs. It also helped to reduce the withdrawal symptoms.

JL: I think you mentioned it was trash in your book too. I wanna say that I read that.

QV – It was awful. I was like, “This is disgusting.” I’ve never liked salad and I hated the juice even more. I was like, “I may as well just eat the salad.” But then I knew that if it was working for other people, I knew that I was screwing it up, and I needed to figure it out. And so that’s what kept me going. And then I was like, “Oh, I can make this taste good, and it’s also making me feel good.” Like, eureka.

JL: Yeah.

QV – A stronghold. Yeah.

JL: I love that green juice. I’ve been replacing the spinach with green cabbage, and instead of celery I’ve been doing a lemon. But lemon or lime is good. And I think that one is great. I actually tried putting a little bit of Stevia leaf in today ’cause a friend of mine is growing the Stevia plant. And I like to chew on the leaf, but I don’t think it worked very good in the juice. So it’s still a work-in-progress. I would call that one a trash juice as well. But I had to try it.

QV – It was probably better than the first juices I made, I guarantee you. I couldn’t even finish them. I was like, “Look, I’m spending all my money on this produce. I’m wasting it. Like, this is awful.”

JL: Did you notice a difference right away? I believe when we talked once you said you noticed a difference pretty quick.

QV – Once I got the hang of it and really started to like it, I used to get like, and still sometimes I’ll get it, depending on what juices I make, I’ll get what I call a juice buzz. Where my body is absorbing so many nutrients at one time that like, I’ll feel intoxicated. And so I did. I felt the difference immediately. Again, it helped with, you know, when people say, “Oh, your withdrawal symptoms,” I mean, I quit taking pills and smoking cigarettes in the same year all from doing yoga, juicing, meditation, and my evening cup of tea. And so two of the things that are typically the hardest things to quit, I was able to do them successfully without ever really remembering any withdrawal symptoms, because I was drinking 38 to 62 ounces of juice every day.

JL: Yeah. I worked at Free & Clear in Seattle and learned it’s a smoking cessation program that is also run by states. And it’s harder to quit smoking than it is heroin. And so to do that without medication, those two, is amazing. You also mentioned there was something about the whole process of juicing. And, I mean, that’s actually something that I love, and Hillary Phelps talks about that too. It’s the meditation of the vegetables. Not only the physical, but the smells and everything.

QV – Smell it.

JL: Do you wanna talk about that at all, or?

And so if you can maintain that gut health and maintain cellular strength at an early age, the breakdown in the repair is less. We still see things like, live it up in your 20s ’cause come 30, 40, 50, it’s all downhill. And it’s like, how about maybe we incorporate some things that don’t break us down so fast that are cool and beautiful and wonderful? It doesn’t mean that healthy has gotta be boring and too green. Like you said, it doesn’t have to be trash, it can be beautiful and fun and a way to bring people together. That’s me, though.

QV: And delicious, right? I’ll turn 40 this month. People still don’t think I’m outside of my 30s. Being healthy is the cool thing to do. It’s like you pay for it now, or you pay for it later. Either way, you’re gonna pay for it. I’d rather be in my 40s and still be able to do my yoga practice and walk and hike and play with my kids and run and play basketball on the court. I know people that are 35 years old that can’t do it. My daughter is two years old. She starts her day with a green juice. She starts her day with a cup of tea. Now we’re using E3Live. The whole family. It’s the way we are now, right? And so, being healthy is the new cool.

JL – And our bodies thank us. I mean, how did being healthy not be cool? That’s what I don’t understand. How did that not be cool? I don’t know. But it’s nice to see generations smarter, than my generation was, where that was not cool. It was how bad can you treat yourself and then get up and do whatever you do. So I know. Yeah.

QV: For me, in my culture and where I came from I grew up in a food desert. We didn’t have access to fresh fruits and vegetables. When we went to the grocery store, our kale looked like the drug addict that was on the corner. Slumped over and dark. It’s like, why would I ever wanna buy that and put that into my body. And when we did eat vegetables, it was like kale and collard greens. And we were cooking it, mixing it with a bunch of salt and seasonings and turkey necks and ham hocks and all of these other things to add flavor because that’s ancestrally what we had. And so we made do with it, right? But for us, it was more of an accessibility thing. And so when I got older and was able to graduate from my neighborhood grocery store to a natural grocery store, or to be able to get organic or whatever it may be, the door opened up. And because it opened up for me, I was like, “Okay, I need to introduce this to everybody else.” So I had my mom drinking juice. I had my father drinking juice. I had, my uncles and aunts and cousins drinking juice. It was a thing. I like to think that, because of my journey, I had a hand in being able to offer that and provide that to other people. And now I’m doing the same thing, still with juice, but also now with tea. So it’s a great full circle moment.

JL – I have a sibling who has ADHD that was diagnosed as an adult. So I hope that he starts to drink that too, because there’s plenty of people of all ages that still have it. And I think our young boys also naturally gravitate toward the higher energy and toward a different type of concentration. So I know for my son, he struggled too. And there were many times when people wanted to put him on medication, and I’m like, “Absolutely not. Absolutely not.” I know what my body does on it, and that is a hard no. Until it is destructive to many people, there’s no way. But you found a solution that I never did, so I’m so grateful that you did that. And I hope that more and more kids and parents, ’cause there’s a lot of parents too out there, even if you’re on social media. I’ve pretty much diagnosed myself with ADHD. I mean, all you need is a couple memes that pretty much confirm we all need to drink that tea.

QV – Yeah. And we all need to drink that juice. It is not like the coffee-tea battle. Like, either you love coffee and hate tea, or you love tea and hate coffee. Or you have some people that are kind of in the middle, right? But with this, it’s not an either/or. It’s and/both. We need the juice, we need the tea, we need yoga, we need meditation, we need the sun. These are all things that we need for a holistic, well-rounded way to be well.

JL: Yeah. And I know that you’ve had the juicer for over a year now. And I was wondering, how would you describe the PURE Juicer over the other juicers that you’ve had? I mean, do you find that, yeah, what is your experience with it?

QV: I think for me personally, the PURE Juicer is by far my favorite juicer that I’ve ever had. And I’m not saying that because like, we’re on this podcast. If it was trash, I’d say it was trash. I don’t know how to not be honest. What’s interesting, and quite frankly, I still don’t understand, is how the juice comes out to be so creamy. When you said it at first, you were like, “All right, you’re going to experience a creamy juice.” And I was like, “What the hell is creamy juice? Like, what is this? What does that mean? And I know what it means now. My sister-in-law came over here for a birthday, for her and her husband, and they were talking about how they went out and bought ginger juice shots. And I was like, “From the store?” And they were like, “Yeah.” I was like, “Nah, I got something way better. That’s gonna be trash. Let me make you something.” They’re like, “No, no, no. Don’t go through it.” Listen, it’s gonna take me five minutes, right? I’ve got an apple, I got some ginger. Let me make you this. I made them the shot. They were blown away. We’ll talk about this more offline, but they wanna buy a juicer now. And so everybody that I introduced this to, they know I’m a juicer. They’ve never had juice taste like this before. I will like, literally just press grapes and drink grape juice that is rich and sweet and creamy. And it has the color from the skin. It’s like when you juice with this machine, you know that you’re getting the best of the best from every fruit and vegetable that you put in. It’s a powerful machine. It’s heavy as hell, but it is an incredibly powerful machine that will literally transform the texture and flavor of these fruits and vegetables. It’s incredible the way that it works. I still don’t know how or why. I don’t know the science behind it, but it’s an amazing machine.

JL: We are working on some science around it because if you taste the PURE versus other juice from other juicers, it is thicker. We know that if you press a papaya, ’cause you can, I don’t know if you’ve done that, but you can make papaya juice. So you cut the ends, you cut the middle, take the seeds out, or not. It depends on what you want. But then if you put them side to side, like with the skins, and you press it, the only thing left from the papaya is the skin.

QV – Wow.

JL: So there is something to be said for soluble fiber, which is in juice. And we don’t talk about that because many people tell people that it’s just sugar water. And a lot of juice is sugar water, so they’re right in some instances. But there’s also a level of other fiber. There’s so many more than just soluble or insoluble. So I’m getting to the bottom of it, but I don’t have the science of it yet. But yes, there is something to be said for it. And that fine mesh cloth that strains everything ensures that it is silky, creamy, and very easy to drink.

QV – Yeah, it’s incredible. Like I said, my daughter drinks juice every morning. She’s two. I mean, it’s an everyday thing. We make pops. So we’re not buying strawberry or mango pops in the box from the grocery store. We literally bought molds, and I’ll juice apple, put some strawberry in there. We did peach and grape. We’ve done the strawberry apple. We’ve done a straight up grape. I’ve done grape and pomegranate.

JL: Oh.

QV – And in pops. And all the kids, like, I got them for my two-year-old, and now we gotta get more molds because the older kids want to eat all of them.

JL – I cannot wait for the pomegranate season to come back because I am craving the pomegranates and the cranberries and the grapes. Those three are magic on all levels. Flavor, health, everything.

QV: Watermelon. I mean, I juice the whole watermelon. Like, the rind, skin, everything. And normally in a regular juicer, if you juice all of that, the juice comes out like, really dark and dirty looking. But with the PURE Juicer, it’s still that bright, vibrant color. There’s no oxidation happening, so you’re keeping all of those live enzymes intact. The bioavailability is so much greater, and it makes you want to drink it. It’s not a chore.

JL: Next up, you have to try shaved ice because you can take your grape juice, or whatever juices you’re making with your daughter, and just throw ice cubes into stage one. And you don’t need a grid plate or anything, so keep it without the grid,

QV: Really?

JL: and it’ll shave the ice perfectly.

QV: Just add the grape juice. I’m making it tonight. I’m gonna do it tonight. It’s done.

JL: It’s so good. It’s so good. Please let me know.

QV: It’s incredible. It’s an incredible machine.

JL: I’m so glad you have it, and I’m glad that you’re able to use it with your family. I mean, that is the story that we hear. But I also believe, and PURE believes, that the best juicer is the one that you have. So it doesn’t really matter what the juicer is, as long as you’re taking those steps to give your body what it needs to take care of itself and find balance, which you have demonstrated beautifully.

QV: Thank you.

JL: Yeah. Is there anything else? How can we follow? Do we go to Equitea? Do we go to Quentin Vennie? Like, what are the ways that we can follow up with you for anyone who’s watching this?

Medical Disclaimer

PURE Juicer is a juicing company. We are not doctors or medical experts. All content and information on this blog and website is for informational and educational purposes only, does not constitute medical advice, and does not establish any patient-client relationship by using this website.

Although we strive to provide accurate general information, the information presented here is not a substitute for professional advice. You should not rely solely on this information. Always consult a professional in your area for your health questions and concerns before making any professional, legal, medical, financial, or tax-related decisions.

A Note from Jen

Kim and I have been on a health journey together this past year. We both love juicing and we both love caring for our families, but there has been a piece missing.

Healthy living is important on many levels. It helps our cells, our organs, our quality of life. But so does joy and connection. What happens if we move to a healthier lifestyle but lose the connection we have with our loved ones because of these changes?

After a year of connecting, I believe Kim has helped us find many answers. The most important is that you CAN be healthy and KEEP your community strong through these changes. We have found they become even stronger because we all naturally crave what is in plants. But the PURE Juicer has allowed us to do more than just eat healthy. We are making beautiful juices and foods that complement our community-cravings and complement a healthy and nourishing life. The key is to JUST START.

I hope you enjoy this interview with Kim. Please add comments to the interview on YouTube or below, in the comments section. Help us continue to build health and community with your ideas. – Jen Longtin, Chief Juicing Officer

Transcript

Jen – Hi everybody. We are here again for another PURE Juicer Spotlight and I am absolutely thrilled that it is Kim Burrell. Kim Burrell is part of the PURE Juicer team on engagement. She is also the assistant to the Housleys on social and other business affairs. And she has really grown in fame through COVID by sharing her recipes and sharing her passion for community and cooking, which is why we are so grateful that she is part of the PURE team. She’s been juicing for a couple of years and I’m just gonna go ahead and jump in and say welcome to Kim. And Kim, tell us about yourself. Thank you for joining me and being part of our spotlight video series.

Kim – Thank you, I’m so excited. I’m so excited. Excited to be a part of PURE. Excited to be a part of the world of juicing, which has helped my health journey so much. Just joy filled is what I would describe myself.

Jen – So, how did you get started with juicing? Let’s start with that. When was the first time you heard about juicing and when did you actually start juicing? Because I believe it was before PURE, right?

Kim – It was.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – So, I have known about juicing, probably all of my life. I never really was a juicer. I thought it was medicinal. It was something that you do as a detox or for a short period of time to cure something. I never really thought of it in the terms that I do now as being a part of my lifestyle. So, the first time I really juiced was during a detox, which was probably three years ago. And it was a challenge. It was a, I believe it was a three day challenge. It could have been a four day juicing only. And I juiced and then I went back to whatever I was doing before that. So, it was great-

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – but it didn’t stick with me. It was just something that I did, a challenge, and it was done.

Jen – And when you did the detox, did you notice health benefits right away from it or-

Kim – Absolutely.

Jen – Yeah. What, like, maybe your top three things that you noticed.

Kim – Weight loss.

Jen – Okay.

Kim – Number one.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – My skin and my energy level.

Jen – Nice.

Kim – So, why did I go back to doing what I did before juicing? I don’t know.

Jen – Yeah, so, let’s talk about what it is that you, that got you started to doing juicing on a regular basis then. When did that happen?

Kim – So, fast forward, I was introduced via social media to Tabitha Brown. And she was doing a juicing detox, again, a second time. Prior to that, my husband had decided he was going to be a vegan. And he adopted that lifestyle for probably three years. Only 100% vegan.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – I was not doing that at the time, but I saw Tabitha and I thought, “Okay, I’ll try this.” And this was a 10 day thing, but I went into it with a different mindset because I had been watching my husband and all of the differences that were happening in his body and just in his mind is 100% different from the lifestyle he was leading.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – So, instead of me thinking of it as just a challenge, I thought of it as a gateway into a different lifestyle.

Jen – Love that.

Kim – So, that time, it was just mind opening, a lot more freeing. It was me embracing things as opposed to doing it to get to the end of it.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – And then I became a vegan after that. For probably two years, 100% plant-based.

Jen – Yep.

Kim – And all of the… And then I was incorporating juicing. I did not have the PURE Juicer, but I was juicing regularly and using that in tandem with healthy eating.

Jen – So, then you got the PURE Juicer, and I know what we always like to try and just dive into the meat of this too, which for me is the PURE Juicer. And I was fortunate enough to be part of your life when you added it, but other people don’t know your story around it and what you noticed the difference was with the PURE Juicer and also how it’s grown to be part of your whole family’s lifestyle.

Kim – So, I saw the PURE Juicer on Instagram and I work with the Housleys and they love juicing and I saw the juicer that they were using and I said, “You need to try this juicer. You should get this juicer.” And so, I reached out to you.

Jen – Yes, you did.

Kim – And the relationship was formed and I saw how amazing the juicer was in their life and I knew that I had to have one as well. So, when I got my juicer and just, I would say the number one thing that stood out with me, because I had already been juicing now regularly, so it wasn’t like new to me, but the texture and the yield blew my mind.

Jen – Yeah, yeah.

Kim – And that’s not… It’s not just cliche, it’s real.

Jen – There’s something about the texture too. We’re trying to get better at describing it, but it’s a thicker, I mean the juice is very filling and we don’t know if it’s just the microparticles of the insoluble fiber or just soluble fiber or a combination of both, but we’re getting closer at being able to describe that texture better. Not just from a texture point, but also from a health benefit point because we know that there are clear benefits to what is getting through and being able to be absorbed into your body. So, that’s cool ’cause those are the things that everybody that we hear about, talks about texture.

Kim – And totally more filling.

Jen – It’s more filling.

Kim – Yeah.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – So, of course, everyone in my house was blown away. And the taste, so I could never get my family, especially my son to drink green juice.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – Tasted, it was just always like, ugh, it was so gross or whatever. And everyone drinks PURE green juice.

Jen – Love it.

Kim – It’s just different.

Jen – I love it.

Kim – Mm-hmm.

Jen – And it’s so easy to add pineapple in there too. That is subtle enough that it makes everyone drink their greens in a variety of greens, right.

