Story

from Jay Kordich's book, "The Juiceman's Power of Juicing" published 1992



How I Became the Juiceman

   When I was a young man in the early 1940's, I ate a lot of
meat and played a lot of football. The culmination of my
career at the University of Southern California (USC) was
the opportunity to play in the Rose Bowl. What a thrill that
was! At the time I was barely twenty years old and, with the
naivete and idealism of youth, I honestly thought I saw my
life stretching before me as football coach and athletic instructor.
How rewarding it would be to help young men learn
the value of playing hard, of sportsmanship, and of being
champions. Then, out of the blue, I became gravely ill and
the doctors told me I might not live.
   I am sure you can imagine how a young, apparently healthy man
felt with such a dire prognosis. I was devastated, depressed,
angry, terrified-but I refused to give up hope. How
could this happen? Why was my body-which, as a vigorous
athlete I practically worshipped-betraying me? I began reading
everything I could get my hands on about illness and
cures in both the conventional and alternative medical press.
When I came across some literature about a German doctor
named Max Gerson, I felt I was onto something. Dr. Gerson
had recently emigrated to the United States and was treating
patients in New York City with freshly made carrot juice and
other natural foods, an idea that appealed to me. The doctors
I had been consulting could not assure me a complete recovery,
and so I packed my bags and headed east.
   Once in Manhattan, I began a regimen of drinking thirteen
glasses of carrot -apple juice every day, beginning at 6:00 A. M.
and repeating the dosage every hour until early evening. Two
and a half years later I was a well man. But more than being
physically healthy, I was forever changed. As I regained my
health, I made a personal commitment to dedicate my life to
spreading the word about the power of juicing.
   That was nearly fifty years ago and I have not veered from
my chosen path. Now, after decades of barely getting by
financially, I have developed and marketed a commercial
juicer that bears my name, I have appeared on countless
television and radio shows, I have conducted numerous national
seminars, I have produced training videos and audiotapes-
and I have written this book.
   But how did I get from Dr. Gerson's Park Avenue clinic
in the late 1940s to writing a book about juicing in the 1990s?
It wasn't profit that motivated me, but teaching others about
juicing. As I saw it, the logical way to do this was to demonstrate
juicers to the public. Shortly after leaving the clinic
in New York and returning to my native Los Angeles, I joined
a company called the Norwalk Food Factory. It produced a
juicer endorsed by Dr. Norman Walker, a man who was to
become one of my most cherished mentors and who espoused
many of the nutritional beliefs I have adopted over the years.
I did not sell the juicer door-to-door, but instead followed
telephone leads and inquiries, demonstrating the machine in
home kitchens throughout Southern California. Many of our
customers were shut-ins who desired more healthful diets and
were intrigued by the idea of the juicer. With Dr. Walker's
informational pamphlet and my own convictions, I sold a
good number of machines. Regardless of whether I made a
sale or not, I was repeatedly gratified and excited by the
response to that first sip of carrot juice or fresh pineapple
juice. To this day. the look on someone's face as he experiences
the deliciousness of juice still awes and inspires me.
But I yearned to reach even more people, and so after a few
years and a lot of long, hard thought, I decided to switch
companies and demonstrate a less costly juicer in department
stores.