Dr Richard Schulze: Juice Fasting

In the following interview made by Sam Biser of Herbal Therapy For Serious Illness newsletter, Dr Richard Schulze explains on the benefits of juice fasting for those with serious illnesses or the terminally ill. Dr Schulze is one of the foremost authorities in the world on natural healing and herbal medicine. He holds a Doctorate in Herbology from the School of Natural Healing and a Doctorate in Natural Medicine. Dr. Schulze also holds a degree in Herbal Pharmacy and degrees in Iridology.


Dr Schulze operated natural healing centers in America for twenty years until the 1990s. He currently sells his high potency herbs and food supplements the American Botanical Pharmacy.

When you don't feel well, stop eating and go to juices?

SCHULZE: The first thing an animal does when it is sick is stop eating. They fast themselves. Likewise, the first thing we need to do when we don't feel well is: stop food. There are a lot of reasons for that. Food takes a tremendous amount of energy to digest--and that's blood and energy. Our digestive system, basically the muscles and the tissues, fill with blood. When you stop eating, your digestive system rests, and all that blood and energy can be put somewhere else to heal you.

People have said to me, "What do I do for this particular disease?" Juice fasting. "What do I do for degeneration?" Juice fasting. "What do I do for heart disease?" Juice fasting.

Juice fasting is for the incurables. Juice fasting is the answer, because it allows your body to rest - and it lets your body choose what it wants to heal.

If you just keep cramming food down your mouth, you'll just get more tired. Your body has to digest large amounts of food, and it's the opposite of what you should do when you're not well.

"One of my first patients had lost a tremendous amount of blood from surgery--and doctors wanted to do a transfusion. In 24 hours on juices, I brought her blood levels back up."

BISER: What does juice fasting do?

SCHULZE: Food has nutrition in it, but it takes a lot to break those nutrients down. A glass of fruit and vegetable juice takes very little digestion, if any. It goes right into your body. We look at juices in the same way a doctor would look at an I.V. It's something that can go right into your bloodstream.

One of my first learning experiences was a woman patient who was undergoing a surgery, a female surgery. The doctors nicked an artery, and she had tremendous hemorrhaging and bleeding. By the time they got her patched up, she was in intensive care, and had lost a tremendous amount of blood.

The doctors wanted to do a transfusion. She was scared to do a transfusion and the doctor said, "You're very anemic and your hemoglobin count is at the lowest end for a woman."

She said, "Is there anything you can do?"

And I said, "Sure," and I got the juicer out and juiced some juices. I made some carrot juice and some beet juice. I took it to the hospital and said, "Just let the doctors give you 24 hours."

They did, and, in 24 hours on juices, they said that her hemoglobin count was over the top end of the scale for a man, not even a woman, and men's hemoglobin counts are higher.

This was my first realization of the power of what juices can do to build the blood up.

BISER: Wait a minute, you gave her juices. How did she get juices when she went into the hospital for 24 hours?

SCHULZE: Oh, I went to the hospital too. I juiced the juices, put them in quart canning jars. Fresh beet juice, fresh beet greens, fresh carrot juice. I took it right to her hospital room and she drank it.

That's all she had for 24 hours and not only did her blood hemoglobin go up, but it went over the top of the scale for a man. The doctors said they were shocked, they had never seen anything like that.

SCHULZE: I had a man who had a colon cancer and he basically refused to do anything, but he said he would stop eating and go on juices. This was early on in my practice, too. These were learning experiences.

He started on a multitude of fruit and vegetable juices and, I remember it was about a month later into his long juice fast, he pooped his cancer right out. It was 18" long.

It looked like a rope with figs attached to it. I had seen things like that before in pictures and books - but that was the first time I ever saw one come out.

BISER: A rope?

SCHULZE: Yeah, it was like a rope with sacs on it, they were about the size of figs. And, he actually eliminated his cancer just through juice fasting. He wasn't using any herbs or doing anything else, something I wouldn't recommend.

Juice fasting, through my experience and his, is more powerful than just water fasting. Juices not only fill you with nutrition - but they empty you out.