Kim – Of huge variety. Thanks to you, I juice everything.

Jen – Yeah, yeah, good, I’m glad. Are there, what are your favorite juices? Like, go-to juices for the family?

Kim – My husband loves carrot apple.

Jen – Yep.

Kim – And my son loves anything with pineapple.

Jen – Yep.

Kim – My favorites though are I love the beet. Juices, orange and the traditional red beet. I love pomegranate juice, pomegranate pineapple, pomegranate orange, straight pomegranate.

Jen – Yeah, I’m big on pomegranate.

Kim – Oh, yeah.

Jen – I’m Bubba Pomegranate.

Kim – And I’ve been lately loving cucumber and greens. Any green with the cucumber.

Jen – Yeah, so juicy. And I love the pulp. I’ll literally just nibble on the pulp because it’s flat, but it’s still so refreshing, so it’s kind of a talk about a different way of actually eating your cucumber. You get to drink the juice and then nibble on the pulp, but it’s so good. So good.

Kim – It is.

Jen – What is your son’s favorite?

Kim – He loves anything with pineapple.

Jen – Oh, yeah, anything with pineapple.

Kim – As long as I tell him there’s pineapple in there.

Jen – And so, you’ve had the benefit, I mean benefit of being a part of the Test Kitchens and you’ve seen that there’s so many more uses to the juicer. I think that’s really important to be able to share that this is not just for juicing although that is the primary reason we created the juicer is the health benefits that you get from giving your digestion a break and being able to drink the juice, being able to absorb the nutrients. But sometimes we don’t always wanna have juice. Sometimes we actually wanna cook, we wanna entertain. What are some of the favorite things that you make with the juicer? ‘Cause you’ve had some things that blew my mind and I just thought it’d be worth sharing those with the community.

Kim – I am a huge foodie, as you know, and everyone who knows me knows. I love creating things and the PURE is an extension of that. So, I love making pie crust, salsa, marinara, guacamole, everything, like, nice cream.

Jen – Yeah, the nice creams. Yeah, the nice creams. That you really took the nice creams to a new level.

Kim – I love it, love it. I love making nut milk. Love it.

Jen – Yeah. And I don’t drink, you know, regular, traditional dairy milk.

Kim – Yeah.

Jen – You neither.

Kim – Cows milk. So, and I don’t really like store bought nut milks at all.

Jen – No, when you taste the different-

Kim – Whole new world.

Jen – Yeah, yeah. And your husband has, he has to watch his sugar content. So, you found a way through that and your husband’s still able to have juice and manage his sugar levels.

Kim – He does.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – So, he was diagnosed with prediabetes, and he has a family history of diabetes, but he has managed his diabetes with his diet and exercise. It was one of the reasons he thought it would help him to go vegan.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – He wasn’t getting as much of some of the things that he need. Well, I won’t say that because it’s possible to do as a vegan, but it was very difficult for him to get what he needed, so he did add some animal proteins back. But as far as juicing goes, it does not affect his blood sugar at all.

Jen – Do you, this is, I’ve never asked you this, but is there a difference between the juices that you’ve had, like, the other juicer versus this juice? Is there, was there a difference? And there doesn’t have to be, but-

Kim – Was there a difference as far as-

Jen – For his health and-

Kim – Blood sugar?

Kim – That’s a really good question. He didn’t really drink as much juice though before.

Jen – Oh.

Kim – Like, now he asks for juice.

Jen – Okay.

Kim – Where before, he may have had the same… We never talked about that, but he may have had the same mentality that I did, that it was like for a fast or, you know, for medicinal purposes. Whereas now he just enjoyed drinking juice-

Jen – That’s great.

Kim – as part of his lifestyle.

Jen – Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m excited. I know that you and he are willing to do some glucose just testing and monitoring to see what the results are, so stay tuned for that. That’ll be a really interesting sort of science project. We need to have a bigger scale of course, but that is one of the most common complaints or myths around there about juicing. Okay, let’s get to new juicers because you talk to new people all the time. You’re on our social media and you’re educating, you’re doing demos, we’re doing lives together, and you’re talking to a lot of people who are new. And what juices do you recommend that people start with? Or how do you get started juicing if you’re new to juicing? That’s the question I want.

Kim – I think the number one thing, and this is what I tell people when they ask me, especially if you’re new to juicing, juice what you like to eat. So, if you love pineapple, juice pineapple. If you love carrots, juice carrots. And then from there, move into things that maybe you wouldn’t normally eat, but you would like to incorporate into your diet. Like, I would’ve never juiced a beet, ever. I would’ve never juiced broccoli. And I actually like broccoli juice better than I like broccoli to eat. So, it’s just, it seems to be easier on my digestion to drink it.

Jen – Oh, it does. I was on a photo shoot with a model and they were not allowed to have any cruciferous because it caused gas and they need to have the flattest abs around and… Yeah, so it’s a lot easier to drink the juice.

Kim – Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So, I would start with that. Obviously, pineapple is so easy. You get so much juice from one pineapple, I mean it almost never stops.

Jen – I know. You could just press those little pulp into pieces.

Kim – And carrot apple, I would say add green apple to everything.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – Add it to your green juices, brighten it up with lemon, but drink what you like. I think that’s part of anything though. Like, if you try to make yourself eat or drink things just because somebody else says it’s healthy or somebody else likes it, you’re not gonna… It’s not sustainable.

Jen – Yeah. The other thing I always like to share too is when you’re getting started or if you’re afraid, maybe involve everybody in it, so that when you might be having a bad day, somebody else might be craving it and then you’ll, all right, well I’ll do it for you, but maybe I don’t wanna do it for myself. But the more you get everybody in your family into it, it becomes a part of the family.

Kim – 100%.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – 100%. Couple days ago, I didn’t feel like juicing. I had gotten all of this produce, but my son’s like, “Mom, I would like to meal prep and can you make this juice or done? Oh, I would like for you to get, you know, carrot apple. I need some more of that in the fridge.”

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – If it were just me, I would not have juiced that day.

Jen – Yeah, yeah, so self-care is also caring for others because then it is good for us too. How are you feeling these days? So, you did the detox years ago, you’ve been vegan and I know you’re heavy plant-based, so even if you’re not a hundred percent that still is, you know, it’s… Many people say that is still so beneficial not only for our bodies, but for the planet. How are you feeling health wise three years ago versus today?

Kim – Night and day, and honestly, I did not realize how bad I felt until I didn’t feel that badly anymore.

Jen – Wow.

Kim – If that makes sense.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – I just… That was my normal. Low energy, lethargic, joint pain.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – Just kind of trudging through the day because I needed to do what I needed to do. Whereas now, I mean, obviously everyone has a day, but most of my days, I am up early. I sleep like a rock.

Jen – Yeah.

Kim – My skin is the best it’s been. My hair is the healthiest it’s been. My joints don’t hurt. My energy level is amazing. I just… And I know that part of that is juicing.

Jen – Absolute, I mean, it all feeds on itself, right? I mean, sometimes I was joking this weekend, like, I went to a dance class and then I was like, “Oh, my God, and then I’m gonna go to another dance class, and oh, I’m right by the grocery. I’m gonna pick up beautiful fruits and vegetables.” Coincidence that moving my body is also connected to wanting to like, buy beautiful, healthy foods? I think not. So, they really do all come together-

Kim – They do. and compliment each other.

Jen – I agree, I agree. And it’s just adding it to my lifestyle, makes me crave healthier foods, makes me want juice, makes me want to move my body, makes… It just, they do all go together.

Kim – Yeah,

Jen – One last parting, maybe message for people that is from your heart, that, again, you talk to so many folks who are at different spectrums of health, but let’s just talk to anybody out there who might be having a difficult time or may not think that, you know, or may think that they have to do X, Y and Z before they can achieve some, a juicer or achieve health or whatever. What do you wanna say to those folks?

Kim – I would say just start. Just start with one thing. One thing that… Because I’m still on a journey, I’m still losing weight, I am still finding new ways to be healthy. But if I had not taken one step, I would still be where I was years ago. So, if anything, if you don’t wanna look at a person who is already where you want to be, then look at me. Look at someone who is still on the journey, taking it day by day, one step at a time, one thing at a time.

Jen – Yeah, that’s beautiful. And then, I would also just add to join the community if you’re seeing this video and you’re not part of PURE Juicer, just know that community comes first. You have to have a sense of wellbeing and connection, if you’re… What’s the point of being healthy if you don’t have that connection and a sense of joy with other people? So, do join us.

Kim – It’s a great community.

Jen – It’s a great community.

Kim – It really is.

Jen – Kim really, really runs the community, so know that you’ll have a much… You’ll have a regular connection with you and a little bit with me too, so I love going on there. I love to see what every-

Kim – Oh, my gosh, you are a huge part of the community.

Jen – I love the community. I love the community. I’ve been there for over three years and I just can get lost in just the conversations and amazing-

Kim – There’s so many amazing people.

Jen – So many amazing people. All right, well, that will wrap it up for this time. Please post any comments that you would like to, just about this. Any questions that you have. Definitely join one of our communities. We’ve got YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, so many places, so please join us there and we’ll see you again on another PURE Juicer Spotlight. Thanks. 

Connect with Kim Burrell on instagram @kimmiebee_cooks and on her blog, Yumola: Cooking with Kimmie Bee

Medical Disclaimer

PURE Juicer is a juicing company. We are not doctors or medical experts. All content and information on this blog and website is for informational and educational purposes only, does not constitute medical advice, and does not establish any patient-client relationship by using this website.

Although we strive to provide accurate general information, the information presented here is not a substitute for professional advice. You should not rely solely on this information. Always consult a professional in your area for your health questions and concerns before making any professional, legal, medical, financial, or tax-related decisions.

Our hearts always get bigger when we speak to service members. Chef Shana McPherson, who previously trained and worked as a pharmacist in Jamaica, now works in the Army as a culinary specialist. She bought the PURE Juicer for her own health, and we love that she is trying all our recipes! Watch and listen to her interview  as she describes how juicing has changed her life–and the lives of her friends.

SM: So, I am a certified pharmacy technician, and I’m also a culinary specialist currently serving in the United States Army.

JL: So tell me about the pharmacy part. How did you get into pharmacy?

SM: So, I’m originally from Jamaica.

JL: Yeah.

SM: So while I was living there, I was working in the pharmacy while I was there before I migrated here to the United States in 2011.

JL: Okay.

SM: And then I started working in home infusion while living in New York. I left home infusion to join the Army to be a culinary specialist because my friends that were in before me, they used to always talk trash about people that do, cooks in the army. So I told them that I’m going to join, so that I can change their mindset towards the culinary specialists.

JL: Yeah.

SM: So I joined the Army in 2020.

JL: Okay.

SM: Yes, 2020. And I’ve been a culinary specialist since then. Right now, it’s mostly focusing on the culinary side of things. Every now and then somebody will come to me about a pharmacy question, but I’m not really in that world anymore. But I’m still a certified pharmacy technician. So when I do get out of the Army, if I decide that I want to do both, then I can.

JL: Yep, how did you get into juicing? Tell me how juicing got into your world.

SM: So juicing, actually I saw Shanique, the Kreative Vegan.

JL: Yeah.

SM: She is the one that I saw with the juicer. And when I saw the juicer, I was like, “That juicer. I gotta get it.” The hydraulic press. That’s what sold me with the juicer. And I clicked on her page, and I saw, I tried to zoom in to see the name, but then I looked and I saw that she had it in her caption, what the name of the juicer was.

So I went ahead and tried to get the juicer. And I remember when I wanted to get the juicer, I actually called the support line, and I actually spoke with David, because it was a holiday. It was a holiday! So I called and I spoke with him in regards to the juicer. And I went ahead and purchased. That was in 2021.

JL: Okay.

SM: Yes, so juicing for me, it’s a quick and easy way for me to get my nutrients and vitamins because I’m always on the go. So if I don’t get to juice in the daytime, I’ll do it at night. So I’ll just grab a juice in the morning when I’m running out for PT in the morning. ‘Cause I don’t really like munching on vegetables that much. So, I juice it, so I can get it.

JL: Yep, yep, that’s great. So do you juice every day, or do you juice for a few days? How often do you juice?

SM: So, when I juice it normally lasts me for a few days, like probably three days or four days. And then I’ll juice again. But I don’t juice every day.

JL: Yeah, I mean that’s the beauty of the PURE juicer is that you, especially when stored correctly…

SM: Yes.

JL: They last a very long time the way in which it’s done? Yeah.

SM: Yes, definitely. So I try to juice because I, I try to juice and finish it within three days, three to five days.

JL: Yeah.

SM: You know, but I love my juicer. I’m telling you, that hydraulic press, oh my God. When I found out that I could juice the papaya without crushing or anything, I was like, “What?” I went out and got me some papaya right away.

JL: Yeah.

SM: I saw the strawberries. I remember I was on TikTok, and I saw juicing strawberries, and I’m like, “Oh, so I can juice the berries too.” So I’m like, “Okay.” So I went ahead and I got those, and trust me, I’m loving it.

JL: Oh, so you’re doing the, are you juicing the papaya, and that’s going okay?

SM: Yes, I juiced the papaya, and it came out perfect.

JL: Good.

SM: I juiced the papaya, I juice the strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and I get every drop. None is wasted.

JL: Do you juice mainly for yourself, or do you juice for other people too?

SM: So at first I was juicing for myself, and then my friends, they’re like, “I’ll pay you to make some juice for me, ’cause you have a really good juicer.” So I started to do it like a few weeks ago. They were like, “You should do it, we’ll pay you for it, just make them, ’cause I love your juicer.”

JL: Yeah.

SM: But it was mainly just for me, but then now my friends they tell me if I make it, they’ll pay me for it. So I’m like, “Okay, it’s a win-win.”

JL: Well, and it’s so easy. Once you get rolling, it’s not hard to make an extra couple of bottles or like-…

SM: No, it’s not. And what I love is that the juicer, all the parts can go into the dishwasher. So it makes cleanup so, so easy.

JL: Oh my gosh, I agree, I love it. I love that fact.

SM: Yes.

JL: And at one point when we started, David said, “Don’t put the cutters in the dishwasher.” And at one point I was like, “I’m just going to put that damn cutter in the dishwasher.” And it came out more beautiful than I’ve ever seen.

SM: Yes.

JL: So…

SM: Trust me.

JL: Throw it all in there.

SM: Yes, that’s what I really love, that you don’t have to like sit there and go through all the little parts, and getting stuff out. You just do a quick rinse, and put it in the dishwasher and that is it.

JL: That’s it, that’s it.

SM: Yes.

JL: You mentioned the papaya and the berries. Do you do any, but you also said that you, that you’ll drink your vegetables. What are some of the vegetables that you like to make juice with?

SM: So I do like the cucumber, kale, spinach. I made a pineapple and tomato juice the other day, because my mom, she told me, she said, “You should try pineapple and tomato.” And it was actually pretty good. I added a little bit of ginger to it, and it was really delicious.

JL: So just…

SM: I was surprised.

JL: Did you see the video that we pressed the tomato, we pressed the tomato?

SM: Yes.

JL: Did that work for you?

SM: Yes it did. It did.

JL: And it was good? Did you press tomato and then the pineapple separate, or did you put the pineapple…

SM: Yes. I pressed the tomato on the pineapple separate. But then I, after I did it, then I saw your video, and I was like, “Okay, so I can put the pineapple and the tomato together, hmm, interesting.”

JL: You could, like skin down. Like skin down, so the, the juice can get through.

SM: Yes, definitely.

JL: So I’m wondering how, you know, you got the juicer, you wanted the juicer. Any health issues that you were dealing with, energy, low energy, too much energy? I mean, I’m wondering if there was any health motivations for it too.

SM: Not really, but the first juice that I made, was the immune booster.

JL: Oh yay!

SM: Yes, that was the first juice I made. And I could feel a difference, because down here in North Carolina, when it’s the pollen season, springtime. And all those pollens, I normally get like really sick. But I make sure to start getting my immune boosters ready before spring. And it actually, it actually helps.

JL: Yeah.

SM: And then, and then by doing green juices, it actually gives the body a good cleanse as well.

