By Nicole Berrie
HERE AT BONBERI, we have scoured the city and beyond for the most esteemed nutritionists, physical therapists, trainers and more to compile a treasure trove of expert advice in one destination. The goal is for you, our readers, to form an educated, intuitive approach to your own well-being, nutrition and health. After all, what works for us may not work for each one of you! That said, we do rely on our own personal nutrition guru who has opened our minds on all issues of or related to physical health and vitality. Gil Jacobs, a colonic therapist and native New Yorker, has dealt healing nutritional advice since 1989. As clients, we support and follow his theories whole-heartedly. (But that does not mean they may be for you.) Here, we spoke with Mr. Jacobs about why 99% of the juice cleanses out there are potentially dangerous, what the benefits are of a colonic and how we all should be eating.* For more on Mr. Jacobs’ “food rules,” click here.
What is biggest misconception of juice cleansing?
The biggest misconception is that fasting makes you healthier. Completion of a juice fast does not ensure success, it just means that potential for cleansing is present. If you do it too wrong and too long you can make yourself deathly ill.
Is there a healthy way for an average person to start cleansing?
The first thing to know is what makes bad food bad. The body is filled with matter that it has retained since birth from foods unfit for human consumption.
What foods are unfit for human consumption?
Any food that is not a fruit or a vegetable with exception of mother’s milk as a baby is not 100% fit for human consumption.
So you’re saying we should only be eating fruits and vegetables…that’s it?
There is obviously a continuum. Sunflower seeds are closer to human food than pork chops. Brown rice is closer than Italian bread. But none of those things are true human food. True human food means fruits and vegetables. Everything else sticks to the body in varying degrees.
How do you get rid of what sticks?
When we fast, we cease the intake of matter that sticks in the cells, inhibits life, longevity and, frankly, cuteness! The next step is removing the matter that awakens while we cleanse and fast. When we fast, the body immediately notices that the individual is not poisoning itself. Therefore we’re going to take the opportunity to loosen up the 30 years of crap—the Captain Crunch, cafeteria food, cocaine, cheeseburger platters that are all lodged in the cells.
What do you eat/drink when you are on a fast?
Juices, water and herbal tea.
Why is it important to drink fresh, raw juices?
Juices, because of their negative magnetic charge and alkaline PH, work like odor eaters on the intestine. They shake up stagnant acidic material. The success of the fast depends on the loss of that awakened matter. That matter must leave the body.
And by that you mean, ahem, bowel movements.
Yes. For a lot of people, especially if they’ve eaten normally their entire lives and are a little overweight, the first three days of a fast they will poop like racehorses. It is in all that fecal matter leaving the body that they achieve more health; they lose weight and their pimples clear. In the elimination is the success.
What if they cannot eliminate?
If one undertakes a seven day fast and has no bowel movement there is a risk they will get very ill. If the awakened matter doesn’t get pulled out, it will reabsorb into the blood stream. Awakened poison is far worse to the body then dormant poison.
How do you know if you are reabsorbing poison?
We look at the daily experience. The only time human beings go eight hours without eating is when they sleep. During sleep the body through not eating has had a chance to awaken its poison. The awakened poison is starting to pour out through the orifices. That’s why we are all disgusting in the morning. Let’s say you extended that 8-hour sleep fast with another 100 hours. The volume of matter awakening the body would be exponentially multiplied. If it shakes around but doesn’t leave, it invades the organs. Then you are in a lot of trouble. The technical term of that is starvation. Starvation is when a person is denied food for a given length of time where the volume of matter starts awakening in their cells.
So what is the difference between starvation and cleansing?
The fast becomes a cleanse when old stagnant fecal matter has left the body. Now for a lot of normal folks that take on a fast they’ll have two or three days where they are passing matter like crazy because they’re systems are so shocked. There’s a lot of beginners luck with cleansing and that’s beautiful. In those eliminations you’ll see how energetic and up you feel. That’s cleansing. But if you continue a weeklong fast, very often the point will come where the bowels stop eliminating. When the bowels stop eliminating you start getting weak, irritable, edgy and hungry. You are not getting that way from lack of calories, you are getting that way because the volume of awakened matter in your cells has now gotten to such a degree that if it doesn’t get taken out of the body you will be sick.
So how do you get better?
You must empty the bowel. You have two choices at this point. You either stop because the minute you start eating the body will stop the rapid awakening of poison and 9 times out of 10 people will have a huge bowel movement. Or the other choice is you do something outside the body to help the body eliminate. (See herbal laxatives like Herbal Lax, Aloe Lax or Oxy-Mag, which is an oxygen magnesium based supplement. You can also try Natural Calm or an Epsom salt flush.)
Is there an optimal way to eliminate when cleansing?
The all out best way is a colonic irrigation. When you combine fasting with colonics, you have a 45 minute thorough washing out of the large intestine.
But do you need a colonic to eliminate?
When the awakening is happening to such a large degree that the individual cannot pass the matter, you then go to the colonic irrigation and pull out the stagnant waste.
