Before raw foods guru Jill Pettijohn opened her latest vegan cafe a block away from my apartment on Court Street in Cobble Hill, I had already heard about the transformative powers of her five day “nutritional cleanse.”
A brief write-up in New York Magazine last year said that Pettijohn’s $410 solid-food-free cleanse helped to kick-start Donna Karan’s 35-pound weight loss, and Pettijohn’s own literature touts her work with other svelte celebs like Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Drew Barrymore.
At 5-foot-7 and 128 pounds, I’m not desperate to lose weight. For the most part, I’ve come to terms with my not-size-zero frame.
But a small part of me wants to get back to the 10 months that I was at my skinniest: following a break-up and a bout of food poisoning, I dropped to 118, and stayed there for nearly a year. Pettijohn’s cleanse is not designed specifically for weight loss — its goals are cleansing, detoxifying, rejuvenating and healing — but I figured that losing a few pounds as a side-effect of “detoxifying” would be a welcome occurrence.
I went to Jill’s Cafe, Pettijohn’s Court Street restaurant, to speak to her before I began my healing journey. She is a lithe woman with flowing white hair whose radiant skin makes her ageless. Clad in white linen, she quietly explained the fast to me in her lilting New Zealand accent. It would be a series of juices, six each day for five days to be punctuated by large glasses of water.
“Are you a coffee drinker?” she inquired. I’m a desperate caffeine addict and had a moment of fear that she would bar me from my morning salvation.
“One cup in the morning is OK,” she told me, “but try to switch to herbal tea after that.” We decided that I would begin her “Nutritional Cleanse” the following Monday.
I went to bed Sunday night alternatively scared and excited. When I woke up on Monday, I made my customary coffee — but this time black, without milk and sugar to interrupt the detoxifying powers of the juices. I retrieved my six tubs of juice from Pettijohn’s at around 8, and brought them home excitedly. I took out the first mixture: the “Daily Green.” (Each juice is labeled so you know the order in which you should be drinking them.)
The Daily Green looked like the August sludge that rings most stagnant bodies of water. I tried to ignore the aesthetic turn-off of the drink and reserve judgment until I poured it down my gullet. I lifted it to my lips and took a huge swallow of the thick mixture that tasted like pureed celery with a tinge of something more sinister and oceanic as an aftertaste.
In a word: inedible.
For the next hour, I tried to down smaller gulps, but my stomach rejected it. I ran to the bathroom at least twice, thinking I might lose my proverbial cookies. I even tried holding my nose, thinking that if I could somehow get past the taste, I could drink the whole thing quickly. That didn’t work either. I ended up dribbling the verdant mixture down the front of my shirt.
“Maybe I’ll have better luck with the next juice,” I thought.
“Cherry Lemonade,” that sounds pleasant but the viscous consistency and sour flavor made it equally unpalatable. I tried to sweeten it with Splenda, thinking I might be able to down it that way (even though the artificial sweetener would be completely against the rules).
But it still triggered my gag reflex.
It had only been three hours, and I was ready to call it a day. I made a plate of eggs and chucked the rest of the juices in the trash. I felt terribly guilty about cheating so quickly, but so kept up the illusion of continuing the fast for the next two days. I dutifully picked up my juices, hoping flavors like butternut squash or apple with fresh basil would taste better, but I couldn’t manage more than a sip of any of the juices before tossing them At one point I even looked to my boyfriend for a second opinion; he took a sniff of the “Daily Green” and wasn’t about to go any further.
“Wasting food is such a crime,” I thought. I’m sure there’s some new age Carroll Gardens matron who would take these juices off my hands in a second.
By Thursday, I was too busy with work to keep up the farce. Jill, a hands-on woman who seems to really care about her cleanse-ees, e-mailed me to ask me how I was doing with my juices.
“Thanks so much for checking in — everything is going well,” I replied.
And in a way, everything was going well. My inability to suffer in the name of losing weight made me realize that I’m finally content with my body. I’m unwilling to endure five days of misery just for a flat stomach. I’ll never experience the transcendence and clear skin that I do truly believe goes along with Pettijohn’s nutritional cleanse.
But I’ve found something better: renewed joy in food.
Jill Pettijohn’s five-day “Nutritional Cleanse” liquid diet is $410 and available through Jill’s Cafe (231 Court St. at Baltic Street in Cobble Hill). Jill’s Cafe accepts American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa. For more information, call (718) 797-0330 or visit www.jillscafe.com.
