Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Cleanses


Fad cleanses:

There is a new old thing out there called a cleanse. Now, traditionally, people would do a cleanse before a sacred ceremony or vision quest, etc. Now, it is still used for those purposes but it is also used to cleanse the body of  mostly water weight as well as the removal of toxins. There are some reasonable ones  that require eating only vegetables or apples for 3 days and then there are ones that involve only drinking a drink that consists of lemon, maple syrup and cayenne pepper.  How do I know this? Well, a previous class was on student health and we did a project on cleanses. The prof thought it would be a good idea to give us all a sample of what they drank and only drank for a week straight.  It looked rather gross - kind of like I would imagine would happen if you drank no liquids for a week, hung out in the Phoenix desert  and then peed in a cup and sprinkled dirt on top. It tasted all right - the lemon and honey was an ok taste but the spice burned the inside of my mouth and throat. It made me want to gag, but I couldn’t because every time I breathed in, it burned. Apparently,  it's all the rage in Hollywood, and the nutritional facts can be found on just cleansing though it sounds all fancy and safe, but it doesn't tell you how long you should do it. Somehow, only drinking this “drink” doesn't sound all that healthy.

Other cleanses are often promoted to help you lose weight and look great but it's very important to see the larger picture - they didn't invent the Canadian food guide for nothing. And the Vancouver Sun has a great article on three of the most popular cleanses out there, that discusses not only their benefits but also what they lack.

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