Holidays are a great time to indulge, so it’s no surprise that as we enter the New Year health becomes a top priority.
But sometimes we feel we need more than simple goals like working out regularly and drinking less.
We feel like we need to cleanse our bodies of the excesses we’ve devoured, of what cleansing-fans call, vaguely, “toxins.”
That need to purify ourselves explains the appeal of the juice cleanse, a program that involves subsisting on crushed and pureed fruits and vegetables for a few days.
These programs are so appealing that they bring the companies that make them quite a bit of money too. With costs for these programs ranging between $20 and $70 a day, they make up a big portion of the more than $60 billion a year weight loss industry.
There’s just one big problem with the idea that a juice cleanse is the right way to transform yourself, shaking off the old year to begin anew. There’s no scientific evidence that a juice cleanse is worth it.
Juicing is marketed primarily on three ideas: First, because you are just consuming fruits and vegetables, it must be healthier than other diets. Second, because there are caloric restrictions, you will lose weight. And third, something about the “cleanse” helps remove “toxins” from your body.
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But the thing is, we don’t need a juice cleanse for any of that.
Eating more fruits and vegetables is certainly healthy and is something that we should all do. But the process of juicing actually removes much of the fiber from fruits and vegetables, turning them into sugar boosts that don’t come with the same benefits of actually eating plants. By turning them into juice, we make them less healthy.
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