JL: Mm-hmm, I’m gonna do a cleanse. We have that new detox guide, where it’s got a green juice, a carrot apple juice, and the immune booster. And then it has like an almond fennel milk for just to help with sleeping. But I’m gonna, I think I’m gonna add a juice. There’s one that’s got broccoli, kale, and cabbage, which sounds horrendous, but it’s actually really, really good.

SM: Actually, actually, when you juice the broccoli, you don’t taste it in the juice.

JL: No.

SM: Because I made a green juice once, and it had broccoli, spinach, kale, cucumber, and some other stuff. I think I had ginger, and a little bit of pineapple in it. And you did not taste any vegetable. It was really refreshing.

JL: And the health benefits are amazing, I love…

SM: Yes.

JL: The stalk in there too. Have you noticed, did you juice the stalk?

SM: Mm-hmm.

JL: Yeah, that’s nice and sweet. That’s nice and sweet.

SM: Yes.

JL: Oh my goodness. Okay, well you’re just, oh this is wonderful. I’m so grateful that you know, you’re, that you’re doing the different things that we’re playing with too. Have you made any, any of the nut milks or anything yet?

SM: I actually have some almonds in my pantry to soak so I can make some almond milk. I haven’t made the milk yet, but it’s on my list. (Editors Note: See Shana’s IG almond milk video here!)

JL: Yeah, oh I can’t wait to hear what you think. Just as a reference, and you probably know this as a chef, but if you run out of time, and I always try and keep things cool, but you can use hot water, and that will soak, and that will make the almonds ready faster.

SM: Yes, like soak it for like a hour, and then you’re good to go.

JL: I mean if I use boiling water, I turn the boil off, but then I pour it in, I can get ’em done in 20 minutes. And sometimes I do that ’cause I need to just do the videos and a demo video.

SM: Yes.

JL: But ideally it’s, it’s longer, so you’re not, you know, we’re just so passionate about the enzymes, and just keeping everything as raw as possible.

SM: Yes.

JL: That’s only in an emergency, but for the most part I do everything overnight, yeah.

SM: Yes, yes, yes. That’s what I have to remind people. Like sometimes people ask me about the juice, and I’m telling them like, I normally made my juices to ask me three to five days, because after that the enzymes start breaking down, and you will not get all those nutrients that you’re supposed to get from the juice.

JL: Yeah, have you ever frozen anything like the immune boosters are great to juice, and freeze and like juice cubes or whatever?

SM: I haven’t, but I know that it can be done, I just haven’t done it, because as soon as I make my juice, I normally really drink them. They don’t last for long.

JL: I love it. I’m gonna make a, a big batch of the immune juice, and I’m gonna put it into cubes. And so in the morning, I’ll have a hot water, and I’ll drop one of those in there with some honey. And that’s honey, like especially if it’s local honey, it’s also great for pollen season and things like that.

SM: Yes, yes, my husband actually got me a bottle the other day, of our local honey from around here. So that’s, that’s a good idea, I’ll have to try that.

JL: Oh, and message us too, and tell Kimmy that we wanna order you some of David’s honey. ‘Cause he’s a beekeeper, but I call him sort of a bee rescuer, because he goes to these hives that people don’t want, and they’re gonna destroy them. So he’ll go and he, I’ve literally seen him save a hive, and get the queen. And so all the bees go into the boxes, and he puts them in his car, with like nothing around it. And so he’s driving around with these bees in his car, and he just drives them home, and he saves them.

SM: Oh, nice, nice, nice.

JL: Okay, having so much fun, I wanna make sure I’m asking all the questions. Had you used any other juicers before? Or is PURE the first one?

SM: No.

JL: Really?

SM: PURE is my first juicer. And I’m not going anywhere. Everybody that see the juicer, they’re like, “Shana, I want one of those juicers.” I’m like, “Well, if you go to purejuicer.com, you can have one.”

JL: Yeah, yeah, you know, we hear many, many times that people go through anywhere from one to seven juicers, and they get the PURE and they’re like, “I wish we would’ve just gotten the Pure.” And we’re like, “I wish you did too.”

SM: No, I got the PURE the first time I saw Shanique with it, and I said, “I want that juicer.” And I went for it.

JL: And what would you say if somebody’s on the fence about juicing? You know, if you had a friend that’s not sure about juicing, or not sure it’s worth it, or they just think it’s a hype, like what would you, what do you tell people who are on the fence?

SM: So, when they normally do that, I normally make juice, and give to them to change their mind. That’s what I normally do. I’ll just say, “Okay, I’m a whip up a batch of juice for you, and you’ll try it, and then you let me know what you think about it.”

JL: Nice.

SM: And that’s, and sometimes that’s how I actually get them to say “Okay Shana, I’ll pay you to make me some juice.” And I’m like, “Okay.” ‘Cause they’re like, they don’t have the time. A lot of them don’t have the time to do it.

JL: Yeah.

SM: So if I make the juices they’ll pay me to do it. So I said, “Okay, it’s a win-win for both of us.”

JL: I know for me, when I started juicing, I started craving more fruits and vegetables, and craving less of meat and things like that. I’m wondering did your cravings change after you started juicing?

SM: My energy level went up when I started juicing.

JL: Yeah.

SM: And I noticed a difference, like if I go for a while not juicing, then my energy’s like really low.

JL: Yeah.

SM: But cravings, I don’t crave sweet as much, when I juice, I don’t crave sweets. And I love sweets.

JL: Do you ever make the ice creams or anything like that?

SM: I made ice cream, but not with the juicer. But I will try.

JL: Just take the berries.

SM: We can do it with the berries.

JL: Yeah, you make your berries and papaya, and just whip it all into ice cream, you can even throw some frozen avocado in there. Or even coconut cream.

SM: Mm-hmm.

JL: Mm.

SM: Okay.

JL:Delicious. Go ahead.

SM: With that juice, with that juicer, the possibilities are endless.

JL: Is there anything else that you’d like to share with us about your experience, and, or about juicing?

SM: Well, my experience with PURE has been an awesome one so far. And I try to encourage everyone to get a PURE when I see them trying to get something else. ‘Cause I’m like, what’s the sense? Just go ahead and get it. Like, you guys keep asking me every time you see me juicing, “Oh my God, I wish I had that juicer.” But I keep telling you guys where to go get it. It’s a no-brainer. Just go to the website and get it. Like, stop beating around and just go ahead and get it ’cause you will not regret it. I made my purchase, and I have not regret that day that I called David, to get info on, on my juicer. I love it. It’s on my counter, my conversation starter.

JL: Yeah.

SM: Whenever somebody comes on, they’re like, what’s this? And I’m like, “Oh, it’s my juicer.” And then I start making some form of juice or something, and they’re like, “Oh my God, that press.” And I’m like, “Yep.” You get every single drop of juice.

JL: Well your videos are fantastic. We love watching what you’re doing on social.

SM: Thank you. I try to video when I can.

JL: Yeah.

SM: Sometimes I don’t, I don’t get a chance to do it, but whenever I do, I’ll definitely be posting.

JL: Oh my gosh, this has just been so fantastic Shana. I have not…

SM: Yes, Jen, I’m so glad that we had this meeting.

JL: Please know I’m always available if you have any questions or if you’re curious about juicing anything at all, just let me know ’cause that’s how we did the papayas and the tomatoes and the milks.

SM: Yes.

JL: A lot of different recipes coming up, but anything that we can do to just keep your experience wonderful. I would love to make sure that happens.

SM: Yes, definitely Jen.

JL: Okay.

SM: I’ll be in touch for sure. All right.

JL: All right. Well you’re amazing!

SM: You too, Jen, and you keep posting those recipes and I’m gonna follow them.

Follow Chef Shana McPherson’s culinary journey on Instagram at @chefshanamcpherson. 

Medical Disclaimer

PURE Juicer is a juicing company. We are not doctors or medical experts. All content and information on this blog and website is for informational and educational purposes only, does not constitute medical advice, and does not establish any patient-client relationship by using this website.

Although we strive to provide accurate general information, the information presented here is not a substitute for professional advice. You should not rely solely on this information. Always consult a professional in your area for your health questions and concerns before making any professional, legal, medical, financial, or tax-related decisions.

It was simply an honor to speak to Nicole Ferrer, Interim Executive Director at Gerson Institute, an organization we hold very dear. Gerson Institute was founded by Charlotte Gerson, daughter of Dr. Max Gerson, and has been sharing the good news of health and healing for decades. We owe much to the Gerson Institute and the dedication of its people to two-stage juicing.

JL: Okay, hello, everybody. It is such a pleasure to be here today with David, our CEO and founder of PURE Juicer, and our very special guest, Nicole, who is the Interim Director, Executive Director for Gerson Institute. This is a very exciting meeting for me. I’ve worked with Nicole since I’ve started here. We have a lot in common and a lot of philosophies and purposes in common. But the purpose of this meeting is to really dive in and talk about the tradition and the expertise that Max Gerson brought us over a 100 years ago, as well as how relevant it is today. So, Nicole, welcome.

NF: So, great to be with you guys.

JL: Thank you, thank you. And David, welcome.

DF: Thank you, always a pleasure.

JL: Oh my goodness. We understand how important time is to everybody today, so I really just want to start diving in. Nicole, would you like to share a little bit about yourself and the history with you at Gerson Center first, and then we’ll dive into the Gerson Center, the Gerson Institute itself?

Gerson Protocol: You Are What You Eat

NF; Sure, yeah, so my name is Nicole and I’ve been with the Gerson Institute for 10 years now. And I started as an information specialist, so on the front lines, answering phones and helping people that just came into the office. And over the last 10 years, I basically worked my way through every department, and now I’m overseeing the operations and acting as the interim executive director. And it’s just been a very fulfilling, I don’t know, career at the Institute and really life changing, you know, it really turned around my lifestyle and my relationship to healthy foods and just being able to see for yourself on yourself, the actual benefits and changes that come with eating healthy.

JL: So, that’s great. So, you–when you started at Gerson Institute, you were moving into a healthier lifestyle. Like you were learning a lot about Gerson when you started, and that’s changed your choices in food and such?

NF: Oh yes, definitely. I mean, you always hear kind of that saying like, “you are what you eat,” but you really don’t–it doesn’t really hit–until you actually change what you’re eating and realize like, “Wow, I feel so much better.” 

And my focus is there and energy and just your overall wellbeing and realizing that it’s not as daunting as you think it is in the beginning, at least for me. But just even making small changes. And that really helped working at the institute because we had Gerson meals for lunch and Gerson juice, and so it was really an immediate difference that I could see and feel.

JL: I love that. One of my favorite things was visiting the Gerson Institute, the center in Tijuana. But we’ll talk about that later.

Let’s dive into–I’m so excited that you had that. I had the same experience. I know David had the same experience, and then we’ve talked to so many people who have done the Gerson therapy and have had that same experience, life-changing experiences, actually. 

Let’s talk about the science of Max Gerson, and just tell us as much as you’d want or the things that really seem to matter to patients who are just getting started on this journey. Tell us what you tell them.

Gerson Therapy’s Four-Pronged Approach

NF: Sure. You know, so kind of in a nutshell, the Gerson Therapy uses a four-pronged approach to really just activate your body’s ability to heal itself. That’s already built into the body back years and years of eating unwell environmental exposures and things like that. You know, those things decline and aren’t working as they should. So, the four different prongs are, like we were talking about the diet.

Diet

So, a lot of people think that the Gerson therapy is either a vegan diet or it’s only raw, but neither of those is true.

It’s plant-based and there are cooked foods and raw foods. So, some of the staples are baked potato, which a lot of people think, “Why potato? There are a lot of starch and whatnot.” But it’s actually a really, really good source of protein. So, that, and oatmeal, that’s a staple for breakfast, and Hippocrates soup.

Hippocrates soup is, yeah, been around forever. It’s so good, it’s so good. It’s one of my favorites too, I make it all the time. And that’s something that’s eaten throughout the day.

So, the diet does not include salt. The only oil is flaxseed oil and it’s unlimited amounts. And this is not to say that salt is bad, you know, we obviously need sodium in the human body to function, but what the Gerson therapy is doing partially with the diet is on a cellular level. So, it’s really turning, reversing what is going on on a cellular level.

And most of the time, because what prompts disease is there’s too much sodium in the cell and not enough potassium, there’s an imbalance in there. And so by eliminating the salts with the diet, we also have potassium as one of the supplements. That starts to push the sodium out of the cells, bring in the potassium, and then the cells start to work as they should.

JL: And you sell the potassium, right? You sell that as a supplement at gersoninstitute.org?

NF: We don’t sell it ourselves, but we have a list of approved vendors that do sell it.

JL: Got it, got it.

NF: And it’s in a powder form, and it’s a specific compound that Dr. Gerson came up with himself, so it’s a really important part.

JL: Yeah, I need to get that, I wanna get that.

Juicing

NF: It’s good stuff. So, that’s one part is the diet, and then next are the juices. So, that’s kind of the thing that people know the most about Gerson. And they also think that Gerson therapy is just a juice cleanse, but again, it is not, there’s, you know, like we just spoke about, there’s food being consumed on a regular basis, but there’s three juices on the therapy. So, there’s carrot, carrot with apple, and then Dr. Gerson’s green juice, which has specific ingredients which include romaine, Swiss chard, green apple, green bell pepper, tops of the beet leaves, endive and escarole and watercress. Oh, and purple cabbage.

JL: Yep.

NF: So, those are all specific ingredients in the green juices. And the most intense Gerson protocols will include about 13 eight-ounce juices per day. And ideally they’re taken spaced out throughout the day.

You’ll see in Dr. Gerson’s book, and a lot of the literature, they talk about every hour. And that’s the ideal way to do it, because you’re basically flooding your body with the nutrients that it needs and is lacking on a regular basis. And because it’s in juice form, it’s easier for the body to absorb and assimilate, so you’re not having your body work more in order to gain that. But a lot of people will start-

JL: That’s the thing that I loved about when I first got here, is learning about that and just that it’s not that it’s a replacement, but it’s just gentler on your system. Especially when people are starting Gerson Therapy, their bodies are fighting off other things and they’re trying to heal other things. So, it’s not that you can’t eat, it’s just that it’s a gentler way to give you more of what your body needs, so it can work harder on fighting other stuff.

DF: I’ve always loved the idea that we’re flooding our bodies with what it needs to heal itself. And when I’ve been at the clinics, I’ve been struck by how much food we eat, and in fact, it was a little shocking to me the sheer amount of healing food that people require to do the therapy.

JL: Okay, so we covered the food, the diet, we covered the juices, which we’ll come back to. What is the third part?

Enemas

NF: So, the third part is probably one of the more controversial ones in that is the enemas.

JL: Everybody wants to know about the enemas, Nicole.

NF: Yes-

DF: More than the juice.

JL: Even when they don’t want to, they want to.

NF: Yes, the number one thing people ask right away is about the enemas. So, there’s two types on the therapy, the main one being the coffee enema. And so that’s taken in a ratio with the juice, it’s usually in a ratio about three juices to one enema. And basically what the coffee does is basically enhancing the glutathione S-transferase process in the system. And people are kinda surprised because they, you know, really the coffee kind of goes through the small intestines, large intestines and then colon.

And what it does is it binds to the bile and it stimulates more bile production, binds to it and gets it out. So, it’s basically binding to all those free radicals and toxins and getting it out of the system. And that’s because with the juice, with the diet, your body’s also excreting all of those toxins and all the things it doesn’t need from the cells.

And so Dr. Gerson actually found in the very beginning that without the coffee enemas his patients were still getting sick because they still had all of that stuff in their system, just recirculating. Through the literature he found out about coffee enemas and tried them out and they have been a requirement of the therapy ever since.

JL: And an interesting note about coffee enemas is that when I was in Tijuana and we were trying them, I noticed that I was probably more energized doing the coffee enema than I was when I was actually drinking coffee. And they’re like, “Of course, because it’s being absorbed faster because it’s going through the colon,” which is why you’re not supposed to do vodka enemas, it’ll kill you. So, not that anyone’s doing vodka enemas right now. Don’t do ’em.

DF: Not part of the therapy!

JL: Yeah, definitely not part of any therapy, that is not recommended. Okay, I didn’t know there were more than one. So, what’s the second enema that you could do?

