Bill Maher: Juice or Die

The new "hey, we're just trying to sell magazines" Rolling Stone with the permanently Deactivated Christina Aguilera on the cover also has a feature story on politically-minded comedian Bill Maher. The legendary toker has become obsessive about his health and diet, writes Mark Binelli.

Maher, in the kitchen, begins washing fruits and vegetables — spinach, ginger, beets, carrots, celery, an apple — for his daily juicing. "It's not a cheeseburger," he says as he loads the produce into an industrial-size juicer. "But it doesn't taste that bad. I always tell people who refuse to even try it, 'Well, OK, then die.' If I ever write a diet book, that's going to be the title: Then Die."

Maher sips his juice directly from a large metal receptacle that could be used to mix a milkshake. "You know, in this country, they make zillions selling you poisoned food and zillions more selling the antidote in the pharmacy."

I couldn't agree more with Maher's take on the diet of most Americans, but my experience with a juicer several years back involved paying $100 for "The Juiceman" juicer from the infomercial guy with the white, squirrel-sized eyebrows, laying down $100 more for a shopping cart full of fruit and vegetables, and extracting about three glasses of bitter carrot-beet-orange juice from all that produce. Then I spent an hour cleaning the juicer. Damn you, Jay Kordich!