“If you obey nature’s laws, then you can be born again,” says Jack La Lanne, the godfather of fitness. “What are nature’s laws? Exercise and nutrition. Juicing is a vital part of a healthy lifestyle.”

Still not convinced? There are many obvious reasons—and some you may never have thought of—to juice your way to better nutrition.

Get Vita-Specific
Sure, you can take vitamins in pill form, but you can also increase your intake of specific vitamins and minerals in an instant with fresh juice. Carrot juice offers beta-carotene; blackberry juice contains potassium; and, of course, orange juice is jam-packed with vitamin C.

Improve Digestion
Juices contain digestive enzymes that work to break down old food debris in your digestive tract while other juice nutrients regenerate the glands and organs responsible for digestion. Juices revitalize digestive excretions, strengthen muscle action and give your body the ability to absorb nutrients more efficiently. Improving digestion improves your overall health and gives you more energy.

Fight Deadly Diseases
Fresh juices contain phytochemicals, substances in plants that are linked to good health and prevention of certain deadly diseases. Phytochemicals are found in fruits and vegetables, and juicing is a quick way to get a healthful dose.

Lose Weight Without Cravings
If you’re trying to lose weight and you stay hungry all the time, it could be because you’re lacking essential vitamins and minerals that can be lost by cooking food. Drink ing juice replenishes those elements so you can eat less, save calories and lose weight. Drinking fresh juice can also satisfy a sweet tooth and eliminate food cravings.

Rev Up Your Metabolism
Too tired to exercise? Get an energy boost with some fresh juice, and get moving. Increasing your activity will rev up your metabolism so you can burn more calories.

Cut the Caffeine
Caffeine strips your body of much-needed minerals. Replace the morning cuppa joe with fresh juice, and get a natural eye-opener that really gets your body going.

Enjoy Healthful Sugars
Believe it or not, there are such things as healthful sugars, and juices contain them. Unlike refined sugars found in candy and desserts, these simple sugars bring energy in a nutritious way.

Proactive Protein
Who says you need fatty proteins to build muscle? If you combine brewer’s yeast, wheat germ or whole grains with your freshly squeezed juice, then you can enjoy a high-protein snack that your body absorbs quickly.

What About Water?
Juicing can help you get those eight daily glasses of water that you’ve been meaning to drink. Fruits and vegetables contain a large percentage of water that we need to flush out toxins and stay healthy.

Transform Eating Habits
Once you begin to enjoy the nutritional benefits of juicing, you’ll be inspired to transform your eating habits for a lifetime. It just gets better from here.

The following product safety recall was voluntarily conducted by the firm in cooperation with the CPSC. Consumers should stop using the product immediately unless otherwise instructed.

Name of Product: Electric Contact Grills

Units: About 13,500

Retailers: QVC Inc., of West Chester, Pa., and Tristar Products Inc., of Fairfield, N.J.

Hazard: Cooking oils or sprays applied to the grill’s cooking plates before preheating can cause the oil to ignite and/or flare up. Cooking sprays can ignite and/or flare up if used on the grill at any time.

Incidents/Injuries: QVC and Tristar have received five reports of the grill igniting or flaring up, including two reports of minor burns.

Description: This recall involves a dual surface electric contact grill sold under the “Hulk Hogan’s Ultimate Grill” brand. The grills are silver/gray in color, have removable cooking plates, a cassette to catch drippings, and fold for storage or transport. Model number PZ-3012 is printed on a silver label attached to the back of the grills.

Sold by: QVC through its television station, Web page, toll-free number, outlet, and its employee, retail and Studio stores; | and through Tristar’s Web site www.hulkhogangrill.com, and a direct response television commercial from May 2007 through August 2007 for about $100.

Manufactured in: China

Remedy: Consumers should immediately stop using cooking oils on the grill prior to preheating. Cooking sprays should not be used on the grill at anytime. Consumers will receive a revised instruction manual with a cooking spray/oil use warning. QVC has sent warning notices to consumers to whom it sold the product directly. Tristar will do the same.

Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact QVC at (800) 367-9444 between 7 a.m. and 1 a.m. ET daily, or visit the company’s Web site at www.qvc.com. Consumers who purchased the grill from Tristar can call (800) 718-5135 between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, or visit the company’s Web site at www.tristarproductsinc.com.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types of consumer products under the agency’s jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $800 billion annually. The CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard. The CPSC’s work to ensure the safety of consumer products – such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters, and household chemicals – contributed significantly to the decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years.