What do you say to those wary of colonics?
It’s similar to Freudian psychoanalysis. A skilled analyst through dialogue will bring up issues that you’ve buried in your being. It’s the same paradigm with fasting and colonics. The fasting will dig up old impacted eating that is ruining your physical body and the skill of the colonic therapist is to pull out the waste and awakened food trauma.
Can you tell the difference after one colonic?
Many times I get someone who has fasted all day. They’re pissed and weak. They get on the colonic table lose 6 or 7 lbs of putrefied waste and then they get up high as a kite. No one is giving B12 shot or a juice. It’s because 7 lbs of waste has left their body. If you take 3 or 4 flushings in the course of several days, at the end, the state of your physicality is greatly enhanced because you’ve removed all this awakened sleeping poison that was inhibiting you ability to excel. So when someone says they’re going to do a cleanse and they juice fast for 7 days, the belief that there is inherent success just on the completing the journey is a great dangerous error.
What about the delivery juice programs that make detoxing so easy?
No one who lives mainstream should begin their cleansing with a fast. That should be 6 to 8 months in, if not 1 or 2 years. They should alter the diet and allow a cleansing transition diet to gently allow them to cleanse their body through the proper food. There are juices are being delivered all over the city but it’s not a way to teach people truth. What those programs imply is I can abuse myself all I want but if I take a week and put myself in juice boot camp, I can negate all the damage I did. That’s a lot of nonsense. What you end up doing is ruining your nervous system.
What if you “eat healthy” and work out?
Ah yes, what I call Equinox heads. People who love spinning, body sculpting and barre classes. It’s fine as a side activity. But if one eats perfectly, makes sure their bowels are clean and does nothing but walk around the block twice a day they are extremely physically superior to the workout fanatic if the workout fanatic eats just OK.
What about the idea of eating like a king at breakfast and a pauper at dinner?
People put a heavy emphasis on not eating heavy before bed, which is good, however of all the evils we can do to the digestive track, the biggest is to put clean food like salads or fruits on top of a stomach that is filled with bacon and eggs. People don’t understand how slowly normal food goes through the system. For instance, if you wake up have English muffins scrambled eggs and sausage, if you eat that at 9am, your stomach will need 11 hours to get all that stuff to leave. That means if you eat an 8 am breakfast you can’t eat again until 7pm. It’s worse to put light food on top of heavy food. That’s mega fermentation. When we talk about an evening meal we are talking about 6pm or 7pm not 10pm. No one should ever sleep on food.
Do you believe in low carb diets?
One of the biggest errors in what I call mainstream health club nutrition is the love of low fat high protein. Someone who eats chicken without the skin and egg white omelets. Egg whites are death. They stick to the intestine like cement. They are used in wallpaper paste. The use of high protein diets is a big mistake in the health movement. Animal protein is a big acidic stimulant, the PH is all wrong and it has no place in a healthy diet.
But what about getting in protein?
Most people if they kick animal protein they are weak, lose their strength and can’t work out. They interpret that as a lack of nutrition but what they don’t understand is what is happening is a biochemical definition of addiction. When a poison is put into the body at such a large degree, that said poison then acts like a food.
So they are addicted to meat?
They are addicted to the stimulants of animal proteins. If a coffee addict goes to 3pm without coffee, he gets headaches. Everyone knows it’s not because coffee is a nutrient, it’s because he’s addicted to coffee and needs a fix. If a heroin addict can’t get to a needle, he starts rolling around on the floor. No one interprets heroin to be a nutrient. Same with animal protein but because it’s a food, people mistake it for a nutrient, but it’s not. It’s a stimulant and a poison. When it builds up over years it creates disease.
But it keeps you skinny, no? Carbs are evil! Right?
Protein lodges in the cells and sticks like glue. It doesn’t expand. In macrobiotics, it’s considered a yang energy and will stick like little hockey pucks in your cells but it will not create fat or puffiness. Even while it is killing you it will not do these things. You see a lot of muscled up people with old wrinkled faces, lines all over the face, thick jaws. If you are already poisoned it gives you a lot of stimulation and will not make you fat but people are killing themselves by lining their organs with protein waste.
What about men? Guys love their protein.
Animal protein triggers the release of testosterone into the blood, which means that everything that is male is going to be accentuated. Muscle growth, aggression, all that violent energy gets accentuated when we eat a lot of animal protein so if we suddenly stop our hormone levels are going to adjust. That is why vegan men have a reputation for being mellow and non-violent. Most men’s testosterone levels are so abnormally high from all the excess meat they are eating that their sex drive, which is a male trait, goes over the top.
*Medical Disclaimer
Any application of the recommendations set forth in this website is at the reader’s discretion and sole risk. The information offered is intended for people in good health. Anyone with medical problems of any nature should see a doctor before starting a diet or exercise program. Even if you have no known health problems, it is advisable to consult your doctor/s before making major changes in your lifestyle.
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