About the Cleansing Diet

How it Works

Any cleansing diet attempts to eliminate toxins from the body through food and drink designed to release accumulated waste from the organs of the body, especially the liver. Most cleansing diets rely heavily on liquids. Others are essentially liquid fasts. Still others incorporate herbs thought to help cleanse the body, such as senna, slippery elm, burdock root, black walnut, milk thistle and cascara sagrada. Since food and drink are severely restricted and calories are low, cleansing diets often result in weight loss although that is not their primary goal.

Among the mildest of the cleansing diets is a 24-hour cleanse. This usually includes fruit, raw or lightly steamed vegetables, brown rice, protein in the form of tofu or nuts, and a large amount of water. A three-day cleanse based on this well-balanced diet is also popular and free from harsh effects. The grapefruit diet is another mild cleansing diet which has been popular for decades and involves beginning each meal with grapefruit. The cabbage soup diet makes room for the addition of fruit and dairy and meat and is generally well tolerated for as long as a week.

Some cleansing diets rely on prolonged regimens that severely restrict what you can consume as nourishment. These more severe cleansing diets may be in the form of a fast, a liquid diet of water and/or fruit and vegetable juice. The Master Cleanse Diet is among the most extreme of the cleansing diets, relying exclusively on lemon juice, maple syrup, salt, herbal tea, cayenne pepper and water. Some cleansing diets advocate the use of laxatives, enemas and colonic irrigation to assist in the detoxification process.

Many alternative doctors are advocates of cleansing diets. Other doctors, while not in favor of an extreme or prolonged regimen, believe that cleansing diets point its users in the right direction, toward drinking more water and eating more fruits and vegetables. There is a lot of skepticism among mainstream medical doctors regarding the concept of detoxification that underlies the cleansing diet. Some doctors maintain that the body comes armed with systems to detoxify itself, including the gastrointestinal tract, the kidneys and the liver, and that the whole idea of detoxification is "junk science." While advocates of fasting claim that even a prolonged fast can be healthy, fasting can cause the loss of vitamins and minerals and put the body's systems under strain.

For those diagnosed with health problems, cleansing diets can be dangerous. Even if you're free of health problems, it's always a good idea to consult with your doctor before embarking on a new diet, and especially one of the more radical cleansing diets.