NF: So, the second one is a castor oil enema, and that one is usually done maybe every other day, but generally you’re working with a Gerson practitioner. And so they will really personalize that for when you wanna add that in because it is very intense. So, the castor oil is, it’s basically just like a big, another big sweep of getting things outta your system and it is really fast. So, for a coffee enema, you hold it for 12 to 15 minutes, a castor oil enema, maybe a few minutes, really just as long as you can. And it just wipes everything, kind of more residuals out.

JL:Wow.

NF: So, you do take a little bit by mouth and then you follow it up with an enema. Yeah, but those are a lot more intense. Those are not daily like the coffee enema.

JL: I know in Western medicine, that’s what they would give people to clean them out just by drinking it. So, again, to go from that direction. And I think it’s interesting too, just on this video to remind people that before there was a lot of Western medicine that enemas were very common and it was a typical method for healing. And and the minute you saw someone with a cough or a sniffle, I mean that they would bring out the enemas. And that is very, that was very, very common for my mother. Like, so ’20s and ’30s, even 1900s, that was very common.

So–and I love the story about the coffee enemas, which was part of the World War II treatment, because they ran out of all other medicine and they were just trying to relieve sort of pain. And they actually found that not only does coffee enemas increase the glutathione, but it helps with pain management, too.

NF: Yes, yeah, big pain management. So, in addition to just the regular coffee enemas that people do on the therapy, if they’re experiencing a healing reaction like headaches, things like that, you would do an extra enema and basically goes away, you know, pretty quickly. But yeah, it’s really fascinating how the coffee enema started and how Dr. Gerson found out about it and incorporated it.

Even speaking to that with castor oil, my grandma talks about when she was younger, they got sick, you know, immediately they were given castor oil by mouth, so it’s these kind of tried and true modalities that get hidden behind Western medicine, but there’s still things that still work today. Same principles.

JL:  Okay, what’s the fourth?

Supplements

NF: So, the fourth prong are supplements. Now, these aren’t just like any supplements, like, “Oh, I’m gonna take some vitamin D,” they’re specific supplements that push and drive certain metabolic processes or just help with the overall approach of the therapy.

So, the three main supplements are like we talked about the potassium compound. So, that’s in powder form and you put it in water to dissolve it, and that gets added to juices.

And then next is Lugol’s solution, and that balances out thyroid. Now, thyroid glandular, the supplement on the therapy is not given to correct a thyroid imbalance or a thyroid problem necessarily, but it’s really to push metabolism. So, that with the Lugol’s together really drives that process.

And then there’s other supplements like niacin, acetyl, and things to help with just in general, more helping with digestion.

JL: Gets me so excited, it makes me wanna order them. We need to get some on the site too so that we can get the potassium and add it to our juices, David, what do you think?

DF:I actually love the idea of doing that.

NF: Yeah, yeah.

DF: I think it would be great if we had a supplement section.

JL: Yeah, approved by Gerson Institute, of course. Well, that’s great. So, it’s diet, it’s juice. And juice, we talked about three juices, but I think when I was down there, orange juice was allowed too, but not for everybody. Is that the case? And it’s pretty high in potassium. My understanding is potassium in oranges is even higher than in bananas.

NF: Yeah, maybe. I mean, the orange juice is a usual part for breakfast, but it’s not one of the core juices. But a lot of times people will have either orange juice or if they’re diabetic or anything, it’ll be like a grapefruit juice.

JL: Got it.

NF: But if either of those don’t work, just Gerson juice.

JL: Got it, got it. So, diet, juice, enemas and supplements.

It’s very simple and it’s very common sense, right? I mean, it’s just going back to like you were mentioning with your grandma going back to what mothers knew all along as far as how to keep people healthy.

NF: Yeah, definitely. And that’s one thing I really liked about the Gerson Therapy is that it’s really stripped down, because you see a lot of different types of holistic therapies and treatments and diets and all of that out there. And although there are, it’s very specific and there’s a lot of different components, it’s still really stripped down. It’s three juices, a really clean diet, specific supplements, and then a detoxification. So, you’re not incorporating everything under the sun, everything’s working for a specific purpose.

JL: So, I wanna shift over to David. When you first met Charlotte Gerson, you were showing her and demonstrating the two-stage juicer. Can you share that experience, and then we’ll dive a little bit more into two-stage juicing, but tell us what it was like to meet her and what the experience was like?

The Gerson Family and the PURE Juicer

DF: So, we went to Southern California with, I believe, with two juicers. They were prototype juicers and Peggy Strauss, who’s Charlotte’s daughter, had invited us, it was about two weeks before Thanksgiving, to come for lunch and to bring the juicer and to demonstrate the juicer. And so we got to go to the Gerson family home. And Charlotte at this point, I believe was 91. She was already quite old. And so we had a beautiful lunch. Charlotte sometimes was asleep, sometimes was awake, but at one point we actually actually got up and juiced on the PURE, and we do have a photograph, a wonderful photograph of her smiling, dropping a carrot into the PURE. Howard was there as well. There’s some beautiful photographs of Howard. And so we got to show a brand new two-stage juicer to the Gerson family.

And Peggy said a really interesting and wonderful thing to me. I was like, “I’m just an engineer. I never expected to be part of the healing community.” And she said, “Dr. Max used to say that people would get grabbed by the collars and just pulled in by Gerson whether they wanted to or not.” And that it was a fairly regular experience for people like myself who never expected to be a part of this, to be brought in to help and to be a part of the Gerson community. So, it was really a very wonderful lunch.

JL: I love that, I love that.

NF: Well, and how cool for them too, to see, because for the longest time the Norwalk was the only two-stage juicer out there, and Dr. Norwalk and Dr. Gerson were contemporaries, so they were alive at the same time. So, how cool to see generations later that you come in with another model of that type of juicer.

DF: And Peggy said a really wonderful thing, and she said, “I’ve used the Norwalk juicer for my entire life,” which was, at that point she’d probably been juicing for 60 years. And she said, “It’s never changed.” They’ve never addressed any of the things that, the famous things like the blow back or, I mean– I’m not here to denigrate, the Norwalk juicer is great, but she was just saying, “It’s never changed. This is great, we finally have something new that addresses all of these things.” So, yeah, it’s a really big deal.

JL: Yeah, and I mean, but the key pieces that make it a two-stage juicer didn’t change. And Nicole, I’m wondering if you’d like to talk about the protocol and the importance of two-stage juicing, and then after that, let’s also talk about, when you and I first met, we were talking about why he created his therapy in the first place, which was, in a sense it was for things that were not so severe.

But let’s, I’m just teasing people with knowing that piece is coming. But let’s talk about two-stage juicing and the importance during these protocols.

The Benefits of Two-Stage Cold Press Juicers

NF: Yeah, definitely. So, Dr. Gerson really emphasized and felt strongly that the juice needs to be made with a two-stage cold press juicer. Part of the reason is because other types of juicers, like centrifugal ones, they use electricity and conduct electricity in order to do part of the process. And that kills off active enzymes and a lot of the living, not the right word, but his biome that you need and get from the juice, because that really is your medicine. So you really, really want to maximize that.

And so, I mean, as staff we’ve seen it ourselves. A lot of us would have, just like I started on a Breville, you know, and then going to the institute and tasting a juice from a PURE, a two-stage juicer is totally different.

You get a richer juice and one that, again, you really have to see the pulp left over to really understand between the two types of juicers. Because that is bone dry, there’s not a drop left. So, you are really getting every single ounce, every microscopic thing that you can from the juices.

And again, being that you’re drinking so much juice on the therapy for such a long period of time, you also want a machine that is durable and gonna be able to handle that volume.

And also the type of produce that you’re juicing too. So, yeah, it’s really, really important to use a two-stage. And again, even a lot of patients tell us all the time, they’ll start out with a Champion or something, which is fine if you’re just juicing for overall health in general.

But they say, “Man, what a difference when you use a two-stage juicer, it’s just completely different. The taste is better. You really feel like you’ve gotten a lot more from the juice. It’s hard to explain, but there, it’s such a huge difference between the two.”

JL: It’s interesting, because it is, when when we say it’s silky smooth, we’re actually working on trying to define exactly what that means, because silky smooth means it’s thicker, and people are having a stronger healing experience with the two-stage juicer. Whether that’s soluble fiber, whether that’s smaller microparticles, whether we’re able to bring in more bacteria that is good for our microbiome and the health of our gut for metabolism, which is the definition of health.

There’s so many different pieces out there, but we are seeing that even in the modern day, that it’s, whether it’s on Gerson or whether you’re switching juicers, that the healing effects and the benefit is noticeable.

And we hear stories every day, kind of like you. And we share some of the stories from Gerson with you too, just because, we work together as partners on this, and we’re really grateful for that.

David, do you have any thoughts on that with the two-stage juicing and the process?

DF: Yeah, I mean, what I’ve heard over and over from people is that when they switch from whatever juicer they’re using to a two-stage juicer, they tell me their healing reaction speeded up, and that the quality of the juice was different and they noticed it almost right away. And we hear that over and over again.

JL: And again, the whole purpose of juicing isn’t to drink juice. It isn’t just for hydration. It is literally to take what you would normally chew and digest, you would be able to drink it and have a greater healing effect with less work done by your body.

It’s not to just drink juice, it’s not just to just drink sugar. It’s not any of those pieces, it’s literally the nutrients, the potassium. I know potassium is huge with the Gerson Diet, which you’ve mentioned with supplements, but a lot of the greens and the carrots, all of that have potassium in there. So, you’re getting it far more than just supplements. You’re getting it from real food too.

NF: Exactly, and Dr. Gerson emphasized that too. He said, “Supplements shouldn’t be taken in place of actual living food. They’re there to just sort of, again, push certain things, especially when your body is in a crisis dealing with disease, but really it needs to come from living active food.

JL: Things that are close to the sun.  Nicole, tell us about the center, the Gerson Institute and then the center at Tijuana? Tell us how people can participate in Gerson, not just if they need to go someplace, but how can they actually use Gerson if they’re using it almost as a prevention or from healing from things that are less severe?

Everyone Can Benefit from Gerson

NF: Yeah, definitely. So, the Gerson Institute were a training and education nonprofit founded by Charlotte Gerson in 1978.

So, we are training doctors and providing education and support to patients and just kind of the public at large. And we licensed two clinics. So, there’s one in Tijuana, Mexico, which is Health Institute de Tijuana, which is the only licensed clinic in Mexico. 

And then we have one in Europe over in Budapest, Hungary. And that clinic was founded by a recovered Gerson patient as well, Dr. Nagy, who recovered from breast cancer using the Gerson therapy and then opened the clinic. 

So, people who are interested, you can visit our website, www.gerson.org. We’re also on Facebook and Instagram just at Gerson Institute. Phone number is posted. We have an email form, so you can give us a call. We’ll have to leave a voice message, but we get back within one to two days. And then, or you can send an email as well. And yeah, we’re happy to answer questions or help people navigate. 

If people are interested in learning about Gerson, just like you said, for preventative or overall help, all of our education materials can still be applied to those people.

So, we have our online course, which is Gerson Basics Online. That’s over 18 hours of video lectures, including those from Charlotte Gerson, how-to videos, like step-by-step instructions on everything from juicing and cooking to the coffee enema, which is very useful for people. And our course comes with lifetime access. So, even, after you’re healed and well on your way, it’s something that people love to revisit over and over again.

And especially while they’re on the therapy, it’s a really, really motivating and grounding thing to continue to watch. It really is a reminder of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. And then we have our books, the Gerson Basics Manual, which accompanies the online course, and then The Gerson Therapy Cookbook, which is our pride and joy of over 150 Gerson-approved recipes from breakfast, lunch, dinner, desserts, snacks, soups, sauces.

We have, it has all kinds of stuff in there. Equipment recommendation, sample shopping, menus and lists and stuff. So, those are really great educational resources that you can also share. You can give the cookbook to somebody and see if maybe they glean a few things that will kind of help move them towards that healthier eating lifestyle.

And also, through our website you can sign up for our e-newsletter and you’ll get updated on news and different educational articles and updates and things going on in the community, which we’re really excited to be working on some new content for that.

JL: And I know you’ve been training in certifying professionals, medical professionals, so I believe there’s a list of medical professionals on the site as well, and or you contact Gerson Institute and they will put you in touch with someone, is that correct?

NF: Yes, yeah, that’s correct. So, in addition to our two licensed clinics, we also have a web-based case management service. So, over the last, really kind of more focused, in the last eight to 10 years we’ve been really training more doctors.

And so we are about to, we have about 20 right now certified representing about 10 countries, six states in the United States, A few more are gonna be graduating this year, so it’s putting us over funny or some providers that are licensed medical professionals. And they’ve successfully passed a program, which is two to three year program.

So, it’s not like someone takes an online course for six months and they’re certified. It’s two years of actual case management and really intense learning from our faculty that combined 50 plus years of Gerson experience among the faculty, which we’re really, really grateful and lucky too. So, that’s another option if people can’t go to the clinic, or even if you just have minor health issues, but you still want more specific guidance, that’s another great option as well.

JL: That’s amazing, that’s amazing. Well, we’re running out of time, but I would love to just suggest that we start to break down the elements of healing and so that we have time to talk about them more with you and to hear real stories of patients. HIPAA of course, like we’ll just tell stories that don’t have actual names. But there’s just so many incredible stories of people in healing with the Gerson protocol and I really want to dive into that. So, are you open to doing that in the future?

NF: Absolutely.

JL: All right, fantastic. All right, I’ve got it on recording, so I just wanted to make sure. I can replay it if we forget.

David, any last parting thoughts before we close up here on this fantastic interview with Nicole?

DF: I think my biggest thought is that when people need to heal, that the most important thing is that they begin the journey and it’s less important what juicer you select – but that the most important thing is that you prioritize yourself, you focus on your healing, and you have plenty of time to learn and transition on your journey.

JL: I love it, I love it.

Well, Nicole, thank you so much for your time. It was such an honor, and I adore you. I’m just so grateful that I’ve been able to meet you in person. And like I said, we just need to do a few more interviews because there’s so many more things that I wanna talk about with you and share with our community and anyone else who’s watching this, but for another time.

And until then, thank you so much.

NF: Thank you, guys.

DF: Thank you.

Medical Disclaimer

PURE Juicer is a juicing company. We are not doctors or medical experts. All content and information on this blog and website is for informational and educational purposes only, does not constitute medical advice, and does not establish any patient-client relationship by using this website.

Although we strive to provide accurate general information, the information presented here is not a substitute for professional advice. You should not rely solely on this information. Always consult a professional in your area for your health questions and concerns before making any professional, legal, medical, financial, or tax-related decisions.

Watch and read our interview with Eduardo Moreno, father and juicing business owner, to learn how the PURE Juicer changed his family’s life.

EM: My name is Eduardo Moreno.

BM: And my name is Bellen Moreno.

EM: And we have, @lets_smash4juice, in IG. And the company name is Smash LLC. And now-

JL: Smash LLC. And where are you located?

EM: We’re located in Orange County. Santa Ana, precise, near Garden Grove.

JL: Very good.

EM: Yeah.

JL: So I was just curious, you know, we ask the same questions to everybody, because everybody’s path to juicing is different. But, I’m just wondering, why did you guys get started with juicing? Do you have a history with juicing? And, yeah. Why did you start juicing?

EM: Never really have a history on juicing. The only thing is that after we started our family, we started being more conscious of what we give them. And throughout all the juices that we see, we started reading the ingredients, and we didn’t like that at all. And certain things for us to, like, we had so many drinks also in our lifetime, that is just given to us, but not really thinking what was in there.

JL: Yeah.

EM: And now that we have kids, we want them to actually have something great for them to keep their energy going, instead of just fitting fatigue or being down after, you know, drinking a lot of juice with weird sugars, or just imitation sugars that there are. And that’s what we kind of start going for it. Slowly juicing for our kids, and then slowly going with us actually drinking them too.

JL: That’s amazing. How long have you been juicing for?

EM: We started on, I will say, last summer when we start, I was looking at all cold-pressed juices, just started to drink them, but we started doing it ourselves on last October, 2022.

JL: Wow. What do you notice? Have you noticed a difference in your energy? If that was what it was for, and are you, what are you noticing now that you’re starting to drink cold-pressed juice?

