You Are What You Eat

[00:00:02] what you want, when you want it, where you want it. This is The MESH. Hi everyone, this is Dr. Matt and you're listening to Take Back Your Health where we talk about all things health and ways to help you be the best version of you. Hey everybody, this is Dr. Matt and this is Take Back Your Health podcast and I'm here with another special guest, another new business in Hickory.

[00:00:31] This is Jessica with the Juice Apothecary, downtown Hickory in the Harris Arcade. Jessica, thanks for coming on today. Thank you for having me, I'm really excited to be here. So the Juice Apothecary, what is that? What's behind the name there? Well, you know, it's a combination of things because it's really about helping people to heal, to feel better, you know, and the apothecary is where you go for that.

[00:00:56] The juices, the herbs, those I have found to be the winning combination for eradicating most things. Well, you are what you eat, right? We are, no doubt. That's the name of the podcast. But what was the idea behind the business? Like what got you in? I guess, what's your story kind of real quick? What got you into that? So my gosh, more than a decade ago, my health crashed. I was the fittest I had ever been.

[00:01:22] My body was in amazing shape and I thought that meant I was healthy and I was wrong. And so I ended up with like a laundry list of symptoms. I couldn't function. I didn't have the energy to get off the couch. I just, my hair was falling out. My joints hurt. I felt like I had early onset dementia and I was like 30 years old. Did you have any? Did you have something or did all this just kind of come on? So I don't know your story. It was, they came on progressively and it just reached a tipping point where everything hit the fan.

[00:01:53] And so I went to my doctor and I was like, hey, this is what's going on. And he's like, well, we'll run some tests and everything came back normal. So he was like, I think. Don't you hate that? I know there's something wrong with me, but everybody says I'm normal. I know. Oh my gosh. So his, his solution was an antidepressant. And I was like, I, yeah, I was like, that is not the solution. I'm leaving and I'm not going to come back here. Yeah. Not going to settle for this. I know that's a, yeah.

[00:02:20] Unfortunately, that's, that's most people's solutions for a lot of things. Chemicals, right? Chemicals. So why? Okay. Let's jump right into it. Why juice? Why not just eat food? What's so special about juicing? Oh, juice is like liquid gold. It's amazing. Seriously. I don't think most people realize that our, you know, our soils are depleted because of the toxin exposure, you know, our digestion. Nobody's absorbing most of what they eat, even though what they're eating only has a fraction

[00:02:49] of the nutrients from like 50 years ago. And so with juicing, you get everything in there, all the good stuff, all the phytonutrients, all the chlorophyll, all the enzymes, you know, at least with real raw cold pressed juice, you get that and you get it in a concentrated dose. So like our 12 ounce bottles have a pound and a half to two pounds of fruits and veggies. And you don't have to have good digestion. You don't have to have good health. You drink it. Take all the work out of it. It takes all the work out of it. You drink it, your body absorbs it.

[00:03:20] And I know, and we're going to get into this in a second, but that just kind of sparked a stigma I know because does that not spike your blood sugar when you drink all that juice? Because obviously fruit is sweet, right? But not all that sugar in there, but does that not spike your blood sugar? No, it doesn't. No, I've actually had many clients who have healed diabetes on juices. Yeah. And plant-based nutrition. Food is medicine. Well, it's fructose. It's not the same as table sugar or processed sugar.

[00:03:49] And it's the number one source of nutrition of fuel for our body. Exactly. Yeah. I just did a podcast recently talking about sugar, the master of disguise. And there's different types. So yeah, your body processes each one differently. But what are some of the benefits of juicing? I know there's probably several, but like just based on time, what are some like big two or three big ones that you see are real big benefits other than like detox and weight loss? And we'll get into that a little bit. Yeah.

[00:04:18] You know, it's a great, they're great, they're great anti-inflammatories. Oh, yeah. Great. So, you know, so many people who come in who are achy and have a lot of pain. Arthritis. And then you'll juice and things start shifting. And so, yeah, that is a huge benefit. What are some of the bigger players, I should say, in like your, in your bottles that you haven't, honestly, I wish they were bigger because they're so, they're so good. If you, if you haven't had them, you really need to get them because they're so good.

[00:04:46] There's like one or two that's a little rough to drink because they're not really meant to be enjoyed, like the cleanse and all that, the celery and the kale and all that. But what would you say are some of the big superfoods that help people the most, I should say? Because each one of your potions, I call them, have specific needs and specific uses for them, right? Yeah, absolutely. That's the beauty of juices.