To report a dangerous product or a product-related injury, call CPSC’s hotline at (800) 638-2772 or CPSC’s teletypewriter at (800) 638-8270 or visit CPSC’s Web site at www.cpsc.gov/talk.html. Consumers can obtain this release and recall information at CPSC’s Web site at www.cpsc.gov.

20 years ago, Tristar Products, Inc. revolutionized the direct response market. From the AbRoller, to the Banjo Minnow, to the Power Juicer and Genie Bra, Tristar’s team is dedicated to successful innovation and the wellness of its customers.

Tristar also features a state-of-the-art studio. Located just 25 minutes from mid-town Manhattan, our 65,000 sq. ft. studio is the ideal production destination on the east coast. We also feature a range of solutions for a full-service marketing and sales strategy. Retail sales and international distribution, packaging and website design, a social media presence, and quality customer service are just some of those services that have earned Tristar numerous awards.

In its October 2009 issue, Response announced and spotlighted the three finalists and winner of the inaugural Direct Response Marketing Alliance (DRMA) Marketer of the Year Award. In the November 2009 issue, we began spotlighting the other seven top nominees in a monthly section. This month, we caught up with Keith Mirchandani, president and CEO of Fairfield, N.J.-based Tristar Products Inc.

For 17 years, Tristar has been a leading DR product marketer. Under Mirchandani’s direction, perhaps its biggest product has been the Jack LaLanne Power Juicer, which debuted in 2001. With more than 5 million units sold, the Juicer is one of the industry’s legendary winners, and was part of the company’s push to support awareness of Ovarian Cancer in 2009. At the same time, the company began using a “talkmercial” format for its long-form shows, featuring Emmy winner Montel Williams.

Q: What does it mean to you and your company to be one of the top 10 nominees for the DRMA Marketer of the Year Award?

A: I felt very honored to be nominated by my peers in the industry and that Tristar has been able to come up with such great products and be successful with them. I get motivated by watching my peers do well! I do hope to win next time.

Q: What was the most significant accomplishment in the past year for your company?

A: As some people may know, my mother passed from ovarian cancer. I learned about the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance (OCNA) and was fortunate to get a position on its board. In October, Tristar launched the Jack LaLanne Teal Juicer at Jack’s 95th birthday party in support of ovarian cancer. As part of the function in October, we also were able to raise more than $250,000 for the OCNA. I was very proud of this accomplishment.

Q: How did the successful products you had over the past year fit within the overall concept behind your company? Were any of those products so successful that they changed the way you do business? If so, how?

A: Our Montel Williams’ Living Well HealthMaster has been very successful! We launched the HealthMaster under a new format called the “talkmercial,” and we look forward to building new brands under this new and exciting format.

Q: Why do you think your business responded well during the recent economic downturn?

A: Our business has responded well because media rates have been much lower. More people are watching TV, and national advertisers have cut their budgets, so there has been a great deal of opportunity. And with more media comes more exposure and great retail sales as well.

Q: What is your outlook for the next 12 months? What are the top items in your pipeline?

A: Our plan for this year is to continue to create more talkmercial shows with Montel Williams. As for our top items, we are fortunate to have many great programs doing well: HealthMaster, the Jack LaLanne Power Juicer, the Ab Coaster, the Banjo Minnow Fishing System, and many more.

Q: What vertical markets do you believe are best equipped to survive current economic issues — and even thrive — in 2010? Why?

A: Retail is a big part of our business. While taking advantage of reduced media rates, our retail sales have increased due to the growth and exposure of a product. We have a lot of No. 1 products in various categories out there. We also continue to see excellent growth in our international business.

Q: Does today’s consumer respond better to short-form or long-form DRTV? Which of these two formats are best supported by other media, including online, mobile, print and radio?

A: If you have a great product, that is what people are going to respond to. We are very focused on brands, and with that, long-form is a better fit. However, we have actually created a new category in direct response with our one-hour formats. We are also getting much more active in social media with plans to continue to use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others to create more awareness of our brands.

My reaction — and the reaction of other people I talked to — was “Really? He would only be 75?”

That makes him 21 years younger than fitness guru Jack LaLanne, two years younger than Elizabeth Taylor, and only eight years older than Paul McCartney.

