I was chatting with my dad on the phone.  He was making sure my family was okay with the pending hurricane.  Thankfully, we were.  Nearly 6.5 million people lost power, and we weren’t one of them.  My four-year-old son that morning sang, out of the blue, “He’s got the whole world in His hands.”  I didn’t even know he knew the song.  And then he busted out with the second verse,  “He’s got the wind and rains in his hands…”  Wow.

At the end of the call with my dad I mentioned I was starting a fast on Monday.  “Be careful with that detoxing,” my dad warned.  “What do you mean by that?” I inquired,”  Turns out dad didn’t think it was safe.  “People do water fasts all the time,” I told my dad.  The Bible in fact encourages fasting¹.  For spiritual reasons.  And if people are fine after multiple days of drinking just water, surely I’ll fair even better since I’m also drinking freshly squeezed lemons.  Organic at that.  Plus maple syrup.  Also organic.  Plenty of water.  And cayenne pepper.  These are all ingredients of the Master Cleanse. I’ve blogged on it before.  Also here’s a nice video I found that gives a good, honest overview of the cleanse.

I went on to tell my dad that I haven’t detoxed in two years.  It’s something I try to do at least once a year.  So in my mind, I was way overdue.  And my theory is that it’s something that more people in the black culture need to know about.  You see, it seems to me that detoxing is a lot more common practice in other cultures, primarily Asian and Caucasian cultures.  Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that black men have a higher death rate.  And black men get specific illnesses more than any other race.

Think about it. God didn’t design our bodies to eat all the preservatives we do.  Gluten. Or high fructose corn syrup. And other manmade stuff we consume that isn’t best for our bodies.  Nor were we intended to inhale pollution or cleaning chemicals or hair dyes and other things we do.  And the best way to get rid of these “toxins” is to detox.

To some extent “it’s a shame” that we even have to detox these days.  Because our bodies wouldn’t even require detoxing if we didn’t do all the harm to them that we do in today’s society.  God built our bodies perfectly and wonderfully.  And our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.  Yet, we put stuff in it that was never intended.  I believe it wasn’t intended for bodies to be so immobile either.  Sitting at desks all day in front of computers.  Or sitting in cars driving around.  We were built to be mobile.  That’s why regular exercise is so important.

I’m not so sure my dad “received” my explanation.  There’s two dynamics here.  Sometimes parents don’t “receive” information from their children.  After all, parents are the experts, right?  And secondly, to some extent, he’s right.  People abuse good things like “detoxing.”  He may have read stories about people overdoing it.  Or read articles about how “bad” the Master Cleanse is for the body.  Plenty of those articles surfaced when Beoncye did the Master Cleanse some years back.  The thing is, Beyonce did it as a diet, for weight lost.  While people lose weight with the Master Cleanse, the primary goal is to detox.

So yeah, people probably do the cleanse for the wrong reasons.  Or they don’t do it right.  With everything we must exercise wisdom.  I agree with the hundreds of YouTubers who report great results after cleansing.  Think about it.  For 3-10 days or more (I usually only do five days), your digestive track gets to rest.  You’re doing nothing but drinking water all day long to flush it out.  The cleanse also involves laxative teas and a salt water flush in the mornings, too.   Plus the “lemonade potion” which gives you strength and helps to flush out body organs.  The maple syrup, Grade B, has the nutrients the body needs to maintain. And the cayenne pepper has two key vitamins plus helps the body rid mucus.  Lemons and limes are full of Vitamin C. You can read the details of all of this in the book, “The Master Cleanse,” by Steve Burroughs.  A quick, easy read.

The body is amazing, too.  Once it’s not busy digesting food, it begins to rebuild and repair itself.  This is why a person can not eat for days and still have bowel movements.   Because the body eliminates build-up that has been trapped inside that doesn’t otherwise have the opportunity to come out.  The ingredients in the cleanse helps loosen this stuff up.  Mucus.  Impacted feces. Some even say pesticides.  Yuck.  But also toxins and other poisons.  In addition to losing weight, people with acne say it clears up.  People with weird illnesses or pains (knee pain, join pain, etc) say the cleanse helps to clear it up.  I even know at least one person personally who did the Master Cleanse and juice fasting who was able to conquer cancer.

Fasting also gives us a chance to exercise some self-discipline.  It’s not easy. Trust me, I’ve thought about all my favorite foods at least once, LOL.  It’s particularly hard when I have to fix food for my toddler or smell the delicious foods my hubby is cooking.  He normally does the cleanse with me, but he’s already engaged in intermittent fasting now along with his exercise regimen and doesn’t want to break it since it is yielding him excellent results.  He couples intermittent fasting with daily workouts.  Sometimes P90X, sometimes Insanity or Athlean X, or lifting weights or the treadmill.  He gets it in!  One of the cool things about the Master Cleanse is that it gives you energy and it’s perfectly fine todo your normal activities, like go to work.  Or exercise.  Countless YouTubers attest to the extra energy they feel.  Usually by day three.

DISCLAIMER:  As with anything, if you decide to try a cleanse, be sure to do your research and even run it by your doctor if possible.  Although  I would imagine many doctors would have the same reaction my dad did.  Many professionals in the medical profession are more into administering medicines than to advocate God’s natural ways of staying healthy.  One doctor even told me once that “herbs” do nothing for me.   I sometimes take Echinacea or drink different herb teas.  This may be one reason the Bible says to consider the multitude of counsel   Emphasis on multitude.  No one person’s counsel should be taken to the bank.  Get the counsel verified by one or more persons.  And when possible, get it confirmed even further through prayer or God’s Word.