“Buut juice isn’t a beauty product,” whines some reader somewhere. Wrong. Unless you like the look of your nose, crusty from severe Kleenex overuse, slowly and determinedly dripping snot all over everything, everywhere, juice can definitely be a beauty product. One that works from the inside out.
But if having your eyes look like they escaped the set of Half Baked is your thing, go ahead and ignore this post.
I’ve suffered terrible seasonal allergies as long as I can remember. Allergies immune to medicine. Allergies immune to shots. Going through some old boxes at my parents’ home last month, I discovered a letter I wrote in the third grade, strongly urging my principal to chop down all the trees on school property. To my great annoyance, they planted more trees in honour of Earth Day, and I’ve bitterly begrudged eco-minded initiatives ever since.
At this point, I should add that I’ve always been very skeptical of the juicing trend. It was only in the whirlwind of TIFF last September, my sanity and steadfast opposition compromised by lack of sleep and surplus of booze, that I agreed to try a 3-day ‘juice feast’ courtesy of Raw Juice Guru.
I was in the throes of hay fever at the time, drowning slowly and not so silently in my own mucus. I shared this information with Eliane, the woman behind Raw Juice Guru, since she personalizes every juice regimen to address customers’ specific ailments. Since even prescription pharmaceuticals don’t make a dent in my allergies, I wasn’t expecting anything to come of it. So imagine my surprise when my nasal passages were completely clear within 24 hours of starting the feast.
The juicing program consisted of six 16oz organic cold press juices, two elixirs, and a detoxifying tea delivered to my doorstep each morning. Eliane uses hydraulic press juicers, which provide the most nutrients from fruits and vegetables and ensure maximum benefits.
As it turns out, the whole nutrients thing isn’t just an elaborate hoax. Eliane’s juices worked wonders, not only for the days I consumed them, but also for weeks afterward. Allergies be gone!
After some further research/intensive googling, I learned that, despite most media outlets’ insistence on presenting it as a fad diet tool, juicing does in fact have a pretty solid track record of relieving allergies. The key is to look for raw juices with ingredients like parsley, ginger, and pineapple. And you don’t have to do a strict cleanse to reap the benefits, either–Raw Juice Guru also offers a ‘Juice Bar’ service where they’ll stock your fridge with a personal order to add to your usual diet.
So now, when seasonal allergies strike hard, I turn to raw juice to supplement my regular regimen of mac and cheese. Who would’ve thought?
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Sabrina Maddeaux is Toronto Standard’s managing editor. Follow her on Twitter at @sabrinamaddeaux.
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