If you have any doubt about that, go home and drink a quart of prune juice and you tell me what happens.

Juices are flushing and cleansing to organs of the body.

Juices are enzyme therapy

SCHULZE: Juices contain gigantic amounts of enzymes. And a lot of people nowadays are taking enzymes because of the benefits, but you don't have to, they're in the juices.

Enzymes are heat sensitive, meaning that when you cook food, you destroy all the enzymes. Now, when you eat that food or juice, it's okay. Your body will produce enzymes in order for you to digest that food. But when your body does that - it can't do something else. It only has a limited amount of energy.

So, one of the things that juices do, because they are loaded with enzymes, is they give your body a vacation.

Most of us live enzyme-free diets. If all we eat is cooked food, there are no enzymes in it. By supplying your body with high doses of enzymes, it gives many of your organs like your pancreas, your liver, your digestive system a holiday, because they don't have to try to manufacture chemicals that are coming in through your juices.

BISER: So it's an enzyme holiday!

Thinning the blood is one the most important things you can do when you are sick, and juices do that

SCHULZE: Yes, an enzyme holiday. And it also thins your blood. This is a major key.

Most of us who are ill are trying to do something to get blood to the area that is sick.

But our body is trying to pump around mud - and it can't get there. Thinning our blood is one the greatest keys to getting healthy. It increases our circulation because the blood becomes more like water than molasses. The bottom line is, juice fasting thins your blood. That allows your circulation to get deeper in your body into the vital areas, into the capillaries that were filled with fat and all clogged-up.

Juice-fasting allows your body to balance its hormones and replace chemicals it is deficient in.

SCHULZE: Many people are sick because they don't produce enough insulin in their body. Or, they don't produce enough thyrox in their thyroid. Or, they don't produce enough interferon or immunoglobulin for the immune system to be strong. They don't produce enough estrogen or progesterone or testosterone.

Those chemicals are all built from nutrition. One of the things that juice fasting does is, it supplies your body with a tremendous amount of nutrition. So it balances your metabolism, balances your hormones, balances your endocrine system, your thyroid, your pancreas, and your reproductive organs.

And it does one other important thing: It allows you to get more work done. Juice fasting clears the mind.

BISER: How can you get more work done when you're hungry? Because you're not eating solid foods?

SCHULZE: Let me tell you, it's just the opposite of what you think. If you want a gigantic change, stop eating for a couple days. It will feel like the fog is cleared.

You will be amazed at your sense of smell, your sense of taste, your eyesight, your perception, your thoughts.

All through history, from the Greek and Roman writings, to the Egyptians, from Jesus to Shakespeare, people talked about fasting for better mental clarity.

One thing I can guarantee you is that if you have a confusing problem, or a stressful issue that you don't know the answer to, stop eating. It enhances mental clarity.

We are drunk on food. Overeating makes you dull. Your blood, instead of going to your brain, is going to your digestive tract.

You read it in the Bible, Jesus going to the woods for his fasting. Everybody, throughout history, would go out of the city and go onto juices and water, and fast. Fasting clears the mind, and so it is a physical and emotional cleanse, and maybe even a spiritual cleanse when you stop your food from coming in.

No-one realizes how powerful juice-fasting is— until they do it. Then they will never live without it. Everybody should do this periodically. I guarantee everybody who is reading this, if they just do a fast, for a couple of days, they will be amazed."

BISER: When you worked in Hollywood, you had all those people in the movie industry, did you give them the same advice?

SCHULZE: Yes, in fact many people came to me and they were worried about the first week, or a difficult part of the movie that they were having a problem with, or that they were worried about, "Can I do this?", or, "Is it going to go okay?", and I would suggest the five-day program. The five day program is 2 days of light eating of fruits and salads only, with 2 days of juice fasting in the middle, and one day of fruits and salads at the end.

They would say to me, "Oh, God, I can't do that, that would even be more stress." And, I would say, "Yesyou can. It will be less stress when your body is using all its blood and energy to help you do what you need to do, and figure it out, and not be loaded down with food." And those that would do it came back to me and said, "Oh my God, thank you." I had one woman who hadn't worked in a couple of years, a quite famous actress. She had to go out for four interviews during the week and these were the most interviews she had been to, in a long time. She said, "What should I do?" and I said "Fast." She said, "That sounds horrible. I need all my strength and energy." I said "Believe me, fast." She fasted and got all four parts that she went out for. I've always seen it happen with all my clients.

