How Netflix got me juicing

Exploring the many trials and tribulations that come with the liquid-only diet

Forget binge watching - till October last year, I hadn't watched a single documentary on food or nutrition. Given that the topics are of endless interest to me, I find it surprising that it never occurred to me earlier to seek out these documentaries. But when Netflix entered our lives, I saw some interesting-sounding titles on the menu. And that's when I realised what I'd been missing out on.
Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead was the first one I watched. Great name, I thought, and it sounded fun, so I played it. The opening sequence had Joe Cross, a 100- kg overweight Aussie, stuck with an autoimmune disease, jiggling his massive belly into the camera. I was hooked. Joe Cross took to juicing, lost his flab, regained his health, looked 10 years younger and turned into one of those poster boys for washboard abs - surf's up, baby! I got curious. Can juicing really do that? All this time, I thought it was a waste because you drink sugar concentrate and consume no fibre, so what's the point? Turns out the micronutrients are what you get from juicing. And these are needed to keep heart disease and cholesterol and diabetes and cancer away. And if the results on the all-new Joe Cross were anything to go by, I wanted this too. So it was decided - I would juice.

Judging juicers
In Food Matters, another documentary I watched, I adored this woman named Charlotte Gerson, author, nutritionist and daughter of Max Gerson, who knows something about treating cancer with vitamins. I don't know about her claims - a lot of them are disputed. But be that as it may, she had a knack for simplifying the densest medic-nutri jargon into words that would stick. Even if you don't have Netflix, look her up on YouTube. At one point, talking about wellness (pro-juice, anti-colas), she said: think of your body as an expensive car, now why would you put sugared water into the engine? I loved that. The logic was simple and beautiful.
Let's go, I said to my husband the day after part 1 of the documentary binge. Where? It was a Friday. He didn't want to go to the mall and lose more hair trying to find a parking spot. I prevailed. We headed to Carrefour. I was bent on picking up a NutriBullet for my juicing experiment because that's where online research had pointed. My neighbour friend, who had one, said it was fantastic. I was decided - NutriBullet it was to be (even though these are blenders, and not juicers, but proper juicers are just larger and more of a headache to clean, and cold-press juicers are just way above the budget).
We landed up at Carrefour and I started looking at options. An excellent salesman was pushing me towards Kenwood. I asked him why he was doing that; is there a commission? He looked wounded. "No ma'am." In his estimation, it was a better machine to juice. It didn't hurt that there was a deal on it (Dh100 off). But I was sold on the logic of steel versus plastic. NutriBullet, the cheaper version (it costs about Dh600), had a plastic under grinder piece that could, he said, fill up the kitchen with a burning smell. Eeks, no thanks! Kenwood, although it looks less glamorous and is definitely bulkier, had a steel under grinder piece. Plus, it came with other components, including a coffee bean grinder. We left Mall of the Emirates with a giant mixer box, and headed straight to Ripe Organic Café to blow up money on pesticide-free veggies to juice.

Being a sucker
Feeling virtuous, and freshly brimming with the conviction that everything organic is superior, I have a vague recollection of spending about Dh400 at the store and complaining to my husband that one trip for wretched veggies and organic produce cost as much as the juicer! He was indulgent (indifferent?) enough but I could see that he thought this whole thing was insane. Being a natural skinflint, I had guilt I refused to acknowledge immediately. I knew I couldn't financially sustain buying only organic celery and kale. So, imagine my relief when I watched a YouTube interview of a level-headed sounding nutritionist from who I inferred: stop the organic madness. Veggies, any veggies, are better than anything processed. So, try to get them fresh and wash them properly. It's stupid to buy organic, great-tasting carrots if you're going to turn broke in their pursuit. That was the perspective I needed. Now, I just buy regular veggies. That Dh400 shocker on one bill of veggies (okay, and also a couple of BPA-free lotions and sodium laureth sulfate-free shampoos) hasn't faded yet.

Momentum of juicing
No matter what they tell you in these documentaries, juicing is a pain. The chopping, cleaning up, straining. I did it for a month. I keep meaning to return to it. And I keep rebuking myself for missing India where this stuff is taken care of by the help. As I type this, I have two beets in my freezer because I went on a holiday in the middle of my juicing trip, and didn't know what to do with them. Since I don't like wastage, I froze them (like they do on the episodes Chef's Table - another Netflicky addiction - where the chefs live in cold countries and there's zero fresh produce, so everything is pickled). I keep meaning to blend the beets. I also keep meaning to remove the plug of the coffee maker from the socket in the kitchen and plug in the juicer. Evidently, something has to be done to loosen the grip inertia has over me.
 For that month, every morning, I would wake up and - not drink tea or coffee or hot water with lemon and honey - chop beets, oranges, carrots, throw in spinach and cucumber, and chug bottoms-up. Vitamin C helps fight cancer, according to some of those documentaries and the dual Nobel Prize-winning Linus Pauling (not without his share of flak). Whether or not that was true, I felt like my blood cells were beaming in gratitude for the love they were receiving. I had this halo over my head for this ultra-healthy habit I'd fallen into. I imagined my joints creaking less, my hair follicles growing stronger and the collagen suddenly finding itself awash with nutrients that make it work.

Glory for two
At first, I was only juicing for myself. My eye-rolling husband refused to down green-coloured pulp first thing in the morning - I didn't want to strain too much; fibre's good. But then I played on his insecurities and said it's good for hair growth. Bingo. Next morning, I was juicing for two. He was drinking whatever I extracted from the working-well Kenwood, pouring blended ingredients into the Ikea colander (the one with the handle), and giving the thing a good shake and a nudge with a potato masher to increase the juicy trickle, so I could fill two of my footed pilsner glasses to the brim with reddish pink juice that we pay Dh20 for outside. The economics of juicing, while secondary to the nutritional reward you reap, is not to be understated.
Of late, the pause button's been hit on my juicing experiment and the halo's now a bit dim, but not because the juicing wasn't working. I felt great. I was convinced there was an elasticity to my skin (can't say about the glow), and it wasn't the argan oil I was slathering on to my face in upward strokes before bedtime. I just have to polish my time-management chops and shepherd myself back into the rhythm of juicing - unless, of course, a different documentary bug bites me first.

Netflix documentaries you want to start with
1. Food Matters: This one talks about diet and how nutrition, not medication, can cure diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
2. Forks Over Knives: This one bats for a whole foods and plants-based diet. Watch it to see why you should avoid processed food.
3. Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead: Aussie Joe Cross' ode to juicing! Beets over burgers, people! Drink up.
4. Chef's Table: A look at the restaurants and habits of some of the best chefs in the world. Great narratives, fascinating stories.  We especially loved the episode with Francis Mallman. Absolutely outstanding.

The art of juicing
1. Buy fruits and veggies for the week. That way, your fridge is always stocked.
2. Decide the previous evening what you're going to juice. Prepping saves time. Peel and keep them in the fridge so that in the morning, you're working faster.
3. Add a little water to the juicer jug. It helps in the whirring.
4. Pour the blended pulp into a big colander and keep a big, wide bowl under it. Use a potato masher or slotted spoon to add pressure to the pulp to increase the trickle flow.
5. Meanwhile, have a bath. By the time you come out, enough juice would have trickled down.
6. Use a ladle, spoon into glasses. Chug the nutrients.
    
nivriti@khaleejtimes.com