desperation juice

Celery juice.

Celery juice is the wellness sensation that just won’t die.

If you legitimately enjoy the taste of celery juice, I’m not here to yuck your yum. But, if you’re drinking it because it has been heavily marketed (with 0 evidence-based backing, btw) as a treatment or cure for everything from anxiety to bipolar to diabetes to autoimmune diseases, I’m here to let you know your suffering can end and you can stop filling a grifter’s pockets.

In general, celery is a misused and under appreciated vegetable. For a lot of us, our exposure to celery has either been when it’s smothered with peanut butter, topped with old raisins a la “ants on a log,” or added to a soup base. Depending on how it’s prepared, it can be surprisingly delightful. I’ve made celery-based side dishes for catering gigs that had rave reviews.

Celery’s reputation did not exactly improve when celery juice entered the picture. It’s almost as though someone looked at a head of celery and thought, “How can I make this worse?” Instead, someone looked at it and thought, “How can I make a lot of money off this?”

THE LORE

What happened mid-2010’s was a random person who gets their advice from spirits (yes, really), decided to push celery juice on the public with wild claims that it can treat or even cure physical and mental diseases. The person who began to push this concept on the public has no actual medical training. This person has openly stated all of this, yet became a New York Times best seller, and to this day continues to tour, be endorsed by celebrities, and make money on these claims.

We live in some wild times.

As evidenced by the past 10 years, it turns out we can be desperate enough to believe that spirits, who don’t have a human body, know how to cure diseases in a human body. And that the diseases are cured by repeatedly drinking juice that tastes how a musty pond smells.

THE FACTS

Here are some things that celery/celery juice provides:

• some hydration (because it’s mostly water)

• vitamins and antioxidants (because it’s a plant)

Here are some things celery juice does not do:

• “detox” the human body (this is what kidneys and the liver are for)

• cure. any. diseases. ever. promise.

• “heal the gut“

• cure or heal mental and physical health issues (find me a study and prove me wrong pls)

Here is what happens when we drink celery juice:

• we are increasing hydration, which can also be done by simply drinking some water

• we are increasing vitamins and antioxidants, which can also be done by eating foods that contain these things

• we perpetuate the idea that one magical item can come along and transform our health

WHY WE FALL FOR IT

It’s not about the celery. It’s not about the juice. It’s about just wanting to feel better by any means with minimal effort or change. It’s about people who see that and take advantage of it.

It’s worth considering that grifter marketing ploys like celery juice could be the direct result of a medical system that fails to fully support its population. Having 10 minute medical visits and lack of being given anything outside of a medication can leave us feeling so dismissed that a mystical miracle quick-fix feels like the only murky green answer. If our health concerns aren’t straightforward, easily detected on tests and treated with meds, we’re in for a rough ride and miracle ‘cures’ like sketchy supplements, restrictive, unsustainable diets, and juices fill in the cracks.

Or we want to look “healthy.”

From a visual standpoint, celery juice is so perfectly marketable. It’s like cat nip for the wellness community. Seeing the bright green glass of celery juice in someone’s hand or on their social media screams “I AM HEALTH. FOLLOW MEEEE”

With this combo of desperation and visual appeal, any grifter would be crazy not to pass this opportunity up.

There was a point in my life in my late 20’s where I was sick with a mystery illness for over a year and no test, health care provider, or online rabbit hole was helping. I can admit that in my own desperation, I brought celery juice into the mix. By that point, I was open to trying anything, and this was when celery juice was making its debut. I was drinking it per the grifter’s exact recommendations and had high hopes. After all, it was being sold as a cure for everything from Type 2 Diabetes to digestive conditions (that’s me!) to Bipolar. After a few weeks, what did it help? Nothing. But, to be fair, what did it hurt? Also nothing, except maybe my taste buds. I’ve never licked the inside of a lawn mower bag after a fresh mow, but that’s the vibe it gives.

SO, SHOULD I DRINK CELERY JUICE?

If you genuinely want to drink or keep drinking celery juice, I say go ahead. The only thing I’ll give it is that celery juice is a grift that’s not especially harmful or expensive. How refreshing (-_-). My only request is that you see it for what it is: not a cure, not a magic bullet, not a quick fix. Rather, a modern day glass of snake oil that has made yet another grifter rich and the wellness industry even more questionable.