[00:05:16] They, most of, you know, the ingredients in each one has like an affinity for like a certain system in the body or an organ, but it still works on the body as a whole. So you can't go wrong. But turmeric, you know, our slimmed down juice, turmeric is a fabulous anti-inflammatory. And so, you know, we couple it with grapefruit juice and apple and lemon. And I think it's delicious. I can't do the grapefruit. I'm sorry. The grapefruit's too bitter for me, but yes, grapefruit is a huge superfood for weight

[00:05:45] loss and things like that. And most people don't know that, you know, your inability to lose weight is connected to inflammation. Oh, inflammation and stress causes a lot of things. It does, right? But yeah, the turmeric, I know you were talking about turmeric. And then you also have your upgrade and your, I think the other one was for like stomach because it's got a lot of ginger in there. And ginger's another big MVP player I know in a lot of those. It is. I love it. Because is it the upgrade, I think, that's got the ginger and the lemon and apple or something like that?

[00:06:15] I call that like a little mocktail Moscow mule because it's got that ginger kick in there, which I love. It's so good. It's one of my favorites. And obviously you've got your upbeat, which is for your muscles and it's got the beat juice in there. Endurance. Oh, is that a new one? I haven't tried the endurance. Oh, no. It's the upbeat. It's really good for endurance. Oh, I'm sorry. They've shown beats are really great for increasing athletic performance. Absolutely. Yeah, beats help a lot with muscle recovery.

[00:06:43] But let's talk about your power up because I know that one's the blue one. And that was your popular seller, right? That's our number one seller. I bet. Because everybody's like, what's this blue stuff you're drinking? Yep. It's because it's got spirulina, which is a blue-green algae. And so, number one, it makes it really pretty and people are drawn to things that are really pretty. Yeah, they are. And so it's beautiful. Especially kids, right? Yeah, especially kids. But it tastes so good. And it's one of the juices because of the spirulina, it's very energizing in the body.

[00:07:12] And so you notice like an instant like natural energy boost with it. And so people love it. And so it's also a powerful anti-inflammatory. And it's just, it's really great for everything. It's one of the most potent superfoods on the planet. I was about to say, I remember you had told me that when I first met you that when I had asked about why it was blue and you said that it was one of the most powerful superfoods, I'm like, okay, well, good. No food coloring. Yeah, exactly. And then you also have a black one in there, which I just cannot, I can't, it's the charcoal in there, I think is what. Have you tasted it?

[00:07:42] I haven't tasted it, but for those of you that don't, tell them what's in the charcoal one. I forget what it's called. Yeah, it's the detox lemonade. The detox lemonade, yeah. Yeah, it's charcoal lemon maple syrup. It's black, yeah. It's black, everybody. Just let you know. Coconut water, yeah. It's coconut water, activated charcoal, a couple other things in there. But yeah, it's really, really good for detoxing. And speaking of detoxing, let's kind of jump onto that because that's kind of one of the whole points of juicing. It is. Is to detox.

[00:08:11] And you can, like the weight loss. So I know you said you found, you've had success and you had clients. And I see the reviews on Instagram and all that. People are raving about like how they feel and how they are feeling and looking and things like that. But what are some of the big benefits of doing a juice cleanse and helping to weight loss and maybe doing some supplementing some meals for juicing and things like that? Yeah.

[00:08:38] Well, the main thing with juice is number one, that it is just the best way to get nutrients in the body, right? And then also quickly. And it also, it's a massive dose of nutrition and it detoxifies. So right there, you are addressing the two main issues when it comes to like health and chronic disease right now that we're facing. And so when you go on an all juice fast and you just do it for a few days, your body's not having to digest any food, which is the most labor intensive process that our body does.

[00:09:08] You get the, you get the food coma. That's right. Exactly. So you skip that and your body's being loaded with more nutrition than you've ever had before. And all that energy is going straight to healing. And so they have found that for every single day you juice fast, you heal 120 days worth of damage in your body. Really? I did not know that. Yeah. It's super powerful. That's four months right there. Yeah. It's so powerful. Now repeat that one more time for people like me that weren't really paying attention.

