Autumnequinox · September 22–23, 2026 · Founding cycle
Two days. One fixed date. A promise you can't reschedule.
Join the founding Fresh Start: two days of juice pressed from produce grown near you, done on the same dates by everyone taking part. The protocol and the regional sourcing guide are free.
Dates set by the solstices and equinoxes · produce sourced within your own region · next cycle September 22–23, 2026
What you get
By the end of the cycle, you will have done four real things
Not a feeling, not a number on a scale. Four things you either did or didn't.
01
Found food grown near you
A yard, a no-spray CSA, a farm stand, or a neighbour with too many cucumbers. You will know where it came from.
02
Learned one grower's name
Most people cannot name a single person who grows food in their region. After this you can.
03
Found out what is actually in season
Not what the supermarket stocks year-round. What your own region is genuinely producing this week.
04
Kept two days you didn't choose
The date was fixed before you arrived and can't be moved to suit you. That is the whole point of it.
Not a detox. That's the point.
Fresh Start does not flush toxins, reset your metabolism, or meaningfully change your body composition in two days. Your liver and kidneys handle the first one continuously and don't need our help.
It is a seasonal practice: local food, a fixed date, a shared constraint, a promise kept. This industry has made enough claims it can't support. We would rather give you a reason that's true.
It is also not a weight-loss program. Two days doesn't meaningfully change body composition, and anything you lose comes back with your first real meal. If that's why you're here, this is the wrong tool.
Press circles
Don't make this harder by doing it alone
The intended version is two or more people sharing sourcing, equipment, preparation, and the difficult middle of the second afternoon. Join on your own, then bring one person in.
This isn't for everyone.
Two days of juice only is a real change to how your body is fuelled, and for some people it genuinely isn't safe — including anyone on insulin, anyone with kidney disease, and anyone with a history of disordered eating. Read the list before you commit. It takes thirty seconds.
The whole protocol fits on one page. Most of the work happens in the two weeks before the date, not during it.
01
Find your food
Start two weeks out. Walk your yard, call a CSA, find the farm stand that doesn't spray. Our regional guide tells you what's actually in season where you are.
02
Get a press
Borrow one first — someone near you owns a juicer they used twice. No juicer at all? A blender and a straining bag works, and costs nothing you don't have.
03
Press and drink
Five pressings a day plus as much water as you want. Drink it fresh, compost the pulp, and plan two quiet days. This isn't the weekend to move house.
04
Come back slowly
Day three matters as much as the two before it. Soup, cooked vegetables, something fermented. A full day before you return to how you normally eat.
We didn't pick these days and we can't move them. They're the two solstices and two equinoxes — the moments the sun changes direction — which means Fresh Start lands on the same days for everyone, everywhere, without anyone organising it.
Turning point
Fresh Start runs
From today
Each cycle runs the turning point and the day after. Dates are US-local and can shift by a day depending on where you are — the pamphlet confirms the exact window for your longitude.
Find your produce
The part that actually stops people
We think most people who do not finish will not stop during the two days — they will stop two weeks earlier, when they cannot work out where unsprayed local produce comes from. That is a hypothesis, not a finding: nobody has run a cycle yet. So we built the guide first.
Regional guide
What's in season near you
Nine regions, four seasons each, with the produce that will actually be at market on the date — plus what to ask a grower about their spray programme, in words you can say out loud.
Juicing eats more produce than anyone expects. Tell the calculator how many people are doing it with you and it returns pounds, pressings, a cost range, and a mix that tastes like something.
The honest ranking of every way to get juice out of a vegetable, starting with the free ones. A blender and a straining bag will get you through your first cycle perfectly well.
Everyone doing this is doing it on the same two days.
Join the next cycle
Join the founding cycle
The pamphlet arrives now. After that you get the handful of practical checkpoints that actually get people to the date — source your produce, clear the days, stage your kit — and then silence until the next turning point. No drip sequence, no upsells, one click to leave.
You're in — now make it real
Three things, and the first two take a minute. People who do them finish; people who don't, mostly don't.
01
Claim the dates
Put the two days in your calendar now, before something else takes them.
02
Bring one person
The second afternoon is much easier with someone else in the room, and pressing for two is barely more sourcing than for one.
Fresh Start came out of two bodies of work that had been circling the same idea from opposite directions.
Patrick Nienaber
Co-founder
Patrick is an OIF combat veteran and a doctoral candidate at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where his research examines microdosing as a potential intervention for combat-related PTSD. He founded Psychedelic Vets and leads the Microdosing Vets study as principal investigator.
Ben designs and installs food forests, edible landscapes, and regenerative gardens across Charleston and the Lowcountry through Permanent Yield. He grew up spending weekends at the nursery with his family, worked through conventional farms, organic farms, and hydroponic research looking for a better way for people and land to meet, and found it in permaculture.
Permaculture Design Certificate
Regenerative & biodynamic design, Charleston SC
Featured in the Post & Courier and Charleston City Paper
Not in the sense that word is usually sold. Your liver and kidneys detoxify continuously and no food or drink meaningfully accelerates that. What this is: two days of nothing but fresh local produce, done on a fixed date alongside other people. We think that's worth doing on its own terms and we'd rather describe it accurately than dress it up.
What if I don't own a juicer?
Borrow one — start by asking on a neighbourhood group or at your CSA pickup, because juicers are the single most under-used appliance in North America. Failing that, a blender and a nut-milk bag or a doubled square of muslin will do the job. It's messier and takes longer, and it works. Full comparison here.
Does the produce really have to be local?
It's the point, not a rule we enforce. Nobody is checking. But sourcing within your own region is what turns this from a diet into an education — it's how you learn that your area has a September, and it's how you end up on first-name terms with someone who grows food. If genuinely local isn't possible this cycle, do it anyway with what you can get and fix the sourcing next time.
Why does the date matter so much?
Because a date you can move is a date you will move. The solstices and equinoxes are fixed by the earth's tilt, which means nobody has to organise this, nobody has to be persuaded, and everyone doing it is doing it at the same time. That last part turns out to matter more than anything else about the protocol.
How many people are doing this?
The next cycle is the founding one — Fresh Start is new, and we're not going to invent a number to make it look otherwise. Founding participants create the first record, and we'll publish it honestly after the equinox. If you want to see other people's results before committing, the winter solstice is your cycle.
What's the money for?
Right now, nothing — there is no way to pay us and nothing to buy. Signing up costs an email address. Later, hosting and printing will be covered by sponsors and by affiliate links on equipment, and if we ever add a way to chip in it will be optional and it will be clearly separate from taking part. How partnership works.
Can I do it with other people?
That's the intended version, and a pair is the version we'd start with. Sourcing for two is barely more work than for one, and the second afternoon is much easier with someone else in the room — though washing, pressing and cleanup do scale, whatever anyone tells you. The calculator on the sourcing page goes up to twenty.
Where this actually stands
This is the founding cycle
Fresh Start has no testimonials because nobody has completed a public cycle yet. September is the first one.
Founding participants create the first record: what people pressed, where the produce came from, what went wrong, what helped, and whether they'd do it again. We'll publish those results after the equinox without inflating them.
Both founders are doing the cycle themselves and will post their own sourcing beforehand — the farm, the produce list, the equipment, the cost.
