One thing very few people know about me is that I HATE hospitals. Yes, I know no one really likes them but I think I hate them more than most people. I loathe the smell. I hate watching the half dead – their yellowed faces waiting in wheelchairs attached to complicated machines, the tubes of fluids, white coats, white walls….all of it. You walk in there and it’s as though you've crossed between the world of the living and the world of the dead. I’m particularly sensitive to this change.
I had a meeting at a hospital this past week. In a weird way it reminded me of why I’m fasting.
My mother thinks that I’m doing it to lose weight but it’s not about the weight. Dropping weight is definitely a welcome side effect but not the purpose. The reason is so that I don’t end up between worlds: in purgatory with white walls and white coats. I’m doing this fast for my health.
Allow me to explain: I don’t have many fears. Spiders could crawl all over my skin, I’m not afraid of walking around in dark forests at night – I find it riveting. I have lived alone in deserts, owned snakes etc. One thing I do fear is not being in control of my body or health. I fear cancer; diseases so severe I cannot cure them of my own accord. I fear having to be bedridden in the world of the half dead.
I strongly believe and have always believed that what we put into our bodies creates health or disease. I became a vegetarian when I was 15. When I was 18 I explored veganism (poorly – do not do this when you don’t know about nutrition and are living off dorm food). The past few years I’ve teetered back into eating the occasional poultry dish (but never beef or pork) while remaining primarily a pescetarian.
One thing we don’t think about nearly enough is that the meat you eat today is not the same meat that your grandfather ate on his farm. The fruits and vegetables you enjoy today are not the same that your great grandparents grew. These are chemical-laden products produced for mass consumption and profit.
Here’s some food for thought: if you don’t drink organic milk chances are you are being exposed to the Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), an artificial hormone given to cows to increase dairy production. The United States of America is the ONLY industrialized nation where milk produced with the aid of BGH is allowed to be sold for human consumption (thank you Monsanto lobbyists). Let’s think about this – rapid growth means rapid cell production. Rapid cell production…isn’t that like cancer?
Beef cows get treated with similar hormones to develop more meat because more meat = more $$. We’ve all seen the heart breaking videos of chickens with overdeveloped breasts that they topple over. Yes, you may say I’m crazy for fasting for 40 days and detoxifying my body by living off fresh vegetable and fruit juices, but considering you just had Burger King for dinner (and some hormones that probably cause cancer), maybe I’m not so crazy after all.
The idea of a juice detox or any fasting detoxification program is to give your digestive system a break. A liquid diet saves it the energy and constant work of digesting your food so your body’s energy can be spent on cleaning out the other organs, revitalizing cells, etc. Juicing maintains 95% of the nutrients from the fruit or vegetable which means your body gets tons of micro nutrients to help your cells stay healthy.
So perhaps I am crazy or perhaps I'll avoid hospital beds and machinery a little bit better than others. I can only hope.
So perhaps I am crazy or perhaps I'll avoid hospital beds and machinery a little bit better than others. I can only hope.