EM: I feel the energy that usually, like, I would say like lunches. So when you work on a nine-to-five job, you’ll start getting tired like midday, and that, it’s not happening. Even though we have our kids most of the time, I’m not really feeling any tired of their screams, their running, or… Just not having anything that gives that thought of being, I would say lazy, or just wanting to take a nap with them, or anything like that. So a lot of energy with it. 

My stomach is actually feeling better. Didn’t really used to, I would say, have a lot of bowel movements, but now with it actually helping me out to have it consistent. And I slowly see my weight slowly going down, but not as quick as one would thought. But, just drinking the juices and making all sorts of juices with even the fruits that we never thought that were available. Start pressing them and something different comes out. And just by pressing and taking the organic residue out with the PURE Juicer, it’s something different that I seen, and this tastes really better than just smoothies, in general.

JL: Yeah.

EM: I wasn’t really a fan of smoothies at all. My wife liked smoothies, but I really didn’t like ’em. Just.

JL: Yeah.

EM: I thought it was like the whole healthy, “Let’s eat smoothies.” But just with the PURE Juicer, actually I wanna drink more, ’cause it’s just kinda like a water base, but with nutrients and flavorful, actually.

JL: And surprisingly there’s a lot of soluble fiber and which speaks to just your digestion and your regularity that you get from it. There’s actually, the juice is thicker, it’s smoother, it’s like silky smooth.

EM: Right.

JL: And, you know, the hypothesis is that, you know, there’s soluble fiber in there, so it’s drawing in more water to your system and helping you get rid of all of that. So you might not see the weight loss necessarily, but I, it’s such great news to hear that your body is working the way that it’s supposed to. So now that it’s building trust, I like to say it’s building trust with you. So it’s, you know, at over time it will, you know, the weight will take care of itself. You know, your body will get to where it wants to be, so that’s wonderful.

EM: Uh-huh, nice.

JL: Do you have a juice that you like? Is there a go-to juice for you and for your family, and is it different

EM: The go juice is the orange and carrots. That’s usually what my kids like and that’s only, the only juice that I started even drinking at the beginning.

JL: Yeah.

EM: It’s just carrot juice with orange.

JL: Yep.

EM: And when I start adding more stuff, that’s when it gets intrigued. But the go-to, that’s always even for before I start juicing, was the orange and carrot.

JL: Orange and carrot. That’s so good. I just figured out that you can just cut the ends off the oranges and maybe just take like four pieces of peel off, wrap it without even a liner, and press it. And it’s delicious. And it’s, it works really, really well. So it’s super slick, in case you wanna try that method.

EM: Yeah, I’ll try that one. Yes.

JL: Yeah. Let’s see. Did it take a certain, so you started in October. I’m wondering when you, if you were to tell a customer, like how long for you did it take before you started to see the benefits of juice?

EM: I would say in the, I would say like a month. About a month, about a month, yes.

JL: Yeah How much juice do you say you drink in a week, or in a day, however you wanna do it?

EM: I think we have 64 throughout the week.

JL: Yes.

EM: So we go through a 64 ounce through a week. We have it in the fridge and we press it again and again.

JL: Yeah. Oh my gosh, this is great. It’s making me thirsty.

EM: I usually do twice a week. It’ll be on Monday and Thursdays.

JL: Yep.

EM: For me, obvious ’cause I have my kids most of the time, and have enough time for me to press on those days and ask any of my friends, anybody that follows us on IG, if they want any juices while I’m pressing for ourselves.

JL: Yeah.

EM: And then I’ll add more for them if they would like also.

JL: That’s great. Are you able to sell, or is there people that want the juice?

EM: Yes. I have continuous flow of people or clients that actually come. A few friends that are, I would say, subscription-wise.

JL: Yes.

EM: That they wanted every, every time in the fridge. So I’ll just press it and get it ready for their fridge. And other friends will have a good enough order for them to drink like throughout the whole week.

JL: Yeah. Yeah.

EM: So it’s a, it has a few following that actually love what we’re doing, and they want to try our juices as well.

JL: That’s good.

EM: And how we separate certain juices, it’s something different that you won’t see on the market, ’cause it’s, we don’t really specify much as a healthy option, but a flavorful option.

JL: Mm. I think that’s what people are looking for, and flavor doesn’t remove health–

EM: Right.

JL: So I think it’s such a great entry into juicing. You know what surprised me too, is I learned that black and red grapes, and even green grapes, are so good for our brains.

EM: Oh.

JL: So you think that it’s just sugar, but the neurologist, who’s our medical advisor, she’s like, “That’s actually what our brains feed on.” “That’s what our brains need.”

EM: Yeah.

JL: And those grapes are some of the best things for our brains, so. And they taste delicious.

EM: Awesome. Yeah, we do have a few line of just with grapes. The, what is it, the Blood Dragon Split, that will have the grape. It has a pink pineapple and also has the dragon fruit, the red dragon fruit.

JL: Oh yeah. How do you? That’s pretty slimy, isn’t it? Yeah.

EM: At the beginning, there was no process, but eventually I had a good sign how much to press, what pressure time, or like slowly press it and slowly open out, instead of just one stop and it’ll make a mess.

JL: Yeah. Yeah. And no need to grind it. Just pressing is the way to go.

EM: No, just the seed. The black seeds will be left on the mesh.

JL: Yeah. Starfruit is really good too. And you can just press starfruit, in case you haven’t done that one yet. It’s really yummy.

EM: I actually had the star fruit at the beginning. I did not know how to press it, I just saw it. I’m like, “How am I gonna press this?” It doesn’t really have so much. And me thinking a little bit longer, it kind of went spoiled on it. So I’m like, “All right, I’ll try another time.”

JL: Yeah. You can just press them.

EM: But, I’ve tried, but that was my option once.

JL: Yeah. And in the future, you can always just message us, and if we’ve done it, we’ll let you know how we did it.

EM: Awesome.

JL: And that way, you know, we’re happy to share that. We don’t always keep everything on social, so if we’ve done it, we would love to share how we did it.

EM: Oh, sweet. I like that.

JL: What led you to PURE Juicer and, you know, like just why did you choose PURE Juicer for your family and for your business?

EM: At the beginning, I was actually in a restaurant business for a quite while, like little over eight years.

JL: Oh.

EM: And I seen a bunch of juices throughout my experience there. And when I, I came across the PURE Juicer, it was something different that I never seen before. And with the mesh, how it removes the granite material, just leaves the the pure juice itself, that was something different that I seen, and I advised my wife about it. Like, “Look, this is something different. I seen a bunch of different juices but nothing like this.”

JL: Yeah.

EM: So for me, I was just trying to get for it and I couldn’t actually afford it, ’cause it is on the high end and it’s obviously a great machine. 

And throughout time I was looking on OfferUp, and that’s where we actually got it from. A friend on OfferUp were like, “Hey, you want your juicer?” And they’re like, “Yeah, we were trying it so much for myself, but it’s too much work.” I’m like, “Yes, I seen it’s too much work, but I’m willing to go for it.” 

JL: Yeah.

EM: And I got it from them, from OfferUp. And then slowly had it with us.

JL: That’s awesome. Do you find it’s that much work? ‘Cause I think sometimes people say that, but it’s actually not as much work as you would think. But what’s your impression?

EM: It depends on certain produce or the fruits. It’ll be much work. But if you have a consistent, I’ll say a certain juices that like, not certain juices, certain fruits, just like oranges, some apples, pineapple. Any of those you already have, know way how to cut it, know how to prep it and clean it, and then press it right away.

JL: Yeah.

EM: But I feel like some other people think that they have to go exceed on cleanliness or exceed on prepping it.

JL: Yeah.

EM: So that’s where the time consuming comes along for a lot of people.

JL: Yeah.

EM: But if I did it a couple times, and I, for us to give away to our clients and our friends, it makes us go through trials and errors throughout, and we find better ways when we start juicing. We find better ways to juice more and more.

JL: Yeah.

JL: Efficient. Good, good. Yeah, I found that I can make 24 ounces of carrot apple in 10 minutes. From the very beginning to the very end. Like putting the cloths to dry. So it’s, so I need to do that more so people can see that it is quite easy to do in the process. So, but that’s great feedback. That’s great, and I’m glad that, I mean, that’s great too that you found it on OfferUp. So that you’re able to get a bit of a discount. Way to go.

EM: So eventually, when all this gets more, I will end up buying another one, ’cause how it’s getting busier. I don’t want one day to just fail on me. So hopefully, at the, I have enough, or to have a second one in the near feature.

JL: What do you like using about the PURE Juicer?

EM: I like using it. The features what I use? Like…

JL: Yeah. Like I mean, so it, so work the press is pressing, you know, what do you think of the grinder? Do you, do you use the grinder too, very much? Or is it mainly the press?

EM: I use the grinder on carrots, I use it on celery. I use it with, what was it, the beets. Like gold beets or red beets. Anything that I’ll say, vegetables, or some tough that needs to be grind up, I’ll go through there. It’s easy to clean, not too much hard. It’s just of like two pieces comes off, rinse it, hot water rinse, and let it dry with sanitize. And not that much crazy with it, but the press is just extraordinary, how it just works. It just puts all the fruit and then just comes out very clean.

JL: Yeah.

EM: I like the press a lot.

JL: I know, the press is amazing. There’s actually a video out there, where this woman presses everything from like jelly beans, to cupcakes, to sandwiches.

EM: Go on.

JL: Yeah. She’s, and she uses the PURE Juicer, so.

I think a lot of people like the press. Question for you, so you mentioned that, how you’re feeling, which I love that your digestion is working better. So that’s actually huge, and that it’s building sort of gut health. Have you noticed a difference with your kids, and do they like the carrot orange juice as well?

EM: Yes. They’ll just see me certain places that we go pick up raw material, and they’ll be like, “Oh we’re gonna go get some juices.” ‘Cause they already know if I go there, they’re eventually gonna drink some juices right after. So they’re excited every time we get any fruits, ’cause they just wanna try it. And then if they see me, they just look like, “Is that a different juice?” or “What color is that juice?” It’s just the intrigued of the colors, also.

JL: Yeah, yeah. Oh, colors! You know, remember the blue spirulina lemonade is so good. Yummy! If you ever wanna put spirulina in your lemonade, ’cause then it’s a beautiful blue color. And then we’ve also done charcoal, activated charcoal, which is great when you’re teen–when you get teenagers, for it clears up your skin a little bit. It’s activated charcoal is really great to pull toxins out of the body. And a lot of times I take, if I eat something that doesn’t sit right, you can take it and that kind of soaks it all up and then you get rid of it, so.

EM: Okay.

JL: So you can get black and blue, and yellow and red.

EM:Interesting.

JL: All kinds of things.

EM: Oh, okay. I will try those things, also.

JL: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, we’re almost done. Is there anything else that you’d like to share?

EM: The almond milk, it’s a very interesting one. My wife actually just drinks almond milk, and we’ve been actually looking at that. Probably going forward with the almond milk soon.

JL: Yeah.

EM: But I think from any other juices, how I’ve seen it, I think this will have like the biggest yield with it. ‘Cause I’ve seen other juices that you just put everything out, just come out on the other side. But I haven’t really seen it personally, or kind of noticed it correctly. So that’s something that we are gonna try.

JL: It’s really great. I just talked to a friend today who said she used to just make it by hand. She said she literally makes twice as much with the same recipe, using the press.

EM: Right. Yeah. Crazy.

JL: And you know, I just did the one where we did the strawberries, so you can just press the strawberries separate. You can press blueberries separate. You can press beets separate as well. So just know that you can make straight up almond milk and then you can have little shots to like add to the milk.

EM: Cool.

JL: If you wanna add those varieties. And talk about fun options for color. You’ve got pink, you’ve got purple. You’ve got, you know, any kind of color. I’m sure you can make a green one too. But, I mean there’s so many different options.

EM:That’s right.

JL: And it’s nice, ’cause you know, there’s no preservatives or anything. And almond milk froths quite well, so, yeah.

EM: Ah, exactly.

JL: And the other thing, I dunno if you saw that, but you can make your own peanut butter. And for kids, and like different nut butters. You can make almond butter and just run it through the feed shoots using a four grid, and it’s the best nut butter you’ve ever had.

EM: Mm, I will try that too. My kids actually like peanut butter, but I haven’t tried it yet.

JL: Yeah, yeah. There’s a video on Instagram on that, so. Is there any way, would you like to share your business? Maybe your social handle? Or a website or anything, that we can, if people wanna connect with you and order juices, or follow your social media, what would you like folks to do, if they wanna contact you?

EM: For now it’s on Instagram, at the moment.

JL: Okay.

EM: At Let’s Smash at, Let’s Smash For Juice.

JL: Okay, okay. Is there anything else that I might have missed?

EM: Those who are on the sidelines thinking about juicing, I’ll say just go for it. It’s something that’ll probably change your life, one way or another. ‘Cause it has changed my way of thinking and consuming fruits and vegetables, from, ever since I started seeing, working with PURE Juicer. 

And if my kids see them, and they’ll be tasting this for while we still are juicing, and if they start drinking something else from the streets, or from the, I’ll say from the gas station or anywhere, they’ll be like, “Oh, this doesn’t taste great. I want my juice.” I think that’s, that’s where this ultimatum was. I hope that it happens though.

JL: It will. It will. You are setting such a phenomenal example. It’s just such a pleasure to meet you in person. Thank you so much for your time. And, all right. Well, Eduardo, thank you so much. Please tell Bellen thank you so much for your time too, and you guys are amazing.

EM: Yeah. She’s over there.

JL: Yeah, good.

EM: Awesome, thank you.

JL: Awesome. Well, happy juicing to you!

EM: Thank you, you too.

JL: Take care.

Watch and listen to our interview with Gillian Ehrlich, ARNP, DNP to learn how to incorporate Ayurvedic practices into juicing for a nourished and well-balanced constitution.

Transcript:

JL: Hi everybody, this is Jen here from PURE Juicer. It is such an honor to have Dr. Gillian Ehrlich here with us today. We are here to talk about Ayurveda. Dr. Gillian has a number of different experiences and trainings in her background, but today we want to focus on Ayurveda and juicing and then weave in the other areas of her expertise. She is a doctor in nursing practitioner. She’s also a functional medical doctor as well as an expert in Ayurveda.

I’ll let her talk a little bit more about those pieces, but we’re really fascinated about Ayurveda and juicing, because Ayurveda is quite an old, traditional medicine and practice, and juicing really wasn’t part of Ayurveda because there was no juicing necessarily at the time. But we do believe that there are ways that they can compliment each other really well. And I’m just going to go ahead and dive in.

Gillian, welcome.

GE: Thank you.

Can Juicing Be a Part of Your Ayurveda Practice?

JL: Question number one, can juicing be a part of someone’s Ayurveda practice?

GE: It’s such a good question and there’s like a crazy amount of controversy, like, “Should it be? Should it not be?” And I think what’s most important are the two principles that we have going on, which is number one, that Ayurveda is all about you. So it’s all about what you need, the foods you need, how you need them in the way and the time and the place and the season that you need them. So knowing your system from an Ayurvedic perspective is the first thing that can help you decide if juice is appropriate for you now and what that juice might look like.

And the second piece is really knowing that juice itself is actually food in a very easily digestible form. And Ayurveda is actually all about that. So when we talk about the classic… Like when you go to the mall and you get a juice, it’s often not real vegetables. There’s often a bunch of other junk in there. It’s often over crushed ice.

And that type of juicing typically is not really supported by Ayurveda. But when we’re talking about the kind of juicing that PURE Juicer really recommends and talks about, and the ways that you can use your PURE Juicer, making your food easily digestible and appropriate for your specific constitution in this moment, in this time, then everything including juicing can absolutely be part of a healthy Ayurvedic regimen.

JL: So I would love to know what your practice is, and if you’re comfortable maybe sharing sort of your Doshas, and we’ll get into Doshas a little bit more as we go further into this conversation.

How do you use juicing to supplement and support your personal health?

A Healthy Constitution

GE: Okay, so here’s the craziest part of… One of the nutshells that I think is most critical to understanding your health from an Ayurvedic perspective in today’s world, we talk about health like, “Salad’s healthier, greens are healthier, this is healthier, that’s healthy.” But the truth is that everything has qualities to it. And your constitution, including you, including your own body, your own mind, your own spirit, and these qualities, what we’re trying to do is essentially match the qualities. And so all of us at the moment of our conception, all the forces acting in the universe at one time made our unique constitution. And so we come out with this constitution and then all the epigenetic influences, if anybody knows that word, is really like the seasons and the foods we eat and the things that we encounter, and whether we play trombone or play football, all the different things in our world change because they influence our constitution.

