Juicehead

Not long after we moved to Colorado, I watched this documentary about the benefits of drinking raw juice. I can't even remember what it was called, I just remember it was on Amazon- but it doesn't really matter because I definintely do not recommend. It documented this average type guy who one day decided to exclusively start drinking raw juice. He would buy pounds of vegetables, throw them in his juicer (he had multiple juicers and even kept one in the trunk of his car in case he came across fresh roadside produce), and just...guzzled juice all day. Every day. He lost all cravings, he got supernaturally healthy, he was saving the environment. And, most importantly, he made it look so fucking easy.

As someone who frequents fast food drive thrus and frozen food aisles, and who had never (at least on purpose) even tasted a beet or a ginger root (whatever the fuck that is)- I was somehow completely convinced that this raw juice diet was for me. This documentary was probably only like an hour and a half long and yet I was totally brainwashed into thinking this was my new lifestyle.

In my mind, it was somehow connected to moving to Colorado and starting this new life here. There were mountains, and it was sunny like every goddamn day, and I had just bought my first pair of hiking boots. Even though I don't particularly enjoy hiking and I usually spend the entire time glancing at the time on my phone and telling John it's probably time to turn around so we only spend an additional 23 minutes hiking back, for a total of approximately 46 minutes of hiking which should be about the average amount of time for a hike.

So since I felt like this new person, I laced up my hiking boots and headed over to Walmart where I spent way too much money on an appliance for someone who was currently unemployed and would most likely not get much use out of it. And yo! bags and bags of celery and carrots and beets are not cheap either. I'm sure in my brainwashed mind, I pictured having my own vegetable garden one day despite routinely killing all my house plants, year after year.

The documentary jabroni made it look so easy and simple, but there is a lot of clean up involved for very small portions of juice. You have to take a bunch of pieces apart and individually clean them and scrape vegetable remenants out of a lot of crevices. It takes a LOT of vegetables- like 15 stalks of celery and 23 carrots- for one glass of juice. And no matter how many limes or how much ginger root you add, it still tastes like dirt. I was picturing those beautiful, tasty juices set up at the buffets of Mexican all inclusive resorts. Those juices probably have sugar added. Or rum, I can't quite remember.

Another detail the documentary fellow forgot to mention, is that if you consume enough beets for enough consecutive days, your poop will be RED, like red red. I was not expecting that and it was unsettling, to say the least.

If I had been living alone, I would've quit after the first glass of juice, maybe even the first sip. I could tell right away it was not for me. I would have thrown the juicer into a closet and never bought another beet again. But because JOHN was there, openly laughing at me and carefully calculating every dollar I was wasting, I had to go on. I had to pretend that I could actually live this way and that I didn't have these disgusting bloody red poops. I chopped my limes and lemons and hated myself in silence.

I made it 3 days and then gave in to the fact that John's gloating would be easier to deal with than another glass of that fucking swamp water. The juicer moved from closet to closet over the years, and finally settled in our basement until this past summer when we had a garage sale. Nobody even bought it! It was put in the free pile at the end of the weekend, and I only hope someone out there is tirelessly making another batch of green juice before their daily hike, and maybe fancying themeselves to a new year, new me fantasy. More likely, it's probably sitting in another closet somewhere, untouched.

I frequently go through phases like this- thinking that if I just buy the juicer, I'll be the type of person who makes and drinks raw juice. Thinking that if I buy the reusable grocery bags, I'll suddenly be the type of person who uses reusable grocery bags. Or if I buy a Peloton, I'll suddenly be the type of person who... exercises. If I buy an expensive 14 step facial kit, I'll somehow be the person who spends 45 minutes rubbing various creams on my face each night. The truth is, good habits are so goddamn hard for me to form and at the end of the day, I'm still just a slob who refuses to eat vegetables. At least in juice form.