So why does Elvis seem like he should be so much older than he is? I would bet that it’s because he spent his later years as a washed-up caricature of his former vitality. Elvis famed ’68 Comeback Special aired when he was just 33.

By comparison, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in the prime of his career, when he was still a symbol of youthful vigor and virility.

As a quick experiment, I asked a few baby boomer friends how old they though John F. Kennedy would be if he were alive today? Everyone guessed that he would be in his late 70s or early 80s. The reality? John F. Kennedy would be 93. But the image of him as a young man is what sticks in people’s minds and, consequently he seems younger than he is.

Moral of the story? If you want people to constantly think you’re younger than you are after you die, stay away from drugs and alcohol, and be a symbol of youth during your life.

1. Vegan Republicans
All-plant diets, proselytized so far mostly by PETA punks, Prius drivers, old hippies and Jack Lalanne, go mainstream. The Engine 2 diet portends the future.

2. Backlash Against the Unfit
In looks-obsessed America, it’s never been easy to be overweight. Now it’s going to get harder. The unintended consequence of ObamaCare will be a backlash against couch potatoes who drive up health care costs for the rest of us.

3. Male Osteorporosis Will Explode
Call it revenge upon the nerds, the unhappy result of sitting in front of a computer all day long, fizzy drinks at the ready.

4. Almost All Cancer Becomes Manageable
The good news about health in the 2010s is that almost all cancers will become manageable events, assuming reasonably early detection.

5. Cars With “All-Glass” Dashboards
Not only will car dashboards look like those of modern jets, each driver will be able to customize the look of the dashboard. The family Ford crossover will take on custom cockpit appearances for the teenager, for Mom and for Dad.

6. Dow Hits 36,000 Finally.

7. Taiwan Welcomes Chinese Takeover
And poses a huge military, strategic and diplomatic challenge for the U.S.

8. Moore’s Law Keeps Going
Stuff on silicon will keep improving at the pace of 2x every two years. Chips will be 64 times more powerful at the end of the decade. Little cheap embedded processors will have enormous power, too.

9. Bandwidth Progress Continues
At the pace of 3x every two years. Look for somebody pushing a terabyte per second down a single wire by mid-decade.

9. One Cloud Company (Or Another) Becomes the Most Valuable Company on Earth
Moore’s Law continues at the pace of 2x every two years. Bandwidth improves 3x every two years. These trends predict ubiquitous cloud cover for planet earth. Who will own the giant fog machine? Google? Cisco? Microsoft? Amazon? Huawei?

10. 3-D Invades the Home
Not a stretch of imagination, given the trends above. Personally, I’m looking forward to thrumming bass guitar for the Beach Boys in a 3-D version of Xbox Rock Band.

11. Smart Phones Produce New Sexual Revolution
Smart phone hookups are here and will go mainstream in the 2010s. Why did your wife just give that grocery stocker in aisle six the look?

12. Work Performance Drugs Boom
As high unemployment persists, and as nearly all of the world’s high-paying jobs are correlated to IQ and analytic processing skills, work performance drugs will boom.

13. Cosmetic Surgery Booms
Less for vanity, more for workplace competitiveness.

14. Technology Backlash Grows
It will take the form of a trendy Luddite Punk.

15. Eco-Anarchy Terrorism Waxes, Islamic Jihadism Wanes
By the end of the decade, eco-terrorism will be a greater threat than Islamic jihadism. The eco-terrorists will join forces with the Luddite Punks to form an unholy alliance that likes to blow things up.

16. Global Warming Worries Wane, Water Worries Wax
The world will regret having spent so much time debating global warming while the real ecological threat, access to cheap safe water, becomes obvious.

17. Assassinations Return to America
This is a prediction I hate to make. But I fear the trajectory of political hotheadedness in the U.S. will come to tragedy. Politicians and media bloviators will be vulnerable.

18. Woman Runs Sub Four-Minute Mile

19. African Mans Wins Tour de France

20. Canadian Dollar Worth Two American Dollars
U.S. won’t suffer hyperinflation in the 2010s, just a steady snip-snip-snip of the dollar’s value.

Post your comments below. Fire away!

“I can’t die. It would ruin my image!” quips Jack LaLanne, who at age 95 works out for two hours each morning, eats at least 10 raw vegetables and five fresh fruits a day, and preaches the merits of regular exercise and good nutrition with the same evangelistic fervor that he did at age 21 when he opened the nation’s first modern fitness club in Oakland, Calif.