Understanding Your Own Constitution

And so then, our qualities are changed. And health for each of us is really getting our current constitution to match that inherent constitution. There’s three constitutional groups of qualities. They’re called Vata, Pitta, Kapha, and each of these Vata, Pitta, Kapha is called a dosha. And what that means is it’s essentially the basket of qualities that kind of define us. And they are both strengths and weaknesses.

So for example, a quality of Vata can be cold, and so cold can be helpful to understand. People can have a cold heart, people can have cold hands and feet. But if you’re a Vata person and you have this cold hands, cold feet, then you know that icy juice is not the thing for you. Then you need the equivalent instead of muddled lime and tonic with your vodka, then you need the hot toddy. So even with alcoholic drinks, which are another way that our culture uses a lot of liquids and drinks, we know that there’s such a variety.

And so, the equivalent of a hot toddy in juice would be using room temperature juices, or even using broth or adding warming spices like cinnamon or cardamom or cumin or fennel. Adding some of those digestive spices, which you can actually mix up in your PURE Juicer, which is why I really love this machine. And so you can really make it a — for you at any time. And so what I use for my dosha is… Oh, actually, let me go back one step.

Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself… Excited about these doshas. So that kernel of knowledge that can be so critical for us is that food… When you eat food, whether it’s 10,000 years ago or 10,000 years from now, when you eat, when a human being, when an animal eats food, the food needs to transition into well-formed bodily tissue. Needs to transition into energy and heat and enzymatic reactions. Needs to transition into immunity and intelligence. And then needs to transition into consciousness.

So we want to eat for the consciousness that we seek. Oh God, no pressure. I don’t know if my Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup really turns into my consciousness.

JL:  (laughs) Or maybe it does.

GE: (laughs) Or maybe… Maybe that’s part of what I’ve got going on. Maybe that’s part it. But when these transitions don’t happen cleanly and clearly, when our Agni, our digestive fire isn’t strong enough, instead of those transitions, we get junk. And that junk is called Ama. And Ama can be seen in the body. You all know if you have Ama, it can be a coating on the tongue, pain in the joints, stiffness and aching like if you sit down for a half an hour and then you get up and you’re like, “Ugh, I got to warm up.” That’s because there’s Ama in your tissues, irritability in the mind, impatience, poor sleep. Sometimes it’s perseverating thinking. So these things can all be represented by Ama. And if Ama gets too far down the road in the tissues, like there’s too much Ama for too long, that’s what produces autoimmune disease.

JL: Okay. Let’s get you back to what your juices are, and let’s get into those because there’s so much more that I want to fill in for people to understand who you are and how this all fits together. What juices do you like to have based on your Doshas?

GE: My constitution.

JL: Yeah.

Dr. Ehrlich’s Favorite Juices

GE: So my favorite juices are… I like fruit and vegetable juices, and I really like the clarifying ones. So I love things with beet, with celery, with lime or lemon with ginger. I love cilantro. And my constitution, at this point, I have been… I sit at my desk, I exercise, but then I’m sedentary. And so I want things that essentially squeeze my liver. And here at the beginning of the spring season, what the earth is giving us is these fresh little greens. And so things like kale, things like spinach, things that are newly coming out of the ground, even arugula-

JL: Dandelion greens.

GE: Dandelion greens, all of those are excellent for stimulating the liver and getting things moving. So as I’m sitting thinking about patients, I want things that… I actually crave bitter greens plus lemon and ginger and lime.

JL: Those are some of my favorite.

GE: Yeah.

JL: I love a little bit of green apple in there too, just because it gives you a little more juice. And it also… I just love how it softens everything. It brings it all together.

GE: Yeah. And apple is actually a really good balancing. So even stewed or baked apples is often what we recommend for an easy morning digestive component. There’s a reason that we give apple juice to kids. It’s just a nice digestive.

JL: Yeah. The malic acid. And I’ve also read that when you mix the apple mash, if you mix it with the carrot mash, it actually stimulates and creates more nutrition from the carrot too, just because the way that the enzymes interact with each other.

GE: Yeah, absolutely.

JL: Well, what I love about you too is you have this Ayurvedic foundation, which I know enough about you.

Gillian has this amazing Ayurvedic foundation, but she also has an extensive training in Western medicine. And so I thought maybe what we could do next is share a little bit more about who you are and tell us why you took the road of doctor and in nurse practitioning.

Why did you take that road and how have you incorporated all of your different areas of training to do what you do today?

Dr. Ehrlich’s Path to Ayurvedic Medicine

GE: Yes, absolutely. I’m happy to chat about that. So when I was growing up as a kid in Cleveland in the eighties, I will openly admit that I looked around and I was like, “What am I going to do with my life?” I didn’t see a lot of things that kind of called naturally to me. And I was always known as a kid who marched to the beat of her own drum, like I was a weirdo. My dad still says, “When the aliens come to take you home to your home planet, I’ll be very, very sad to see you go.” And so I had one teacher, Jane Esselstyn, who was my high school health teacher, who’s the daughter of Caldwell Esselstyn, who’s in the Forks Over Knives movie. Yes.

And so she was an Outward Bound instructor at the time, and she was 25-years-old then, and I was 17. So she introduced me to being outside, and that’s where I kind of fell in love. And being outside really felt like health to me. And so I spent seven years as an outdoor educator, mostly with Pacific Crest Outward Bound School, sailing in the San Juan and the Canadian Gulf Islands out here in the Pacific Northwest. I say that way because they’re up north that way.

JL: Yeah. Yeah.

GE: And I love that. And a dear friend of mine from elementary school, actually, Anisha Durve, who has written the book on marma points, Ayurvedic acupressure points, who’s traditional Chinese medicine doctor, as well as an Ayurvedic clinician, brought me to a class with Dr. Vasant Lad in the late nineties. And I sat there and listened to him talk about the Vata, Pitta, Kapha and I was like, “What? Wait, what?” And so the next summer when I went back to my Outward Bound career, I remember picking out and trying, and I remember picking out a Vata kid and saying, “Do these 12 things.” And she was on it, because Vata learns quickly, but then forgets quickly. So she did it beautifully, and I never expected her to remember it ever after 10 minutes. And she didn’t. And I remember working with a Kapha kid, a slow, stable, always looks like he was a sleeper, bored.

I spent an hour teaching him how to anchor the boat. And a week later I was like, “Anchor the boat.” And he just got up and did it because Kapha learns slowly, but then remembers forever.

JL: Amazing.

GE: And I remember thinking, “If this is what I got out of two hours with Dr. Lad, it revolutionized my teaching.” I felt like I have to know more. So I spent a year with him in 2000, 2001, and by the time I left, I knew that I wanted to help make Ayurveda our common ground in medicine. And that’s really what his mission is also, which is why I keep doing it. It’s been such a light in my life. And so I looked at going to medical school and I still felt like it was too much time inside. I had just spent seven years living outside. I just didn’t feel like I could go that much inside. And so I was like, “Oh, I’ll be a nurse and I’ll see what western medicine feels like.” And I did bedside nursing for about eight years at Harborview, our mission driven hospital here. And I watched people code, I watched people die on cardiac monitors.

We had dialysis on our floor. I worked with a lot of patients with a lot of different mental illnesses. And it was an incredible experience to see people who were newly paralyzed, people who had C2 fractures and where quadriplegics, people on ventilators, just very intense… People with intense wounds. You’re gloving up to your armpit to pack their wounds to try and get them better. And it was just incredible to watch the edges of what it looks like to be alive or when you cross that edge, what it looks like to pass away. And so I fell in love then with medicine, and I just thought, “I have to keep doing this.” And I wanted to do this from an Ayurvedic perspective.

And so I went back for my doctorate of nursing practice at the University of Washington as a family nurse practitioner. And so my degree is… I have a doctorate of nursing practice. My specialty is family nurse practitioner. And then my license is from the State of Washington is advanced registered nurse practitioner, ARMP. So I am technically a doctor, but I am a doctor nurse, which I always want to be called a “noctor” or a “durse.” I’m not trying to pretend I’m a medical doctor. I am proud of being a nursing doctor.

JL: Yeah. Yeah.

GE: Someday maybe that’ll take hold.

JL: Yes, I love it. Noctor. I might call you that from now on.

GE: Thank you. I would love that.

JL: Noctor Gillian. Noctor Gillian. Well, I love that too, because it kind of takes the best of so many worlds and it really allows you… I think what I love… And I did an Outward Bound, actually.

GE: Oh, you did?

JL: At the North Cascades. Yeah. When I graduated from college, that was what I wanted to do. And it was so hard for me because I went and I was expect… I was just ready to get just thrown into the ground, just miserable and pain and crying because it was so hard. And the weather was perfect, the people were great. Nothing was hard. We had all this extra time. And that was the thing that killed me. It was all this extra time of just having to sit still. It was the hardest thing I had to do on that-

GE: Interesting.

JL: … trip. Give me as heavy of a pack as you want. Make me as dirty and stinky for a short period of time, can totally take it, but give me all of this downtime. It was brutal. So yeah.

GE: Wow.

JL: Yeah.

GE: Wow. What a fun experience.

JL: Yeah. We haven’t talked about functional medicine, but let’s just kind of weave that in if we find-

GE: Oh.

JL: Have a few other questions I want to get through into that too. But you spoke a little bit about doshas. Let me just ask it again though.

The Three Doshas: Vata, Pitta, Kapha

JL: What is a dosha, and how can people use it to benefit their health? Even if you have an example of someone, and you know me well enough, if you want to use me too as an example, feel free to do that because I feel like that oftentimes helps break down those words-

GE: Absolutely.

JL: … that don’t always necessarily make sense to us because–yeah.

GE: So we think about them in qualities, and I’ll just list them out because it’s a helpful foundation. So Vata dosha. Vata is made of the elements of air and space, and it’s the principle of movement.

So Vata people, the qualities are a cold, light, dry, rough, mobile, subtle.

And Vata people like to jump dance, sing, play. When you think about the Vata body, you think about Twiggy, if anybody knows that model from the sixties. But I think of Nicole Richie or Paris Hilton, or I think of Audrey Hepburn, just women who are… Not women, actually. Anybody. But people who are light and thin. Even Fred Astaire has some of those Vata skinny mini… Likes to move, likes to dance, likes to sing.

The Vata person goes to a party and just wants to play and laugh and talk. The Vata person, when they’re out of balance… That’s when they’re in balance.

And when they’re in balance, their mind can make connections that others can’t. Vata can be artistic and incredibly creative and involved in the arts. When Vata goes sideways, when Vata gets imbalanced–because there’s pluses and minuses to each of these doshas–when Vata gets imbalanced, people can get constipated, gas and bloating, their memory can wane, and they can get really afraid. Their reaction can often be fear, insomnia. You’re not sleeping at night, your bowels don’t move, you’re anxious. That’s Vata.

You can have… The Pitta person… And remember, we’re all a mix of all three of these.

The Pitta person is… It’s the elements of fire and water. It’s the principle of transformation. And the qualities are hot, light, sharp, oily, liquid, spreading. And these qualities, the Pitta, the person tends to be a medium build and very intense. So I have a lot of Pitta, which makes me want to organize this information and spread the love of Ayurveda. And you have a lot of Pitta, right?

JL: Yeah.

GE: That’s why we have a really good time together because we’re both sharp and funny. So-

JL: Yes, we are.

GE: And then when Pitta gets a little off balance, but they can get… We go from sharp and funny to spicy. And so sometimes the Pitta person can get too critical, over critical, or kind of even mean. And then the Pitta things that happen in the body are loose stools, heartburn, inflammation, things that are red and hot.

And then the Kapha dosha. The Kapha person is… Kapha is water and earth, and it’s the principle of structure. So Kapha people are stout, solid, live forever, kind of slow, really stable. And the qualities are heavy, slow, cold, oily, dense, soft, cloudy, liquid, stable. And so I think of Marlon Brando, Arnold Schwarzenegger, these people who are stout like Earth. That’s the Kapha constitution. And Kapha can be really stable, but Kapha can also hold onto things. So Kapha can hold onto to clothes, like… They’re collectors and they won’t let go of things.

Or Kapha can really hold onto relationships and get really emotional because they’re so watery. So they can cry a lot. And they miss people. Even when the relationship is over and they don’t want to date the person anymore, they still miss them because they’re Kapha. So we say that… There’s a door slams in another room, Vata goes, “What’s that?” Pitta says, “Who slammed that door?” And Kapha just shrugs and eats a candy bar and sits on the couch. So we all have a mix. Like some-

JL: I have a whole family of each one of them.

GE: It’s so great. It’s so great.

JL: Yeah.

GE: So when we know ourselves, it’s like we can really figure out how to make our entire world medicine. And so perfect about juicing is that we want that transition in our food to our consciousness. And you can only eat for the amount that you can digest. And so Pitta people should… As we were talking about like I’m a Pitta person. My Pitta up because I’m working hard and I’m doing a lot of talking lately, which is actually Vata. But lots of detective work lately with patients. And so the good juices for me are those fresh, bitter greens. And the spiciness of the ginger can actually help with the Vata component because Vata digestion can be slow and you need to be very gentle.

So for a person who’s got a Vata imbalance, you want to give them warmer juices, more of the spices for warming it up. You want to do room temperature or even a little warm, that’s like the hot toddy type of juice. You can even add a little bit of broth in your juice, which I guess makes your juice a soup. But the line between juice and soup is so slim.

JL: You know what I’ve done? Is I’ve made green juice and then I’ve actually taken the pulp and I’ve turned it into vegetable stock.

GE: Oh, it’s amazing.

JL: Yeah. So I do… That way, I get my juice. And it is typically room temperature. I tend to like my juices room temperature, but I have to put it in the fridge for my son and husband because they like everything as cold as possible. But I’m very different. But I love the soup stock that you can make with the greens.

GE: Yes.

JL: So it’s another fun sort of zero waste way to maximize your fruits and vegetables too.

GE: That is awesome. That is awesome. Yep. Perfect.

JL: Yeah. So that’s the next perfect segue into digestion. And you did talk about Ayurveda and the definition of health is digestion.

Ayurveda and Definition of Health: Your Digestion

GE: So the definition of Ayurveda has a couple different digestions of health, but… I mean definitions of health. But the one I like the best is this whole long Sanskrit thing, which I don’t need to say, but it’s basically balanced constitution, like your current constitution matches your original constitution. Balanced digestive fire. It’s not too hot and it’s not too cool. You need to cook your food in the right temperature of water in the pot of your stomach. Well-formed bodily tissues. I’m like saying the Sanskrit in my head. Completely eliminated wastes.

JL: Yeah.

GE: It says bliss and clarity, and the sense is the soul and the mind and the person who is well-situated in self. So you really… You’re not healthy in Ayurveda until you actually feel like you belong in your body. And if you don’t feel like you belong here on earth or belong here in your body, then we’ve got work to do.

JL: Yeah.

GE: So all of that is relevant and pertinent. And Ayurveda has a huge emphasis on the clarity of the senses. And when you think about it, those are the ways that we really get to have our spirit and body in our body and participate in the world, is through our senses. That’s what gives us our information. So we want them to be clear.

JL: Yeah. Are there good tips, I mean, for people? I am guessing that there’s a little Ama and a little off balance in everybody at some point, but are there ones… Are there spices or anything that you recommend or juices that are good for almost all of the doshas?

GE: So the only thing that’s really good… So there are some things which we call tridoshic.

JL: Okay.

GE: So there’s… Triphala is one of the things that’s tridoshic. Triphala. Tri means three, and phala means fruits. And those are Amalaki, Bibhitaki, and Haritaki.

JL: Okay.

GE: And Triphala is an amazing little spice blend. You can get it in a powder or in a tablet, like a press tablet or capsule. And Triphala is said to contain five of the six tastes in Ayurveda, everything except salty. And you typically taste the taste that you need, the one that you’re lacking. So for me, it’s always been… Over the last 20 some years, it’s typically bitter, and sometimes it’s stringent, if I’m really off. But you know your digestion is perfect when your Triphala tastes sweet.

