If you haven't guessed it yet, I'm suggesting that chiropractor's have 100% of their patients and all family members drink a morning alkalizing fruit and vegetable shake. The goal of the fruit and vegetable shake is two-fold, first to provide nourishment to the tissues during repair and second as Guyton suggested to "alkalize the body" to promote homeostasis. A daily fruit and vegetable shake provides convenient, easy-to-consume whole food based nutrition rich in vitamins, antioxidants and other phytonutrients. The daily fruit and vegetable shake is not a substitute for eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables every day, it simply helps bridge the gap between what patients should eat and what they actually do eat. There may be well over 1,000 different plant chemicals, known as phytochemicals, available in fruits and vegetables that may have a positive metabolic effect! Further study has shown that the fruits and vegetables that come in rich vibrant colors, like tomatoes, carrots, spinach, broccoli, blueberries and raspberries, are much more potent and beneficial than the pastel colored produce like iceberg lettuce, bananas, celery, corn and potatoes. Furthermore, certain fruits and vegetables contain greater quantities of antioxidants, fibers, probiotics, and even specific medicinal substances, the latter being especially true of many edible herbs and spices.

Super Foods

As we have become more aware of the amazing and broad spectrum of health, anti-aging, and disease preventing benefits of fruits and vegetables especially high in this "new" array of such micronutrients, a new name for them has arisen, the "super foods". The 'super foods' concept has been expanded to include foods known as fruit and vegetable shake mixes. Fruit and vegetable shakes offer many health benefits when compared to other types of food. Fruit and vegetable shakes are typically a superlative health food because they usually contain a wide variety of phytonutrients including vitamins, minerals, proteins, essential fatty acids, flavonoids, carotenoids and other substances that together exhibit antioxidant, detoxifying, anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial benefits.

Positioning In Your Practice

Fruit and vegetable shakes are different from mainstream vitamin and mineral supplements because they are not synthetic nor are they isolated compounds, they are whole food sources of nutrition. They are the base of the food chain and, therefore, the source of optimal nutrition. They are nature's multivitamin/mineral supplement providing these essential nutrients in a form that is both safe and effective for the body. It's very important to position your fruit and vegetable shake as "not" being a vitamin, but a unique whole food based nutritional drink. When you successfully differentiate your fruit and vegetable shake from traditional vitamin supplements you will be able to build a large and growing repeat month-to-month customer base as a result. The "S.A.D." fact remains in spite of all the support from mainstream medical organizations few patients eat the recommended servings of brightly colored fruits and phytochemical-dense deep green vegetables daily. Even counting the "pale" plant foods like French fries, green-gassed bananas and iceberg lettuce, we still don't achieve the minimum!

The reasons for this lack are many and varied, and deeply ingrained in our American culture and lifestyle, though it can no longer be accounted to ignorance. What is needed is an educational initiative on the subject, as well as a joint effort by all healthcare providers to make their patients aware of the benefits of fruits and vegetables. The intent of this article is to help chiropractors know they can quickly and easily help their patients bridge their fruit and vegetable nutritional gap by consuming a super food fruit and vegetable shake. Our S.A.D. choices in food must change. Education, our support and the new advances in fruit and vegetable shakes are the keys.

Use A Proven System

Just as important as the quality of the fruit and vegetable shake you offer is the business model you follow to support it. You need to focus on building a small but steady, profitable business behind a high quality, brand name fruit and vegetable shake you can trust, that provides you a proven business operating system that can easily be implemented into your practice. Here are a few key implementation concepts to plan on to maximize success.

Displays

It's important to promote the use of your fruit and vegetable shake to all patients. The best way to accomplish this is to place a display of the products along with brochures and free foil sample packs at the front desk and possibly in all adjusting rooms. Work with a fruit and vegetable manufacturer that will supply you free of charge the items you need to promote the products.

Communicate the Health Benefit

By far the best way to communicate the importance of using a daily fruit and vegetable shake is by connecting the use of the shake to a simple lifestyle program. Use a simple one-page lifestyle questionnaire that takes patients 1-2 minutes to fill out and takes you even less time to review. An effective questionnaire will help position the patient on the use of the fruit and vegetable shake long before you even need to say a word. Use a fruit and vegetable product manufacturer that has such a questionnaire that has been used by hundreds of doctors before you, along with a simple script that you can read once or twice and make it your own. In addition, you will save a lot of time and help more patients if you also use a company that has a lifestyle program for you to use that includes a lifestyle program book that you can either give to the patient free when they purchase the product from you or that they can download free from your practice website.