Walking through one of two exercise rooms in his home in Morro Bay, Calif. (pop. 10,350), LaLanne grasps the bar on a weight machine like an old friend, explaining why he rises at 5 o’clock each morning to stretch, lift, pull and swim.

“Dying is easy. Living, you’ve got to work at,” he says. “You’ve got to have goals and challenges.”

Known as the Godfather of Fitness, LaLanne personifies the power of healthful living. He reigns over a long list of firsts in the fitness world—the first to host a nationally syndicated TV exercise show; promote weight training for athletes, women and older adults; open a coed health club; and sell vitamins and exercise equipment on television—to name a few. His reputation and celebrity have earned him both a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a lifetime achievement award from the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

His friends marvel that LaLanne continues to set the fitness standard.

“Jack will work out until he falls over and is dead, which could be 30 years from now,” says California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, 62, whom LaLanne befriended in 1968 when the two-time Mr. Universe emigrated from Austria. “I am a big fan of his, and I have the utmost respect for his opinions on health and fitness. He lives it.”

True to form, LaLanne is coming off a milestone year—celebrating more than nine decades of life, eight decades of exercising, and five decades of marriage to his wife, Elaine—all while promoting his 11th book, Live Young Forever. To LaLanne, the milestones are opportunities to spread the health and fitness message one more time.

“I live my life as an example to show people that I practice what I preach,” he says. “There are so many people still to be helped.”

Born again
LaLanne’s crusade stems from his personal transformation from a sickly, scrawny juvenile delinquent into a confident, handsome athlete, bodybuilder and businessman.

Born in San Francisco to French immigrants, LaLanne identifies his earliest friends as pies, cookies, candy and soft drinks. Living later on his grandfather’s sheep ranch in Bakersfield, Calif., he saw fresh vegetables, fruit and eggs being trucked off to markets while his family ate processed and packaged foods “that tasted good at the time.” Nutrition was not a topic at the family table.

By his teen years, LaLanne was a junk-food junkie with pimples, glasses, discolored teeth and wild mood swings that got him into fights and trouble at home and school. “I was a weak, sick, miserable kid,” LaLanne recalls with a cringe. “Even the girls would beat me up.”

At age 15, LaLanne and his mother heard nutrition pioneer Paul Bragg speak in Oakland, and his message was life-changing for the troubled teen: “If you obey nature’s laws—the foods you eat, the air you breathe—you can be born again.”

That night, LaLanne asked God for the willpower to stop eating junk food, and the next day he joined the YMCA in Berkeley, where he began wrestling classes and daily workouts. He started reading everything he could find about health and nutrition, from muscle-building magazines to medical journals and Gray’s Anatomy. At Berkeley High School, he became quarterback and captain of the varsity football team and took up the shot put, high jump and pole vaulting.

In his backyard, LaLanne began experimenting with weightlifting equipment, at first lifting concrete blocks and later purchasing weights from a local foundry. Before long, policemen and firefighters were training with him to prepare for their physicals. He graduated from chiropractic school in Oakland, then opened a health club in 1936 to focus on preventative health care. There, he designed exercise equipment, including the first leg extension machines, pulley and cable machines, and weight selectors to strengthen many of the body’s 640 muscles. “I had a piece of equipment for every part of the body,” he says.

Jumping Jack
In those days, fitness wasn’t in vogue. But as his chain of fitness centers grew, LaLanne took aim at America’s faulty perceptions about exercise. “Some people portrayed me as a nut and crackpot,” he remembers. “Doctors said that if you work out with weights, old guys will die of heart attacks, women will start to look like men, and athletes will become muscle-bound and slow. But my message was that men would become more masculine, women more feminine, and athletes stronger and faster. You feel better. You look better.”

In 1951, LaLanne was recruited to host TV’s first exercise program live at KGO-TV in San Francisco. The Jack LaLanne Show soon aired nationwide in syndication, allowing a muscular LaLanne to come into millions of homes each day and lead mostly housewives in jumping jacks and floor exercises. Looking straight into the camera, LaLanne urged his viewers to stay active, eat smart and stop smoking.