JL: Oh, that’s interesting. And not to be confused with Triphala which is what I called it first.

GE: I know. Everybody wants to call it Triphala.

JL: That’s what it looks like. It sounds a little bit like an adaptogen too, where adaptogens can change based on what your body needs. So is it kind of an adaptogen too?

GE: So adaptogens, I would think of more about in terms of your adrenal support, whether they kind of calm you down or ramp you up. That’s the adjustment that gets made. And it does do that in your digestion. And so it does, it adjusts for… These are the… I mean, herbs have prana, they have energy in them. Right? And that’s part of why we like them so much. So we have a relationship with our food. We know that if you eat too much five star chili, it’s going to hurt because we have a relationship between our body and our food. And so herbs are very much like that. The idea of medicinal herbs is that they’re really concentrated and that’s actually part of what we’re doing when we’re making juice.

JL: I am… And Kim always teases me. I love parsley so much. Like the more parsley, the better. What is that? That’s bitter, right?

GE: It is, but it’s not as strongly bitter. Parsley has a little bit of sweetness to it. So it’s actually good for Pitta. I wonder if parsley is tridosha. I actually don’t know. I could look it up, but I can look it up and get back to you.

JL: I bet it is. Okay. So you spent a lot of time in the hospital and then you had a practice where you were seeing people as a family nurse practitioner, and you were also including some of your Ayurveda. So what were some of the tips or go-tos that you used? And we’ve gone through these before, but let’s just do one at a time.

Ayurvedic Tricks for Sleep

Let’s say someone comes in and they’re having issues with sleep. What were some of the tricks… And spices. Because anyone listening here and interested in juicing and spices, as you can absolutely put juice and spice together. And we’re really excited. We’re going to come out with a lot more examples of that. But we grind our own spices, cinnamon, allspice, black pepper, obviously ginger and turmeric. You can grind using the stage one of the juicer. And then you can just mix those into a tea. You can mix those into juices. So that said… Okay, sleep. Someone is not getting good sleep, they just can’t either fall asleep or they wake up at two in the morning and they can’t go back to sleep. What are you doing?

Golden Milk and Other Tonics

GE: So for not being able to fall asleep, there’s two things… So often it’s our cortisol that is going to… Either our cortisol or our blood sugar or our mind that is preventing us from sleeping, either from falling asleep, getting over that hump and letting go, or that’s going to be waking us up at that 2:00 to 6:00 AM time, or that middle of the nighttime.

And so things that we’re trying to do are using those adaptogens to support the body to be able to feel safe enough to let go and let rejuvenation happen without our conscious mind trying to protect us. So for sleep, I’ll often recommend golden milk. So golden milk is any type of milk, so this can be coconut milk, oat milk, hemp milk, Rice DREAM… Or rice milk. I’m not a huge fan of soy milk. And one thing I’ll say about cow milk or animal milk from the Ayurvedic perspective is that it needs to have full-fat.

So in Ayurveda, if you separate the fat from the protein, then it becomes poison and it doesn’t digest well. So that full-fat. And especially before bed, that fat is going to help anchor the mind. So full-fat milks, and then we add spices like turmeric and ginger and black pepper, and… What else can go in there? You can… And ghee. A little bit of warm ghee can be so nice for anchoring the mind. And then that can help the mind. And you can even add a little bit of sweetness with either some honey or some… You never want to cook your honey. That’s another thing in Ayurveda, you always want to do fresh honey, never cook it. Or you can use the sweetener of your choice. Something like stevia.

JL: Yeah.

GE: And so golden milk is perfect for a nightcap before bed. If you’re waking up in the middle of the night, then we think about that cortisol and then some more adaptogens before bed. Things like… These are herbs like ashwagandha-

JL: Love it.

GE: … brahmi, bacopa. There are supplements and tinctures that you can add. And even things that you can add into juice. Tinctures you can even add into juice. Like I Sleep Soundly, Banyan Botanicals has one. You can find that on our website. So tonics like that, that can help with sleep before bed.

But if you’re going to stabilize the mind and stabilize the system, then you may be able to sleep more completely. Another supplement that I use a lot is actually called phosphatidylserine.

JL: Ooh.

GE: It has nothing to do with juicing. But phosphatidylserine is a really nice… It helps. What it is said to do is it helps with cellular communication. So if the cells can communicate better, then they all relax. It’s kind of like if they feel like their network is reachable, then they can stop yelling and then the mind can go to sleep.

JL: I have heard that exercise does a good job with that too, which that doesn’t really help with sleep because when you exercise, that wakes you up, so you want to… Yeah, that’s-

GE: Exercise earlier in the day. Absolutely.

JL: Yeah.

Visualization and Breath Work

GE: A good dog’s a tired dog. So exercise earlier in the day. And then there’s all these kind of mental things for getting to sleep. So using breath work is a huge component of being able to fall asleep. Visualization, so…

JL: Yeah.

GE: And sometimes people will actually visualize the thoughts that come up that feel like, “Oh, I have to solve this problem right now.” Just envision yourself with a chest, the chest of your choice, like a big old steamer trunk, and you can put them in those thoughts and ideas and then close that lid so that those thoughts are safe. You don’t have to let them go. You can keep them safe, but that you’re not actively working on them at the time your body needs to rest.

JL: I’ve done… I always love the body scan. And I swear, by the time I get to my ears, I’m gone. But it takes time to actually really get yourself focused on the top and it feels so good. And then… Yeah, by the time I get here, I’m gone.

GE: Because it’s like we have to… If we disengage our thinking from all of the stuff in the world and put it onto our body, then our body’s like, “Oh great. Now we’ll just let it go. Now we’ll go to sleep.”

JL: Go ahead.

Rub Oil on Your Feet

GE: Okay. One last one. Last one for sleep is actually rubbing oil on your feet. And that’s actually how I got interested in Ayurveda was because my friend had taken me to this class and I got kind of curious about it, but she had also… I had insomnia since childhood. I fell asleep once when I was nine, I remember it like it was yesterday because I couldn’t believe I was falling asleep. But other than that, it was until I was about 24 years old. And she was like, “Rub oil, rub oil, rub oil on your feet.” And I was like, “That’s the stupidest thing ever.”

But one night I was like, “What else am I doing besides thinking I’m not going to rub oil on my feet?” What a Pitta thing to do. And so I got up and rubbed oil on my feet, like kitchen oil. I just use olive oil from the kitchen. You can get sleep oil, you can get Vata digest oil, you can get all these other medicated oils. I just used kitchen olive oil, rubbed it on my feet and my knees, and then I remember falling asleep and thinking, “No effing way.” I was out.

JL: That’s amazing. I’m going to do that. I mean, I love sleep. I just love my sleep. There’s rarely ever anything gets in the way of that whole dance to my sleep time.

GE: Good. Good.

Energy Boosters

JL: So let’s look at the opposite. So let’s say sleep is fine. What about energy? All right, people need energy. If they’re just sluggish… I mean, we live in Seattle, it’s dark and gray a lot of the year, so sometimes we have that against us. But what are some tricks that you used or that you would share with your patients that worked for them?

GE: So it’s always good to know your dosha. So in the morning for getting out of bed, Vata actually needs to have a little luxurious, slow, gentle wake up.

Pitta should wake up at a routine time and then have a morning routine that makes sense that they have thought about.

And then Kapha needs to kind of roll out of bed at 5:00 AM and do pushups. But that’s not for everybody. But the Kapha person, if you’re strong, stout like ox, then you probably need some pretty heavy big muscle movement in the mornings to get you going. Then we think about warm drinks, just warm water and lemon to get the digestion going. And then think about what juice you want to add to slowly ease your digestion into the day is actually a really good thing to do. And then where you put your exercise and how you think about your day.

But when we talk about energy for the day, we have to think about the night of sleep before. So then that’s that sleep piece. And when we think about chronic energy drain, we have to think about what is chronically draining energy. So for example, sometimes it’s just the daily… Like you have so many things going on in your day that you’re exhausted and then you can never catch up. So if this is a matter of your children are waking you up at night, but then you’re working all day long, it’s pretty obvious sometimes why there’s a drain. And sometimes those are not things that any kind of medicine can fix, but we want to support that with taking some time for self-care, taking some time to bring yourself back to your body, and listen to your body, doing breath work, doing a little meditation, or a little rhythmic movement.

And then for people who have chronic energy issues like chronic fatigue syndrome, myalgic encephalomyelitis is the technical word for CFS, chronic fatigue syndrome. Or you’ve got complex or chronic disease, and that can be diabetes, high blood pressure, that can be high… Excuse me, hypermobility. Something that is constantly kind of just taking you a little bit more energy to deal with in the day, or chronic stress, or old trauma. When we’re haunted by old trauma, it’s a lot of work for us to maintain that. And so then we want to think about what do we want to do about that? So supporting your mitochondria, which are the organelles that make your energy, make your ATP, and we can do that with getting in easily digestible nutrients. So again, their juice has a role to play. And those are B vitamins. That’s Co Q10, that’s carnitine, that’s NAD, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide.

JL: Oh, yeah.

GE: Helpful.

JL: Yeah. What’s foods have NAD in it? Are there foods that have NAD in it?

GE: I’m sure that there are, and I don’t actually know them offhand. That would be a good thing.

JL: So this stuff on the periodic table from Ilene, for mitochondria, is red apple, carrots, goji berries, green grapes, limes, mulberries, nettles, and watermelon.

GE: Oh, yeah. Yep. Yep. Perfect.

JL: Yeah.

GE: Perfect. All those are perfect.

JL: Can’t wait for watermelon season.

GE: I know, I just… As soon as you said that I was like, “Oh, watermelon.” And watermelon has great selenium in it too, which is also really helpful for thyroid.

JL: Ooh. Yeah. Especially when you do the outside too, because I believe there is three times the amount of nutrients in the rind, and so do the rind and the meat and it’s delicious.

GE: Yep. Yep.

How to Choose the Right Foods

JL: We talked about those pieces. Let’s talk about some basic concepts around food choices. I love the concept that you talked about when I first met you, so I’ll let you say it, but let’s talk about that because as we’re juicing, as we’re choosing foods because at PURE Juicer we believe that juicing is a compliment to a healthy diet as well. So we’re not in all or nothing. And that we love fiber. We love our regularity. We love that part of health very much every morning, almost on the dot, because I’m very Pitta, so I have it all planned out. But I love the whole concept around that. And it makes food and the experience so beautiful. So what are some basic concepts around food choices in Ayurveda?

GE: So in food, one of the things that we think about with food is that we want food as close to the sun. We want that good juju, that good prana from the sun to come into the foods. And then we want to take those as unadulterated as possible into our bodies. If we have poor digestion, then we have to have the pot as the first stomach, but we want the food itself as fresh and as alive and as close to the sun as possible. And that’s part of why when you think about… Ayurveda really comes out of Hinduism, which is a vegetarian culture. Milk and honey are the non-vegan elements in Ayurveda. And those are thought to be given of those animals as love for their community, which is why Ayurveda feels okay eating them. Bees make honey for their community, animals make milk for their babies.

So this is all kind of out of love. But for the most part, we want to take food as close to the sun as possible. And so that’s why don’t… It’s not recommended to eat the flesh of animals because the energy from the sun gets transformed into the plants and then the plants are eaten by the animals and then it’s transformed into their tissues. And then if we’re eating their tissues, it’s actually… There’s a heaviness which can create heaviness in the consciousness or cloudiness in the consciousness. And so Ayurveda does use meat for medicine, like there is a whole medical reason to use meat broth enemas if you are so sick that you can’t digest. But for the-

JL: Oh, really?

GE: Yes. But for the most part, we’re really trying to stay as close to the sun as possible.

JL: What do you use a meat-broth enema for?

GE: So if you were an HIV/AIDS patient who was fully cachectic and could not digest any food, then that would be one way to try to pull in some nutrients into your body. You make them as digestible as possible, and then you essentially get them into the GI tract.

JL: Wow.

GE: So again, not very common, but just to say that our whole world can be medicine. And our job as human beings is to listen to ourselves, listen to our bodies, which can be so hard because so many of us get gaslit by the medical community, like, “You’re fine, your labs look fine, you’re fine.” And we know that we’re not fine. And so really listening to our bodies and listening to what we need and how we need to digest is a huge piece of understanding what it is we’re supposed to be eating.

JL: And from our community, raw is really important from the Gerson community, the enzymes, the potassium, all of the things that you get before something is heated, and those are often destroyed. I mean, I’m not just about raw versus… I respect all of it, but I love the concepts. And I love juice even in the wintertime because it is so hard to eat a salad in the wintertime. It’s just not really what my body wants. But I can do a juice. And that seems… Especially at room temperature, seems to be something that my body likes versus the other. And I also doing ginger turmeric shots or having that in the morning with something warmer. It doesn’t have to be hot, hot, but I love that idea of eating close to the sun. And then our bodies use all of those enzymes. It’s just the building blocks to everything that makes our body do what it does, hopefully.

GE: Yep. Yep. 70% of our immune system is actually contained inside our GI tract. So when we are eating, we’re not only feeding our ourselves, we’re not only feeding our bodies, we’re feeding the billions and trillions of organisms that live there also. So you got to take care of your people. You got to take care of your community.

JL: That’s right. That’s right. All of them. All of them. I talked about the milk too. And I remember when I had leaky gut, they were saying leaky gut. And so they were like, “If you are going to have milk, you can only have a half-and-half. Make sure it has all the fat in it. Don’t ever do a non-fat because it just rips.” I like oat milk now, but I did. There wasn’t oat milk at the time. And so I did the half-and-half, and that did help make a big difference.

Dr. Gillian Erlich’s Favorite Juicer-Made Treats

Okay. So let’s do some fun things. What are your go-to juices? We talked about that. And why? So beets, you said you like beets, you like leafy greens.

GE: Yeah.

JL: I’ve made some things for you. What have I made for you? I made you that chai. Did you ever try the chai?

GE: Oh, I love that chai. Yeah, that chai was amazing. And again, those winter juices are a great time to put spices in. And then summer juices are really good with hibiscus. So you can even do a hibiscus tea and then add that to your… Those things that are bright green and things that are even bright red, like hibiscus, pomegranate, cilantro, mints, those are awesome summer juices. And so those are… And cucumber. I mean, even simply cucumber can be such a refreshing summer juice. Right now in Seattle it’s like raining and we have wind advisories and it is so gray.

JL: Yes. So gray. So gray. But I made some pineapple, lemon-lime, orange juice, and then I put in ginger and turmeric too. So it was just yum. It tasted like sunshine to me. So good. So good. And then you can freeze anything you don’t want and then you can just let it melt and then you can have it as cold or as warm as you want it. So yeah. Yeah. And I love this time of year because it’s pomegranate season, so I get a ton of pomegranates and you can just freeze them easily. I have a ton of cranberries that I purchased over cranberry season because once they’re gone, they are gone. They’re not even frozen. You can’t find them anywhere, learned that the hard way. So now I have a whole section of my freezer devoted to cranberries because I love cranberries. I love them.

GE: Yes.

JL: Yes. Yeah.

GE: And berries have so many… Berries have a lower glycemic index and a higher amount of antioxidants and flavonoids. So that is excellent.

JL: I love making ice cream from the juicer too, although in the summer, right? In the summer when we’re not so cold. Okay.

GE: Yep.

What to Look for in a Cold Press Juicer

JL: Any thoughts about the PURE as a juicer and the cold press method versus other juicers? I think you’ve used some other juicers, and I would just love to get your opinion on why… You have a PURE, but why do you use it and why you like it?

GE: Yeah. So when I first was introduced to juicing, so I came to juicing late, partly because Ayurveda… There is this kind of pall over it like, “You should not be eating cold juice when the season is not appropriate or when it’s not that appropriate season in your body.” And so I kind of resisted for a long time. And then when I started hearing more and more about it, and I got a inexpensive juicer actually off of Craigslist, so that does make it accessible. And I kind of used it, but I found that it was hard to clean and I found that… It felt like I had a lot of pulp left over that I couldn’t really squeeze juice out of, even though I could see it was so moist. And so I felt like I was throwing food away.