[00:09:36] Every day that you juice fast, you heal 120 days worth of damage in the body. Yeah. It's so powerful. So four days is a whole year. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. Of undoing. You know, of course you start where you are and you start working your way back, right? You don't start from the beginning and eradicate all the big stuff right out the gate, you know? I wish I could help people that fast. I mean, you know, as a chiropractor, I can help people reverse damage, but it doesn't happen that quickly. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:03] You're probably the quickest way to undo some damage because like I say, you are what you eat. Damage happens from the inside. And I was following your Instagram and you post a lot of information on your Instagram. I do. A lot of research. It gets overwhelming sometimes reading some of it, but it's just fascinating what we don't really know. But I saw something today and it kind of stuck with me because I try to tell my patients that, but it was a quote from Hippocrates said that disease starts from the gut or something like that. I don't want to misquote it, but that's true.

[00:10:32] And death begins in the colon. Death begins in the colon. That's what it is. That's what I knew was something to do with that. That just stuck with me because people don't really realize that your colon has its own community and ecosystem. And if you trash it, it's going to come out in other ways too. Well, most people are carrying around 20 to 25 pounds of fecal matter backed up in their body. And this is even people who go to the bathroom every single day. It's incredible.

[00:11:02] Like I was, it might be TMI. No, there's no, believe me, there's no TMI on this show. But you know, even for myself, I did, I am super thin, you know, like I don't have a waist, but I did a 40 day juice fast this past spring and 40 days in, I was still having bowel movements. 40 days in of no food. So think about that. That is just like, it's mind blowing. Oh yeah. It just, everybody's full of crap basically. Everybody's full of crap. Well, you don't really realize that because that, and that sparks something that you had

[00:11:31] mentioned earlier when you're juicing in my mind, you're thinking, okay, you sit down, you have a meal, you feel full. When you're juicing, I would imagine that I'm going to be hungry again in like an hour. You know what I'm saying? If I'm drinking like a protein shake or something, you're, you're drinking it, you process that I don't want to be drinking six gallons of juice all day long because I'm not going to, I'm going to be hungry all day long. So how does that like, but then again, like you said, you're, you're eating more food than you actually would chewing acid by drinking.

[00:12:01] Yeah. Most people don't realize those hung. Okay. There's a few things that go into this, but typically when you get that signal for hunger, it's your body telling you that you need nutrients. And so, because most people, the food that we eat has no nutrients in it. Ding, ding, ding. That's like that. Yeah, exactly. You go to, oh yeah. I don't want to call the fast food restaurants out, but we might as well. But yeah, when you go eat fast food, a lot of that food is high processed food, high fat, high salt, high sugar, and your body goes through that pretty quickly, but it stores it.

[00:12:31] And that's why you obviously gain the weight, but there's, yeah, there's no nutrients. So your body's craving nutrients. Nope. And so if you have a juice, typically that hunger goes away. Now, you know, there's other things that play into that and that's like parasitic infestation. Yeah. That's another one. A lot of, you know, if you have those things going on, they want to be fed and they're going to mess with you. So you feed them, you know, feed me Seymour right now. People don't, people don't like to think about parasites, but there's a lot of people that

[00:12:59] have parasites that don't even know it. I would say everyone. I know. Yeah. Probably everybody does, honestly, because we don't really know what we're eating. I mean, I see sometimes on those social media where you see the little, they take like a strawberry and they magnify it real close to it. And you see the little bugs like crawling around there and it freaks you out. And I'm like, you don't, that's why you wash your food before you eat it. First of all. But then again, not only are you washing off dirt and insects and parasites, but also the

[00:13:28] pesticides and stuff. Now, what kind of products do you use in your juicing? Because obviously you probably just don't run down to Lowe's Foods or the grocery store and get stuff. You probably hopefully. Actually we do. Oh, you do. Okay. I didn't know what kind of products you use. Have you used all organic? Have you used, if you had a special like process before you juice, things like that. Kind of, kind of give everybody in the last few minutes here, what's kind of your process from, from fruit to bottle? So, yeah.

[00:13:55] So we don't have a purveyor at this time just because we haven't found anything with the amount of organics that we want. We don't use 100% organic, but I try to stick to the things that, especially that are on the dirty dozen. If you're not familiar environmental working group. You can go to ewg, I think.com and they'll have a list and it's called the dirty dozen. And these are the fruits and veggies that have the most pesticides on them, like super high levels. What are a couple of examples? Apples.