I remember as a kid, I used to eat a big meal, thinking it was going to make me feel stronger. I felt more tired. So, I'd eat more and I felt more tired. And I'd eat more, then I felt more tired.

I've done many fasts - short fasts. I've done two thirty day fasts and one sixty-day juice fast. We can go months without food - - as long as we're getting our nutrients.

BISER: But did your body get run down without it?

SCHULZE: Oh no, in fact, in the last couple days of my thirty-day juice fast, I kick-boxed 17 rounds and I was better than ever before. No one could come near me and touch me. I had better vision, I had better reflexes, I had better timing. And I had endless amounts of strength. This is something we have to get away from - the idea that fasting weakens you. It's not true. When you fast, there are some things you need to be aware of. Sometimes when you fast, you have a little less body heat. So take a sweater with you when you go out. Every once in awhile, you may feel a little colder and it's because it is calories from heat units in food that warms up our body.

So, since you are reducing your food and you're on juices only, dress a little warmer and have a little blanket in the car or a sweater with you. That's one thing I tell people. The other thing is, you have energy lows. And what that is, when you're fasting, is all of sudden, you might feel, especially if you're doing a longer fast, like a week or more, you might feel like, oh my gosh, I have no energy at all.

Don't pay any attention to that--because it will be gone in ten minutes. This is very common as your body is used to a solid fuel and now it's on a liquid fuel. And just like a machine, if you change its fuel, it adjusts a little bit. We have to make adjustments and once we make those adjustments, it's fine. So don't pay any attention to that.

A couple other things I'll throw in here. One thing I always tell people is, you get hunger pains when you're fasting. Most of the time they're not real. All of a sudden, you have a dream or a vision of a baked potato covered with sour cream and chives. If that's real, you'll still have the urge in three or four hours. So, one of the ways to get by that, is just to ignore it and it will go away.

Most people think a fast means deprivation. I see it differently. A fast is a flush - a flush with liquids. Okay?

You are only going without solid food - but you are getting liquid food that does you more good. A fast is a flush and people need to consume a gallon a day of liquids: juices, water, herb tea. Most people make a mistake by not consuming enough - and if you're hungry drink more.

BISER: What juice do you use when you want to detoxify heavily?

SCHULZE: Wheat grass is great. It can detoxify when some people don't get a detoxification any more from anything. Or, when they've used a few herbs and they think they are clean.

I remember my own story. I thought I was very clean. It was after I spent six months at Dr. Jensen's eatingonly raw food and juice fasting and years after I had healed my heart. I started drinking wheat grass, an ounce a day, then two ounces a day, then three ounces a day, and then four ounces a day, and I got up to eight ounces one morning and I remember feeling horrible - and I started vomiting. It was just too strong of a dose, but at that point, wheat grass started creating all sorts of cleansing in my body - of old things I remembered I had. It finally cleaned them out and brought them to the surface.

BISER: What do you mean "old things'?

SCHULZE: Well, when I started cleaning out my bowel years earlier, my hemorrhoids went away and I hadn't noticed any hemorrhoids for years. Then - in the middle of this wheat grass purge, the hemorrhoids flared up again - and it wasn't because I was having diarrhea or straining or anything. I think it was because there were small capillaries there that were still blocked, and that wheat grass was cleaning them out. I started noticing things with my bronchials and my sinuses, and all sorts of problems that I had cleared away. But now they were kind of coming back again.

When you do a really good final cleansing and healing, a lot of your oldest problems come back, but just for a few days - as you clear them out. So I noticed some tremendous differences in my skin, and to this day I still drink wheat grass. People always come up to me and say, "Your skin looks so great." I get this comment all the time, so I know that it's really done some good work inside me.

Note From Moderator: I have over the past week been trying out juice fasting and I can testify that it really works. I feel really great.