And I felt like the food was… The food had a feeling of being ripped apart. And so as opposed to being more cleanly grinded. And so I actually kind of put juicing down for a while and then obviously picked it back up with PURE Juicer. And I find that the PURE Juicer really does… I get a cleaner, clear more see-through juice. I don’t know… Like celery juice and the previous juicers I’ve used was a much more cloudy juice and the celery juice from the PURE Juicer is more see-through. And so just to say that it feels clear and it feels like there’s more grinding as opposed to ripping.

JL: It’s interesting you say that, there’s actually a study on centrifugal juicers and how it whips the produce around and how it breaks it apart, and it actually does destroy the enzymes. And so when we do studies between them, it’s clearly not as good as using what we call a trituration process where you’re just kind of chewing it, but it goes through so fast that it’s very thorough grind, but it keeps everything really cool. And I love that I can put spices through it. And you really introduced me to spices and you got me even on that whole kick. And so we’ve made turmeric milk with it, we’ve done chai with it. And then we did a whole series with Tracy Anderson and you were part of that where we added spice to every single one as we transitioned from fall… Or I’m sorry, from summer to fall. We added spice to each juice and it was delicious.

We made some elixirs, actually, beet, ginger, carrot, turmeric. We did a kale, apple and then a red cabbage with something else, and then we took the pulp and we turned it into pasta. But I owe so much of that… And that that’s why we’re so grateful to have you as a medical advisor, because it helps us think outside the box of what health is and how it can be. And so I just so appreciate your perspective on health and then how juicing can make it better, how we can help people beyond just, like I said, what we thought we knew. Because I… And I love the spices. I’m crazy in love the spices. And even when I sneak in coffee, I can put in some cinnamon, or I can grind in something else with it. And I’m obsessed with black pepper these days. I’m like… It’s so fun to just grind those little stinkers through stage one. And so it’s really… I’m really beginning to love spices. So thank you for that.

GE: Oh, absolutely. And spices really should be fresh ground. They do lose their prana over time. So spices really should… You should not use spices over, at the outside, six months old, six months ground. And so being able to grind them fresh… And they’re super easy to clean because it’s just powder.

JL: Yeah.

GE: In fact, I was just thinking you could probably do it with those little air things that come in your computer.

JL: Totally.

GE: You could just blow it out. So that… Cardamom and coffee is very well known in the Ayurveda community. And the chai that you made was… I didn’t mean to skip over that. I got excited about all the things you were talking about, but the chai that you made was phenomenal. And I mean, I love chai. I am a… I should not… I am… Anyway. I love chai.

JL: I love chai. I love it so much. I’ll make you more. I’ll make you spices and then you can just put all the yummy stuff together.

GE: I love it.

JL: And I see all these people with their ginger teas and their slices of oranges, and it makes me crazy because I’m like, “Oh, I just want to grind that stuff because then it’s just going to get everything out of there.” It may not look as pretty as this one, but-

GE: Yep.

Cleanses: Pancha Karma, Ayurvedic Detox

JL: I want the flavor of all of them. Okay, one last piece, which is the fun stuff. And we were talking about Panchakarma and cleanses. Obviously, the juice community loves cleanses. And there’s a lot of controversy around cleanses. And then Panchakarma came up and Kim Kardashian was talking about Panchakarma. And then there was someone else that chimed in and said, “Your liver and your kidneys are in charge of that. You should never have to cleanse.” And what do you think?

GE: Take it away?

JL: Take it away.

GE: That was an interesting… I mean, it’s making my job a lot easier because now people are like… And I think it’s actually… I think it was Kourtney Kardashian was doing this as pregnancy preparation, which is an excellent, excellent, highly recommended thing.

JL: Okay.

GE: The way that she came out with it was to say, “My Panchakarma cleanse was no alcohol, no cold drinks, and I couldn’t have sex.” So that’s like… That is like so the teeny, teeny tiny parts of Panchakarma. So Pancha in Ayurveda. So there’s nothing that hits the reset button in western medicine. There’s no way to really restore and rejuvenate yourself in western medicine. You just wait. And in that respect, like the liver and the kidneys, they should do their general job. But we have so much to process. Think about all the EMFs, think about all the pollution, think about the a hundred thousand toxic chemicals released into the environment since 1940s. Think about how sedentary we are. Think about how little fresh air we get. So just to say that what we need to process through and completely eliminate as waste in our body, our liver and kidneys might not be enough for a hundred years of a lifespan. And so Ayurveda really does-

JL: Can I jump in there? It’s sort of the… And Ilene Ruhoy, Dr. Ruhoy also said just the toxins in the air are enough, even if you ate the perfect diet. And then you think about our fruits and vegetables, and you have to eat three to five carrots to make up for the nutrition of what one carrot was a hundred years ago. So there’s a lot of things-

GE: Yes.

JL: … that are different that maybe our liver and kidney may not have caught up. Okay, sorry, back to you now.

GE: No, that’s very true. That’s very true. And Dr. Ruhoy has her PhD environmental toxicology, so she knows what she’s talking about. So yeah. So-

JL: Filtered water.

GE: Yep, exactly. Exactly. And so in Ayurveda they say, as part, you should do great prevention, you need to treat disease, and then you should plan for detox across the lifespan. And typically, what that looks like is some sort of cleanse at the changing of every season. So you can finish what the qualities of the season before and let yourself kind of come correct to the new season. And so that might be a three-day juice cleanse. That might be three days of massage and oil. That might be a type of fasting.

So there’s lots of different ways to do this. And the kind of queen treatment is the Panchakarma. Pancha means five, karma means actions. It’s the five typical actions of detoxification and Panchakarma really is a process in which you work with closely with an Ayurvedic practitioner, and you get yourself set up by internally alienating your body, oiling yourself on the inside with ghee or with fats, coconut oil for about a week before.

And then you have some amount between three and 10 days of daily treatments, three and a half hours of massage and Shirodhara, which is a warm stream of oil over the forehead for half an hour, and steam, and special treatments, like they can make a dough ring around your eye, and then actually pour in warm ghee, and you open up your eye underneath the ghee and move it around to detox our eyes that stare at lights and screens 24/7. And so there’s all these things, and then at the end, you really try to eliminate from your GI track, which nobody likes to talk about. But the truth is that a really good healthy Panchakarma is going to help you eliminate all the crap that you accumulate over the course of the Oleation. And so you’re going to do some kind of drinking of castor oil or sesame oil, warm herbal, medicated enemas or something like that where you actually clean out the GI tract.

JL: Yeah.

GE: So that treatment I recommend for everybody once a year as a way to keep clear through across the span of your life. I’ve done it yearly since 2006.

JL: Wow.

GE: And except for the years that I was pregnant and breastfeeding. So again, if you’re preparing like Kourtney Kardashian was for trying to get pregnant, then often women who struggle with pregnancy and infertility will end up getting pregnant after a Panchakarma, after you clear the decks and you kind of correct the nervous system, the immune system, and the GI track. If you can kind of come correct, then the body’s like, “Oh, we’re not freaking out anymore. Okay, now it’s time to make a baby. We got this.”

JL: Yeah.

GE: And then you can’t do Panchakarma when you’re pregnant or breastfeeding. So you got to put all that on pause. If you’re somebody like Gwyneth Paltrow who just did Panchakarma recently without really planning for pregnancy… I’m going to make a leap here and assume that. Then you’re just doing it so that you correct your cravings and you clear your cells so that you can make good choices. So that cleanse can be a really elemental part of both longevity and healthy living, clearing the mind, clearing the cravings, but also can be really helpful for chronic disease. So I’ve had an MS patient get off the table and say, “I haven’t been pain free like this in 20 years.” So there are some pretty incredible things that can happen with Panchakarma.

And what I’ll say about the community who loves cleanses, what we have to be careful about is you need to have enough gas in the tank. You need to have enough strength to cleanse because cleansing is actually an action that is taxing to the body, which is why I like the Panchakarma because we actually envelop you in a womb of warm oil. We take care of your every need, the diet during Panchakarma is warm kitchari, very easily digestible foods. And so the idea is that your gut is not doing a lot of work so that you can do all this deep metabolic shifting.

JL: Yeah.

GE: So sometimes people who… When the Pitta mind can get attached to something, like a cleanse is a good idea. Sometimes people want to try a cleanse when they’re really not ready for it and they really need to stabilize before they start eliminating. So in fact, I talked to a newly Long COVID patient this morning, she had COVID just in October, and as of December was like, “Oh my God, what’s happening to me?” So now we’re just… She’s two months into Long COVID and she was saying, “Should I be doing a cleanse?” And I said, “No.” I said, “We’re not trying to prepare you for a marathon right now. We’re trying to get you to walk to the mailbox.” She said, “I did do that yesterday. It was exhausting.”

So just kind of like… We need to be thinking about, “What are we doing as our cleanse? What are we doing as our detox?” And even for the… So for a patient like that with Long COVID, she could absolutely come in for treatments. Our goal for those same Ayurvedic treatments… Our goal though is not going to be complete elimination of all toxins. It’s going to be building up and supporting in place.

JL: Yeah, when I started juicing, I noticed right away that my energy changed for the better, and my joints, running, for the better.

GE: Yep.

JL: And all of those things. But I do think that that it’s just the nourishment that you can get from so many different ways. Right? And the spices and the ghee, and just things that are easy to digest, and things that just nourish ourselves. I think that needs to be my word for 2023, is nourishment.

GE: Yes, it is an awesome word. And we totally underestimate the power of nourishment. And when I say power intentionally, because we’re all trying to get shit done, and so we can actually get way more done when we’re stable, when we’re grounded, and when we’re thinking clearly. We waste a lot of time being so exhausted and trying to do stuff. How many times do I have to run from my car back into the house for one more thing I’ve forgotten? But if I nourish myself so that I actually move slower, then I am remembering everything that I need to do.

JL: Well, thank you so much for your time. I am so excited because I feel like this is the beginning of many things that we will do together. I’m committed to doing a lot more juices with spices. I have this amazing book that you got that I’m just going to start to incorporate more and more spices into our juices, as well as the recipes that we use with the pulp, because I really love to use the pulp as well. So whether it’s baked goods or soups or sweet treats or whatever it is, there’s just a million things on my mind that I want to do. So I will make sure and give you some to taste test and to approve and or-

GE: Anytime.

JL: We all at PURE Juicer are so grateful for you and we appreciate everything that you’ve done to bring yourself to where you are today so that you can share it with all of us.

GE: Oh, thank you, Jen. I’m so happy to be here and so happy to be a part of PURE Juicer. It’s a really wonderful gift in my life. Thank you.

Dr. Gillian Ehrlich is a family nurse practitioner certified in functional medicine and Ayurveda. Her approach to patient care is deeply informed by almost a decade of leadership with Outward Bound voyages as an outdoor educator, working at a domestic violence shelter on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, and ten years of caring for homeless adults needing acute medical care.

Through the culmination of her experiences, she firmly believes we are built for transformation and healing, and are able to start that journey in whatever shoes we currently stand.

Dr. Ehrlich is the host of the Podcast for Healing Neurology.

www.neurovedahealth.com 

Interview by Jen Longtin, PURE Juicer

Our PURE community, made up of vibrant juicers across the globe, are committed to making a difference in their health and the health of others. Our goal is to use these stories as inspiration, and to demonstrate how juicing can help anyone reach new levels of vitality and community.

When we met Erica in 2022, we knew she struggled with auto-immune issues. As a holistic nutritionist who has an inspirational instagram presence (@overcome_autoimmune), she has been quite open about her journey using juicing and raw foods to change her health. We knew that her results had shocked her doctors, but it wasn’t until we did a live with her in October 2022 that we fully understood the role the PURE Juicer had played in the restoration of her health. We are grateful to share her story with you.

Were there certain juices that have helped you the most when you first started juicing?

Celery juice became a daily requirement for me. I dove in deeper, learning all about juicing and the benefits it had to offer. When we read about carrot juice and green juice, those too became a daily requirement. I continued to struggle with edema, and it wasn’t long before I added cucumber juice to the mix. Then, ginger and turmeric for their anti-inflammatory properties. 

How often were you juicing?

I juiced morning and night. My health depended on juice. My body demanded juice.Therefore, I supplied juice. 

My husband, Kyle, sacrificed so much of his time, spending hours in the kitchen using our little juicer. I was consuming all kinds of fruits and vegetables, knowing it was the gateway to health. Our refrigerator looked as though it belonged in a juicery! 

What led you to try the PURE Juicer?

In 2021, I became scared when I realized my weight had plummeted to 79 pounds. I couldn’t understand–even with all the juicing, I was becoming more and more dehydrated. So I kept juicing.  

When my beautiful family friend, Michelle Cunningham, asked me to pay her a visit in Florida and stay a while, she had no idea of my current condition. Once I arrived, she was petrified at my appearance. She then saw how much work I was putting into juicing, day in and out. Kyle wasn’t there to help me, and at the time, I wouldn’t let anyone else help. It was my issue, and therefore, I thought I needed  to “pay the price” and get it done. I knew some people thought all that juice was unnecessary, but I knew God was telling me to keep going. So, I did. 

What was your first impression of the PURE Juicer?

When I made my first glass of juice with the PURE Juicer, I could tell right away I was drinking a higher quality juice. I had hoped the PURE juicer would deliver a higher nutrient value than I was getting from my little juicer, and I could see proof that my hopes were well-founded. I saw the new, radiant color. I tasted the exquisite difference in flavor. I felt an electrical charge as my body took in all the goodness.

This juicer provided me with a larger dose of health. So much in fact, I was able to lower my juice intake because I could feel my body reaching the nutrient criteria it had been thirsting for.  

How are you doing these days?

I am proud to say that all my weight has now returned (plus some), and I am still getting stronger every day. My husband continues to be my biggest supporter and help. He is everything I could have prayed for. He has helped keep me alive and I would not have been able to get through this without him. 

What do you like about using the PURE Juicer?

This juicer has provided more than I could have ever hoped for. It’s the classiest kitchen appliance to place on your counter, it yields more juice and nutrients, it stores your juice longer with less oxidation, it’s fun, and quicker to use. With PURE Juicer, I don’t have to cut my vegetables up into little pieces, I don’t have to put things in one at a time, I don’t have to wait all day for it to be done. I get a quicker return with a cold press. You can’t beat it!

Erica’s Juicing Tips

• PURCHASE PRODUCE OUT OF THE BAG: Don’t get fooled by the fancy labels; if you can purchase a head of romaine or celery out of the bag, do it. It will be cheaper than the name brand.
• BUY IN BULK. Whenever possible, stock up and get the discounts! 
• SHOP AT FARMERS’ MARKETS AND WITH LOCAL VENDORS. Buying produce here will also help you save a buck. You may even be able to work out a deal with them if you share your health goal with them and let them know you will be back to see them frequently! 
• MAKE A HOME FOR EACH SPECIFIC FRUIT OR VEGETABLE IN YOUR FRIDGE. That way, when you’re running low on certain items, you know quickly what needs to be restocked. 
• JUICE THE DAY BEFORE. If you have to be out the door early, or if you have an event you’ll need to prepare for, juice ahead of time and store in an airtight container.
• USE LEMONS, LIMES, AND APPLES. If the taste of certain vegetables is bumming you out, try adding lemons, limes, or apples. These fruits will improve the taste of just about any juice!
• LOOK AT JUICING AS A GIFT TO YOUR BODY AND A TREAT TO YOUR SOUL. It’s true: by juicing regularly, you are giving a gift to your future self and the generations to come. 
• NEVER RUSH THE JUICING PROCESS. The moment you rush or put pressure on yourself, you’ll begin to see juicing as an inconvenience and you’ll want to give up. Slow down and allow yourself to enjoy the process. I have come to see juicing as a spiritual connection with a physical gift. 
• CHOOSE SOMETHING THAT SETTLES RIGHT ON YOUR SPECIFIC PALLET. Mine is carrot juice! For so long, I was fighting horrible sinusitis and mold toxicity. I started craving carrot juice long before I knew that was the very thing I needed to help flush the bacteria and mold and clear the sinus cavities! For you it may be apple, or celery, or your own concoction!
• HAVE FUN WITH IT! I love to play music and dance while juicing. Embrace the joy of the moment.
• THANK GOD! Be thankful for the strength to juice and access to amazing fruit and vegetables!

Connect with Erica on Instagram at @overcome_autoimmune

Have any tips to add to Erica’s? Share in the comments below.

Interested in sharing your PURE Juicer story? Email Jen at jen@purejuicer.com.