“I was their doctor, their mother, their father, their personal trainer,” says LaLanne, who was 71 when the show ended in 1985. “People wrote me for advice. They exercised with me. Without a doubt, America’s perception of fitness and health was changing.”

He also inspired a new generation of fitness experts, including Denise Austin, a guest host on LaLanne’s show in 1981, who says her mentor also is her idol.

“His approach was so simple that it was brilliant,” says Austin, 52, who went on to sell millions of her own exercise videos. “He’d use simple props like a chair and would show viewers how to use the weight of their own bodies to stay in shape. His shows were only 30 minutes, but he emphasized consistency. And he was a big proponent of good posture.”

At the TV station, LaLanne met his second wife, a co-host and producer for a local variety show. “I would come into the office with my chocolate doughnut and smoking a cigarette,” Elaine recalls. “Jack would say, ‘You should be eating apples and bananas and oranges, and I wouldn’t tell you this if I didn’t like you.’”

Not only did he convince Elaine to change her habits, the charming muscle man made a larger impression. “The more I got to know him, the more I saw that he also had brains behind all those muscles. And he was very funny,” says Elaine, now 83. The couple married in 1959, and Elaine became one of his co-hosts. They shared three children from previous marriages and later had a son together.

For decades, LaLanne used his birthdays to motivate himself and the world by setting records for chin-ups, push-ups and daring swimming feats. On his 70th birthday in 1984, he towed 70 boats carrying 70 people across Long Beach Harbor, with both hands and feet shackled.

Today, LaLanne is a motivational speaker and health advocate who says the word “fat” stands for “fatal, awful, trouble.” He urges schools to remove junk food and require physical education classes, and for companies to provide workout facilities for their workers. And to people who have let their bodies go, he offers tough talk.
“Would you give your dog a cup of coffee, a cigarette and a doughnut in the morning? Would you put garbage in your car’s gas tank? Well, why do that to the human machine? It’s killing us.”

“You make it happen!” he says, urging people to work out vigorously three times a week for 30 minutes to an hour, while adopting a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and lean meats. “The rest of your life is the best of your life! I’m living proof.”

Fitness guru Jack LaLanne has plenty to smile about for the holidays.

In addition to celebrating his 95th birthday in September, he also celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary with wife Elaine.

I’ve known this wonderful couple for years just from interviewing them, and every December, they always send me a nice Christmas card and family newsletter.

I constantly marvel at how healthy, happy and busy this man stays year after year.

Jack’s older brother Norman LaLanne, who died in September 2005, lived to be 97. As for Jack, he says: “I cannot afford to die, it will ruin my image.”

In September, he just released his latest book “Live Young Forever” (2009 Robert Kennedy Publishing $19.95) and he’s beaming about the latest edition to his popular line of power juicers that bear his name and endorsement.

The Jack LaLanne Power Juicer Express is just as powerful as its predecessors but just a bit smaller for saving on kitchen counter space. It uses the same patented extraction technology to squeeze up to 30 percent more juice than other at-home juicers, and features a no-drip spout and extra wide mouth to facilitate juicing fruits whole requiring no pre-cutting. His simple way of turning ordinary fruits and vegetables into glass after glass of what he calls “good healthy with a healthy helper” also does not require peeling or coring to remove seeds from fruits and vegetables before loading up the juicer. He just dumps everything in and the whisper-quiet juicer delivers a tasty reward with easy clean-up. The juicers also come with two cookbooks featuring more than 100 recipes. All juicers can be ordered at powerjuicer.com or (973) 287-5150.

As for LaLanne’s philosophy for good health, he encourages slowly changing bad habits into good habits.

For example, he suggests substituting whole wheat bread for the usual loaves of white sandwich bread.

He also recommends this is a great time of year, during fall apple, pear and peach harvests, to start eating fresh fruit instead of sugary store-bought desserts.

He still does regular exercise routines, which millions watched on his television show from 1951 to 1985, and he says he drinks plenty of water and eats at least 10 raw vegetables and five pieces of fresh fruit daily. He also eats fish, egg whites and high-fiber food. He urges others to also pass on caffeine, refined sugar and cigarettes.

“If man makes it, don’t eat it” is one of his favorite mottos.

By the 1980s, he also had more than 200 Jack LaLanne European Health Spas around the country. However, by the late 1980s, he licensed, and eventually sold, all his health clubs to the Bally company, which by 1995 became known as Bally Total Fitness.