Diets, fasts and cleanses. Exercise fads excluded, there’s no end to health trends, especially ones that have to do with what we put into our body. When life seems to get out of control (stressed out about your 5 exams, 3 papers and boyfriend issues anybody?) it can be nice to feel like you’ve got at least one aspect of your life under control. The trends have goals, you can see the end result and you just KNOW that you’ll feel better when you’ve reached the end. Bonus: almost all trends claim (for better or for worse) that you’ll lose weight!
But are these health trends really worth the special prep time, limited food intake, and all the time you’ll have to spend explaining your choices to concerned friends and family? On top of all that, are these trends worth the mental health risk they pose, as they prey on our desire to control everything in our lives? In this series, I’ll look at the pros and cons of the top health trends that came out in 2013. To start with…
JUICE CLEANSES
“Achieving remarkable physical, emotional, and spiritual status is just a few raw salads and juices away.”
What It Is
Instead of worrying about getting your five fruits and veggies in each day (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s time for you to review Canada’s Food Guide), you can now drink them in one convenient juice or smoothie. Cleanses vary, but hard core adepts drink roughly six juices a day. Each one is made of different vegetables, which provide various benefits. For example, kale is high-packed in vitamins A, K and C, and phytonutrients; beets have a ton of antioxidants; and carrots and full of vitamin A. Drinking only fresh cold-pressed juice for a couple of days to a month, or supplementing at least one meal a day with a juice is supposed to leave you feeling energized and refreshed. Just make sure to drink juice that comes from whole veggies or fruit, since juice concentrate often leaves out some valuable nutrients.
Juice cleanses actually first appeared in the late 1930s, as a way to fight certain cancers and illnesses. They’re still used as an alternative treatment for cancer, as well as more common ailments, such as headaches, and general tiredness.
Pros
Marcus Antebi, creator of the juice bar Juice Press, says that “the balance between health and sickness is the ability to detox the body at a faster rate than that of the body’s inclination for decline.” The high content of pure nutrients is easily absorbed and processed through the colon and kidneys. The live enzymes in cold-pressed juice allow the body to get rid of toxins, helping us recuperate after a night (or semester) of too much drinking. Adepts say that they feel rejuvenated after a couple of days of cleansing. They use it as a way of resetting, or to feel in control. Some claim that it makes their skin glow (an excess amount of carrots will do that to you!), their hair shinier, and their skin clearer.
Sahar Sadati, class of 2014, said she decided to try a juice cleanse after doing extensive googling. “I realized one of the best solutions to my horrible migraines was a total body reset. That’s why I’m choosing to do a juice cleanse for a few days.”
We’ll check back with her after a week to see how it goes!
Cons
Some of the claims are pretty scary. For example, Antebi says that “for everything you leave out, there will be a reciprocal amount of improvement to your overall chemistry.” This call to reduce all intakes makes juicing pretty similar to fasting, which has long been controversial. I mean, besides religious fasting, people use fasting as a way of protesting – I’d say that proves the negative effects that it can have on your body! Adepts admit that the first couple of days will leave you cranky and tired, each time that you restart a cleanse.
Scientifically, the lack of calories and protein worries many dieticians. Some say that the energy that adepts feel on their third day of the cleanse is actually the body’s natural reaction to starvation. It’s when the body realizes that it isn’t getting food any time soon and switches into survival mode: your senses are heightened, as your body is on the lookout for danger (and food)! In an interview with the Huffington Post, Dr. Freedhoff, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa, said that “In a sense [juice cleanses] prey on society’s desire for both convenience and ease, and not thinking. They’re based on pseudoscience.”
Like most things in life, cleanses can be done in moderation. Substituting one meal with a cold-press juice every once in a while won’t harm you. In fact, it might even be good for your body, especially if you’ve been binging on pizza and beers recently. The most important thing is to make sure that you’re getting enough calories and protein for your body and that you avoid juices with a high concentration of sugar – pure fruit juices are more of a desert than a meal! As Barbara Kass, a psychotherapist in Brooklyn told The Cut, “Letting go of things you can’t control is a key to mental health. And that’s what people can’t do.”
Sources:
http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/10/juice-trends-and-the-nutrition-cult.html
http://www.juicepress.com/what-is-a-cleanse
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/07/19/juice-cleanses_n_3624797.html
Pictures:
Thanks to uOttawa collegiette Élaine Simon for the first photo
http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=118151
http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=905966