by Dreama Vance

Changing to an unprocessed plant-based diet rich in organic, fresh, uncooked fruits and veggies is transformative and powerful at all levels of our being, not just physically and mentally, but emotionally and spiritually, too.

Can you just start eating from the garden? Of course! You can start by just eating an apple every day! But there is a powerful way, I think it may be a secret many people don’t know, to start you and keep you moving on your journey to eating those fresh, living foods that are full of light and life.

One of the best ways to start increasing your intake of fresh fruits and veggies is through the daily juicing habit. Make fresh juice. Remember in Part One we talked about how you now have to eat 11 carrots to get the same nutrition one carrot provided your grandma? I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I could sit down and eat 11 carrots. This is one of the perks of fresh juice! You can shovel in those carrots and greens.

Make your own fresh living juice everyday. It is a game changer!

There is something magical that begins to happen as you develop this habit. First, your body gets flooded with nutrients. You start to get those nutrients that have been missing from the other 10 carrots you weren’t eating! See how it works? It isn’t just carrots, of course, that are missing the nutrients they used to have, but all of our foods that are not grown in fertile, rich soil.

Something starts to happen when your body gets flooded with nutrients that are alive and full of life. Nothing packs in the nutrients like a fresh juice every day. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Let me take a moment to say this again. NOTHING packs in the nutrients like a fresh vegetable juice. The reason should be obvious. By removing a lot of the fiber, you can consume more, like the other 10 carrots. You cannot do this with a smoothie. I love smoothies and they have a wonderful place in the living food diet. But they don’t replace the daily juice habit.

I know this from my own experience. Sometimes life happens, you aren’t able to juice and smoothies are the next best thing, primarily because they are fast, easy, and convenient. Before I ever started the daily juice habit, for 10 months I made daily green smoothies when I was taking care of my sister. They were quick, filling, and kept me going. Often, that is all I would have in the morning until dinner because I was very busy.

After I started daily juicing there was another period in my life for about another 10 months when I couldn’t juice. So again I had a daily green smoothie. I still do smoothies. They have a definite and beneficial place in adding living food to your diet. Twenty months of green smoothies and no juice…good health and benefits for sure…

However, it is juicing on a daily basis that causes the magic to happen.

When you start the daily juice habit it is like some part of you has been sleeping all these years and now it awakens and starts to take over, demanding real food and choosing it. I have experienced this and I have heard this from many others. Magic starts to happen.

Daily juicing naturally, almost effortlessly, leads to choosing other healthy food options. Your taste buds will change. The daily juice habit supports you with powerhouse nutrition and it also helps keep you on your journey.

Once you develop the daily juice habit, if you miss a day, the next day when you juice, you will “hear” your body sigh with delight. After one summer of being on the road most of the time, I finally got home and made a green juice, sat down to enjoy it and literally heard my body say, “Thank Goodness! She finally fed us.” Communion between the consciousness of the body, the intelligence and wisdom of Nature and your own awareness begins to happen. Magic!

A second beneficial factor in juicing is the rapid absorption of nutrients into the blood stream, requiring little digestive effort. Think of eating as putting, let’s say 100 bucks worth of energy into your energy bank account, which is a primary reason to eat, to give us energy. However, that food requires energy be spent in the digestive process, so you have to spend energy in order to get energy from your food. You may even end up spending more to digest your food than you actually get from eating the food! With juicing this doesn’t happen. There is practically no energy spent in digestion.

This is why you drink your juice all by itself and on an empty stomach. You get all of the energy from the juice without spending any money from your bank converting it. Ka-ching! Juicing puts all the money in your energy bank.

These two factors are what make daily juicing such a powerhouse: 1) The ability to consume large amounts of nutrients that you would not be able to eat in a whole food form and 2) the ability to absorb those nutrients with very little energy expenditure.

Notice I am talking about daily juicing. It is the everyday habit that packs the punch, not just an occasional juice. Also, it is fresh, living juice, not bottled, pasteurized juice. I’m also talking about 24 to 32 ounces (up to a liter) of juice a day, mostly veggie juice, and most often green juice. Why? Most of us would rather eat our fruits and juice our veggies rather than the opposite way. Isn’t it easier to eat some oranges or apples rather than 10 carrots? I rest my case.

Why green juice? Greens are your mineral storehouse. Juicing is a great way to package dark, leafy greens so we are actually getting them into us, rather than just looking at them and thinking about how good they are for us…and still not eating them!

You can start slowly and build up the amount. Begin with a juice you like. It is the habit we want to create first. The point is to start juicing. If the thought of green juice makes you flee in terror, then start with something like carrot/apple juice, for example. Then you can add a little parsley. Then you can add celery and cucumber. See how it can evolve? Please start with a recipe so you don’t end up adding everything but the kitchen sink into your juice! A good juice book will teach you the “rules of juicing” so you don’t accidentally end up with terrible concoctions!

By the way, some “rules” are begging to be broken, so don’t be afraid to add apple to your green juices. I don’t know where that idea started, but there is this idea that green juice can’t have something like an apple or carrot for flavor. Who says? It took me years before I could like a green juice without apple. Look at all I would have missed in health benefits had I not added apple! I can guarantee you will not continue to juice if you do not enjoy the juice. It is just that simple.

Once you start juicing every day, it will become a habit, rather than a chore. At some point, you will even enjoy prepping your greens and washing your juicer. I know, it’s hard to believe, but this actually happens as a result of your change in consciousness.

What you eat affects your consciousness. It is one of the most deeply hidden understandings.

I would like to spend just a moment to talk about quality. Remember those 11 carrots to replace the one grandmother ate? We want to be eating the best fruits and veggies we can. Organic, fresh from your own garden would be superb. I don’t have a garden, so I go to the farmers’ market every week. I love to shop this way. I can get fresh, local, organically grown produce. I love supporting these small farmers. When we eat locally grown food, we are connecting to the energy of the land where we live. We are feeding our immune system with local microbes that Nature gives us to support life in the very place we are living.

Eating plants that are fresh, organic, living food leads to greater sensitivity. You will actually feel the energy coming from those greens from the farmer. You can sense the life force. You will feel vibrant just looking at them and touching them. This is when gratitude begins to blossom. You don’t have to think of things for which you are grateful; you will just be grateful. This is when you actually start to enjoy washing your juicer! You will love making your juice. The daily juice habit makes you feel vibrant and alive!

You will be so happy, grateful, and joyous for life. You will feel connected to everything. You will start to awaken on so many levels. So much joy is right there, once we align with our being, once we come back into the wisdom teachings of the Mother. We are designed to eat this way, to be a part of the whole, to be connected, conscious and awake.

We are designed to be in love with Life! All of this from changing our diet! Who knew? Well, the ancients knew, and that is why the teachings have been hidden except for small groups that have carried this wisdom through time for us. Now all we have to do is start putting these teachings into practice.

Eat from the garden. Eat real food. Juice every day. Love will bloom.

Tell a friend…