The Reluctant P.O.W.: Joe Cross

Mean Green Juice

This is the "Mean Green" Juice drink recipe used in their Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead movie, sometimes called the Joe Cross diet or the Joe Cross recipe. During the filming of the documentary movie Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead, overweight Joe Cross and Phil Staples ate a diet mix of vegetables and fruits made into juice by his Breville juicer, commonly called juicing. The nutritional value benefits of this green juice drink recipes is below.

Remember the veggie purchase by Joe Cross at the pickup truck on the side of the road at the beginning of the Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead movie? Joe bought onions, tomatoes and celery for his raw juice recipes and his 60 day juice fast. We assume these vegetables to be organic, but this is not required. You can also see carrots though out the movie as he juices his way across the USA to lose weight. Joe Cross also consumed various fruit and juice drinks.

If your looking to juicing for cleansing or just to reduce weight, this juice recipe works very well and gives your body most of what it needs to get healthier while enjoying the benefits of juicing.

TIPS: Don't rush out and buy multiple pounds of every vegetable. Peeling the lemon takes away some of the bitterness in the juice. Kale has a strong taste, try 60g to start with. If the taste to you is awful, use romaine lettuce instead of the kale. More tips on juicing and start up can be found HERE.

Phil and Joe 2013

There are many raw green juice or "Joe Cross juice cleanse recipes" available on the web. Is this the best green juice recipe? That is up to you to decide. A bit of this and a bit of that, and you can make a green juice that you can enjoy in any juice cleanse or diet. You can also go to a juice bar and try many different juicing recipes. "Jamba Juice" is a well known place with many healthy drinks to try, although many are heavy with fruit. Wheat grass is another popular juice with juicers. Let me know what recipes you come up with by posting in the comments section.

Mean Green Juice nutrition facts and nutritional information
Joe's organic mean green juice recipe has no Vitamin D or B12 (see info below), this is the reason why you should not consume this raw food vegetable juice drink as your only meal. If you make this vegetable juice as your only meal, you should be taking a vitamin supplement. Australian Joe Cross, has since added spinach to this juicing recipe as seen in the video below. Time marches on.

6 Kale leaves (113g)

4 celery stalks (136g)

1 cucumber (301g)

2 apples, green (granny smith) (364g)

1/2 of a lemon (29g)

lump of Ginger (11g)

Here's the approximate nutrient values for the above recipe (not per "juice") as listed, based on the USDA charts. This Joe Cross juice he called mean green, supplied a steady stream of nutrients for his body. To compute your daily vitamin/mineral intake, multiply the values given times the number of recipes you consume per day, compare this against your juicing goals.

Nutritional value information of Mean Green

Have you seen the documentary "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead?" You can catch some of it on Youtube or the whole movie on Netflix. Their web site (that does not actually match the show) is HERE. Now I'm not saying that this is the magic bullet or something that even works, I am saying it is worth a watch.

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that more vegetables would be good for you. Do I want to be drinking all my food through a straw? No, or least not till I'm 90 or so. But this does present a different approach to weight loss and has a good story line. If your going to try it, look at the different juicers available. The price range is huge. Some have more plastic than others. Some are very noisy, some not so. In the end, they all make juice.

The "mean green" juice was awful I thought. I would suggest trying this later in the program. There are many recipes on the web for juicing. I'll post some of favorites later. Raw vegetables in juice form sometimes surprises your taste buds. Expect to experience some "different" tastes than what you expect.