If 2018 – in superfood terms – was the year of the green smoothie, the Buddha bowl and the golden latte, 2019 is shaping up to be the year of celery juice.

Celery what?

Yes, celery juice, you heard it right. Still don’t believe me? Check your Instagram feed, where the nascent hashtag #celeryjuice already has more than 74,000 posts and counting.

The man who started the celery juice hype, or ‘Global Celery Juice Movement’ as it is formally known, is ‘Medical Medium’ Anthony William, the New York Times best-selling author, who claims celery juice can save your life.

“I could go on and on about the benefits of celery juice for all manner of ills – mental, physical, spiritual, emotional,” says the Medical Medium, a moniker that refers to his medical background. “Celery juice is alkalising, enzyme-rich, electrolyte-enhancing, liver-repairing, blood-sugar-balancing, antiseptic, and more.”

Williams claims he was born with “the unique ability to converse with Spirit, who provides extraordinarily accurate health information that’s often far ahead of its time”. A skill he discovered after allegedly diagnosing his grandmother with lung cancer when he was just four years old, before medical doctors eventually did so. While that might not sound overly legitimate to you (or me), the Medical Medium has a community of 1.4 million followers on Instagram, and celebrity endorsements from Sylvester Stallone, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert De Niro and Naomi Campbell.

Williams claims drinking one large glass of celery juice first thing in the morning on an empty stomach will calm inflammation, detoxify the liver and kidneys, hydrate the body, aid digestion, reduce bloating and support the nervous system, thereby reducing anxiety, depression, brain fog, stress and other related conditions.

While health trends come and go as frequently as Australian prime ministers, this particular silver bullet sounded too good to dodge. Plus, health kicks that focus on adding healthy foods rather than deprivation and adherence to impossible crazy regimens make more sense for longevity. What did I have to lose? So, I dusted off my juicer, relegated to the back of the cupboard to make room for my blender in 2018, aka year of the smoothie.

Whether or not the vivid concoction in my glass (I mix it with a squeeze of fresh lime juice and serve it over ice to cut through some of the grassy celery-ness) was actually doing me any good, I certainly felt (and still do) terribly virtuous imbibing all that green goodness before my morning coffee (or Bloody Mary, depending on the day of the week). Refreshing, hydrating, cleansing… the clean-living adjectives were rolling off my tongue in-between sips, and whether there’s any science to it – which we will get onto next – that feel-good placebo effect was in full force.

Sydney-based clinical dietitian Ali Grattan-Smith says celery is a great low-calorie snack containing fibre, folate, vitamin K and the antioxidants you would find in any other vegetables. “It’s in my weekly shop, but do I juice it? No,” says Grattan-Smith.

“There is currently no large body of scientific evidence that shows celery juice would have a significant impact on those health claims,” she continues. While Grattan-Smith is not part of the Global Celery Juice Movement, she says increasing your vegetable intake is always a good thing, as is increasing hydration, and that vegetable juices are useful for those who can’t or won’t eat vegies. (She warns against drinking too much fruit juice, for its high sugar content – “a piece of fruit is a better option; it’s a wholefood complete with fibre, and much harder to overdo your intake”.)

What about the bloating and hydration claims, I ask. “If you have a big glass of anything first thing in the morning, be it celery juice, water or warm water with a squeeze of lemon, you’ll be more likely to kickstart your digestive system, and therefore be less bloated,” explains Grattan-Smith. “That alone will probably make you feel good.”

The clinical dietitian comes from a field of evidence-based research, but she says she is open to a glass of celery juice a day because it is not replacing a balanced diet in the way Atkins filled us to the brim with bacon and Paleo had us drowning in coconut oil. “If you feel better, there’s nothing wrong with the placebo,” she says. And that’s sweet music to my ears, if only I could hear it over the roar of the juicer at 8am.