[greenbunny]

Roadrunner - if you plan on using an appliance to "eat your food" instead of "eating like a starving dog" (that brought up and amusing image in my mind of my beagle – I have to feed her with a fork or she just inhales her food in less than a second) I would use predominantly a blender as you will still get the bulk of the fiber in your fruits. The veggies will have to be juiced unless you have a big strong high powered blender like the vitamix or blendtec (blendtec is cheaper but not cheap by any means - but worth it!!!). The thing about eating your food instead of blending or especially juicing it is that your body takes longer to break down the food and get the food through the digestive system. That fiber actually gives your intestines a good workout. Many people take fiber because it's so good for you - but fruits and veggies come complete with this wonderful fiber. You can buy apple pectin in pills to keep you regular or you can just eat apples and get all the nutrients and vitality that comes with a raw apple. Roadrunner, you seem to really need lots of food for your weight and lifestyle so I can see why you would especially want to make smoothies … and juices can be just delicious and wonderful and you seem to really need the calories and energy. I bought a great juicer but it was a couple of hundred dollars. I rarely use it but use my blender constantly. I'll tell you the name of the juicer if you are interested. If I could miraculously teleport one item to your kitchen regardless of expense Roadrunner, it would be a Vitamix. You would have a great time with that! I do bleieve that the folks that make green smoothies do it all in a vitamix.

As for Milk Thistle. It’s real easy. You get a bottle of capsules and take one a day for a while to make sure it doesn’t have some weird affect and increase it slowly until you are taking the amount the bottle tells you to. You keep on taking it forever or until your body seems not to want it anymore. Milk thistle will support your liver with nutrition helping fortify and rebuild it. You don’t use it like the other cleanses. You don’t expect to feel something big or impressive. You don’t need to overdo it or take more than prescribed. It’s gentle. It’s a long – term nutrtional journey. You could also be more natural and make tea or tincture – but that’s too much work and fuss for me and I don’t like the taste much. I’d rather just pop a capsule.

If you get stung by a snake or a black widow spider or brown recluse (like I did) then you keep popping milk thistle capsules in your mouth and take apis homeopathic remedy 30C, call 911, and sit or lie still and calm and breath slowly so the poison moves through your system slower and then pray! You might find it strange that I would take the milk thistle and apis before calling 911 – but that’s how much I believe in those things to make all the difference between living or not. (This in itself should be enough to prove that I am not a doctor). Because I had taken apis for another bite just before getting bit by the recluse and because I took so much milk thistle and I went to an acupuncturist… instead of eating away the flesh of my arm the big round circle of red and characteristic pustule just disappeared… and fairly quickly at that. The liver has to process toxins (along with it’s many other miracles it performs daily) and a gentle continual nutritional supplement like milk thistle can really help the body overall – like eating your raw veggies and fruits daily. Milk Thistle has been proven scientifically to rebuild dead liver tissue in alcoholics.

Well, that’s enough. I’m stepping off my milk thistle soap box. Hope that answered your questions.

Cheerio,
Greenbunny