I received a copy of a book called: The Juice Master's Ultimate Fast Food: Discover the Power of Raw Juice. It was from a friend who knew that I'd bought a juicer in early August, and thought I'd find the book useful. She had scanned the book and was impressed with the nutritional information contained in it. I've been making home-made juices and smoothies for several years, and finally got a juicer recently because using a blender alone just isn't good enough if you seriously want to make juices on a regular basis.

I had previously seen this book and considered buying it, but after reading the first couple of chapters I went out and bought Jason Vale's earlier book The Juice Master's Slim 4 Life: Freedom from the Food Trap.

After reading both of these books this weekend it has dramatically changed the way I look at food. Slim 4 Life is a good first book to read, especially if you are not interested in trying out another fad diet. Vale thoroughly examines the kind of food most people generally eat, and what effects it has upon the body. Vale understands the addictiveness of foods because in the past he was 30 lbs overweight, a smoker, a sugar junkie, and had both asthma and psoriasis. Through changing his diet and lifestyle Vale was able to knock both asthma and psoriasis on the head, as well as slimming down and changing his attitude towards food. His books are accessible and enthusiastic, and written with a great sense of humour. He's not trying to convert people into becoming raw-food eating and juice-drinking vegans, but to encourage "healthy eating, juicing, blending and physical movement to become a daily part of your life so that you would feel deprived if you were not allowed to do it."

What I found so useful about the book is that now when I look at food I don't wonder how many calories it has, or how much fat it contains, or should it be combined with such-and-such, but I think: how difficult will this be for my body to process. The focus in both the books is making you understand how our body reacts to foods, and how it breaks them down. He offers solutions to aid our body in processing food more easily and to encourage well-being and health. There's a particularly eye-opening section in which Vale describes how our body tries to recover from a night out drinking, and the subsequent food antidotes we apply that night, or the following morning as we grope for water and painkillers. It also makes you realise what an amazing machine our body is, and how much better it would function if we would just give it a hand.