Recently, a follower of mine on Instagram messaged me and told me that her husband had bought a juice cleanse. She told me that she’d tried her hardest to convince him not to do it, but he wouldn’t listen to anything she said. She was super frustrated, and I get it: seeing someone you care about throw money at pseudoscience IS frustrating!
She sent me the link to the juice cleanse company’s site to look at, and even though I have seen juice cleanses before, this one made my blood pressure rise what felt like 100 points. It was a fucktangle of the most far-fetched lies I have ever seen.
What they were saying their cleanses could do was utter nonsense. And they wrapped it all up in this emotion-grabbing rags to riches family-owned business story with the underlying message of how much they care about you health, not you money.
Total bullshit. If they don’t care about money, then give the juice away for free! Yeah. Nope.
Juice cleanses are basically starvation diets. Drinking only juice for days on end does nothing for your body or your relationship with food. These cleanses were created out of baseless pseudoscience, and nobody has ever proven their efficacy for anything at all. Well, except clearing out your wallet and making total charlatans rich AF.
You probably know that I’ve spoken out against juice cleanses pretty much since they’ve become popular. And I feel like most of us understand that cleansing isn’t necessary. So why are people still buying them?
I have a few theories about that, and all of them can be demonstrated with word for word quotes from this juice company’s website. Be prepared to be astounded and the level of nonsense you’re about to encounter.
Here’s the lies the juice cleanse companies are telling, and why we’re falling for them:
Doing a juice cleanse comes with inherent rights to brag about your accomplishment.
There’s a sick cache in being able to say that you’ve done a cleanse. Having the ‘willpower,’ as well as the money to afford one (a 10-day cleanse is almost $200) makes some people really proud.
Wasting your money and starving yourself for no reason at all is nothing to be proud of, and starving yourself is not an accomplishment. Telling people otherwise is sickening and malevolent.
Periodic cleansing is a great way to reboot your body and restore your energy.
Nope. It’s a great way to zap your energy, since you’ll feel like shit from starving yourself. And what’s this ‘reboot’ thing? Your body isn’t an IPhone you can reset to factory settings. It’s a fucking living, breathing thing that doesn’t need to be rebooted. It needs to be treated properly, and that includes nourishing it, not withholding food from it.
A 3 day cleanse is probably the optimal duration for natural detoxification.
Is that why they sell a 10-day cleanse, too?
Detoxification is a figment of the wellness industry’s imagination ‘Natural detoxification’ comes from breathing, peeing, and pooing, not from drinking juice that ironically, looks like sewage water. Your body detoxifies itself just fine on its own.
It’s one of the best ways to rest your system after over-indulgence or neglect.
The ‘your system/organs need a rest’ thing is a popular lie that wellness companies like to tell people, because it’s a way to create fear out of ignorance. Most people don’t know how their bodies work, so telling them that their essential organs are tired out sounds like something that needs immediate attention. It’s like high-pressure sales. Juice cleanse now, because YOUR EXHAUSTED BODY MIGHT GIVE OUT ON YOU!!!
We know how it feels to be exhausted after a long day, but we can’t extrapolate that feeling to our internal organs. They’re meant to keep working 24/7. They don’t pant and sweat and tire out just because. It’s just not a thing.
Also: not feeding yourself is a form of neglect, wouldn’t you say?
Replacing a few meals or snacks each day with a fresh juice will help you feel lighter.
Throwing a bit of morality into their sales pitch to give the image of virtuosity, of pureness, cleanliness, and health. But it’s all meaningless garbage.
Juicing doesn’t ‘clean’ your body. Your intestines aren’t like a clogged sewer pipe that needs to be flushed out. A lot of cleanse companies say disgusting shit like how we have 10 pounds of waste sitting in our intestines, which is completely outrageous and untrue. But telling people that their bodies are dirty is a great way to get them to buy your product that supposedly ‘cleans’ them.
Despite what wellness culture wants us to believe, our bodies aren’t dirty.
You’re already clean, and so are your insides.
Each cold-pressed organic juice in this package is full of healing vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and enzymes.
I love how juice companies talk about how raw foods have enzymes that are so beneficial to health.
Some foods contain digestive enzymes: Papaya and pineapple, for example. Other foods like kimchi and sauerkraut may have enzymes, but overall, any enzymes in food we eat aren’t going to significantly improve our digestion or our health. It’s not the enzymes, but the combination of everything the food contains, and definitely, your diet overall….not just during your stupid three-day juice cleanse. So while the promise of raw food ‘enzymes’ might sound all science-y and stuff, it’s a scam used by woo woo quacks.
And healing? Not so much. A juice cleanse won’t do anything to ‘heal’ your body…at least not more than a diet that’s high in whole and minimally-processed foods will.
So yeah, all of this is totally untrue.
If your goal is a long-term lifestyle change (including weight loss), this is the program for you.
Fuck that shit. There is nothing, and I repeat, NOTHING about a juice cleanse that’s long-term. It’s short-term pain for…short-term pain.
But for so many people, especially those who are tired of being on a chronic diet, the promise of a long-term lifestyle change is too good to resist. That these companies know that. CHA-CHING!
To bring your body down to a more alkaline state, cut out or significantly reduce the following acid forming foods:
- Alcohol
- Dairy
- Refined sugar
Including corn syrup, white, and powdered sugars - Animal Products
Including bacon, red meats, jerky, sausages, etc. - Caffeine
Keep coffee intake to a minimum and eliminate all sodas - Processed foods
Any boxed, canned, and bagged foods containing artificial flavoring, preservatives, and additives are considered processed
OF COURSE, no juice company website would be complete without the fuckery of the acid-alkaline hypothesis.
As you already know, nothing we eat or drink can change the pH of our body. The above foods may produce acid, but our body quickly gets rid of the excess.
We think of ‘acid’ as something harmful, like battery acid that can burn us. But that’s not the acid that our bodies contain after the metabolism of food. So while it can sound scary, the boring reality of the situation is that we are very well-equipped to handle both alkaline and acidic foods.
You cheated on your low-cal oatmeal breakfast with waffles last week. Time to get back on track! Spend 1-2 days reminding your body what it feels like to eat clean.
Reading this made me want to scream, it’s so completely off-its-ass fucked up.
Cheating. Repenting. Reminding your body about clean eating.
NONE OF THIS SHIT FUCKING TALK SHOULD BE ANYWHERE NEAR FOOD. It’s harmful and gross and WRONG.
This company wants you to feel guilty about what you’ve eaten, so you’ll buy their product.
But you shouldn’t even feel guilt or shame about food or eating.
And lastly, there’s this gem that I’ve heard far too many times before:
I’m not feeling so good, why?
You may have fallen victim to the nasty detox symptoms we mentioned earlier. These side effects include a decrease in energy, potential mood swings, and aches, among other things. Your body is working very hard to release the toxins built up inside. The severity of the symptoms all depends on the amount of toxins inside your body.
Are they out of their minds?
All of these ‘side effects’ aren’t from the toxins leaving your body. They’re happening BECAUSE YOU’RE STARVING YOURSELF.
Your body is asking for food, which is why you feel so crap.
Legitimizing the effects of starvation by attributing them to ‘toxins’ is fucking egregious and horrific. It’s dangerous and fucked up and just plain WRONG.
Listen. Juice cleanses are just not healthy, no matter what these companies say. They’re trying to make a buck in the worst possible way: by convincing people that their bodies are dirty, that they’re not working properly, that they need to be punished for nonsensical ‘transgressions’ like eating a waffle.
I hate these people and their company, and everyone else who tries to make a living by convincing people to distrust their body and fear food.
Want to read more? WTF is Celery Juice?