[00:14:24] Well, yeah, I can believe that. Yeah. Things like that. And then, but they also have a list called the clean 15 and these are conventional products that have minimal pesticides on them. So they're almost the equivalent of like organics because most people don't realize organics still have stuff on them. The only way you can really get something that's super clean is if you go through a certified natural grower. Well, of course. So yeah, organics is not super clean, but they have shown statistically that you get a lot more nutrition from organics. So. Well, yes. It's worth it. You know? I mean, yeah.

[00:14:53] And around here you can always trust an organic sticker because, you know, people like to, I don't know what the regulations are for that, but they're not probably as tight as they probably should be. But as far as when you get the juice and you pick your combination, it amazes me how you have all of them taste the exact same way. You have a ratio. You're not just picking a little bit more of this, a little bit more of this, a little bit more pineapple juice, a little bit more apple juice. You have recipes, obviously. You have to because I think you do it by weight is what you had told me. Yeah.

[00:15:23] You really need to increase the size of those bottles. You know, it might be common. It might be common. We definitely have wellness. 12 ounces is a tease for some of us that could chug it, right? We're going to go smaller first and then we'll go back because we're going to go to wellness. We're going to start incorporating wellness shots really soon. Yeah, the ginger shots and all that. So like super potent. Yeah. Of superfoods, right? But yeah. So yeah, we do everything by weight so it can be replicated. That's what I was teaching in my class that I did the other night at Dash. Oh, okay. I didn't know you do that.

[00:15:52] Oh, I need to get, I need to do one of those. Yeah. So yeah. What did you teach? The basics of juicing, like how to like make good juice recipes and how to do it at home for yourself. Awesome. They do a lot. The Dash Home and Kitchen, they do quite a bit. They do. So before we wrap up here and kind of tell people how they can find you, where you're located, is there anything else you'd like everybody to know about juicing or maybe something they didn't know? I mean, you've given a lot of information that I didn't know, but is there anything else you'd like to mention?

[00:16:21] You know, just that it's really one of the most loving things that you could do for yourself, in particular a juice fast. So many people are so afraid of fasting. But honestly, like our bodies work 24 hours a day, seven days a week to do everything they possibly can to keep us alive. And I know for myself, I spent years abusing my body. Everybody does. Everybody does. You know, and it's just amazing what happens when you turn around and actually give it a

[00:16:49] little bit of love back, you know, and take care of yourself in that way. What can happen? Just the changes that are possible. Oh, yeah. How you feel is a huge difference. Yeah. And it gives your body a break. Because like you say, you think fasting and juicing is going to make you have to work harder because you're like, I'm going to be more hungry. I'm not going to be as whatever. But then you're actually giving your body a break. So you do feel better because you're not as stressed. You're not as inflamed. Yeah. Which is, like you say, the best thing you could do for your body. Yeah.

[00:17:18] Most people don't realize because I know I was born in the 70s. I was born in 78. So like I came in and that generation of processed foods, right? And GMOs. And most people have been raised on that. So they don't know what it's like to have real nutrition. So most people have no idea how good they can feel, honestly. Gotcha. I know. I know. So how can people find you? Like where are you located at first of all? And then your social media. So we are right here in downtown.

[00:17:47] We're across from the Carolina Theater, 221 First Avenue. So we're in Harris Arcade. But you can also find us online. I'm on Instagram at the Juice Apothecary, Facebook. And then our website just went live today. So you can actually go on the website and do pre-orders for six packs. And yes, the Juice Apothecary.com. I did not know you had the website going. Finally. It's here. And you just got business cards too, right? Yeah.

[00:18:15] Well, I appreciate you coming out today and for taking time to give us some insight on what we're eating and how there are different ways to get better nutrition easier and faster than normally doing that. Thank you. I appreciate you having me here just so I can share because the key is education, right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And like I say, if you're not following her Instagram, you definitely need to be because

[00:18:38] she does take a lot of time to make sure you have as much information as possible because I try to do that with my patients as well. You can't just believe what you read. You can't believe what people say. Hey, you need to do your own research and fact check people because people will do and say whatever they want just to make themselves look good or cover something up or whatever. And you can't get answers if you just believe what other people are saying.

[00:19:07] So like I say, you need to do your own research. Yes, 100%. Absolutely. Well, thanks again. Thank you so much, Dr. Matt. If you'd like to learn more about something you just heard or are interested to see how chiropractic care can help you, you can visit our website to schedule an appointment at newdirectionschiropractic-nc.com. Be sure to follow our social media accounts for more tips and information on how to be a better you. Thanks for listening.

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