Learn the truth about juice cleanses and why they aren’t the miracle for health they’re made out to be. Discover what truly supports your wellbeing.
‘Drink to health’ is a centuries-old saying. Yet, for some, it is no longer clinking glasses filled with wine but freshly squeezed organic juice.
These vegetable and fruit juice concoctions are believed to promote good health through cleansing and stimulating healing in the body. As a result, there has been an ever-increasing interest in juice cleanses.
We now have companies and online enthusiasts sharing recipes or providing juice delivery services to assist us in embarking on our own juice cleanses.
Yet, how valid are the claims of the cleansing properties of juice? Should we all be reaching for a glass of juice each day or embracing a regular practice of juice cleansing?
Let’s explore the ins and outs of juices and the proclaimed benefits of juice cleansing. Specifically, whether a juice cleanse is right for you. Whether you desire to lose weight or absolve your sins of poor eating, smoking or excessive alcohol intake.
Let’s spill it…
What is a juice cleanse?
A juice cleanse is a short-term diet that involves drinking only juice, freshly squeezed from organic fruits and vegetables with a cold-pressed juicer.
Essentially, a juice cleanse is a type of fast that can last one, three or seven days up to several weeks.
Unlike a fast, drinking juice ensures that the body is still obtaining some nutrition. The purported purpose is to clean out the digestive tract and promote detoxification.
Health claims of juice cleanses
Fresh juice is incorporated in cleanses because it is believed that you will acquire a concentrated dose of vitamins and minerals that will promote detoxification and healing of the body.
It is true that juicing concentrates the vitamins and minerals of more fruits and vegetables than you could ever imagine eating in one sitting into a single glass. However, juice is devoid of some vitamins and minerals, not to mention proteins and essential fatty acids that are vital for the proper functioning of the body.
Because juice cleanses are adopted for a short period of time, proponents of juice cleansing suggest that this is not a concern, which may be true for some healthy individuals.
Is it necessary to cleanse with juice?
Our bodies are engineered to cleanse and detoxify toxins daily through our kidneys, liver, gastrointestinal tract, skin, lungs and lymphatic system.
It is believed that by juice cleansing and reducing toxin input of alcohol, caffeine, additives and processed foods, you are giving your elimination organs a ‘rest’. Supposedly, you are providing your body with essential nutrients and clearing out your digestive system of wastes and built-up toxins.
However, is it necessary to go to the extreme of depriving yourself of food? Could it possibly cause more harm than good?
A diet by another name is still a diet
Although many proclaim to embark on a juice cleanse for good health, often, it is a guise for desired weight loss.
You don’t have to spend much time Googling to be exposed to declarations of the weight loss potential of juice cleansing. There is no shortage of inspiring stories of other people’s weight loss successes with juice cleanses.
Can juice cleanses help with weight loss?
Yes, you are likely to ‘lose weight’ on a juice cleanse.
I won’t guarantee it as many websites do, but the likelihood you will is high. What I can say with certainty, however, is that the weight you lose isn’t the weight you want to lose.
The weight lost will be mostly water, glycogen (sugar) stores in the liver and muscles and intestinal bulk. This is not what you want if weight loss is your goal!
To add insult to injury, the reduced calories you consume, the loss of water and glycogen, and subsequent muscle wastage will cause your metabolism to slow as your body’s starvation response will have kicked in. This is the exact opposite of what you want to do to your metabolism when your desire is to lose weight.
Will juice cleanses turn you into a fat-burning machine?
Some proponents declare you will become a fat-burning machine on a juice cleanse. They state that once your body is starved of its sugar stores and isn’t acquiring sufficient energy through your diet, it will start to break down fat cells for energy.
While this is true, your body breaks down fat cells. It does so at the expense of your muscles.
The body breaks down muscle to release sugars to convert fat into sugars that can be used by your brain and body. Hence, if you aren’t eating sufficient carbohydrates or protein, such as when juice cleansing or fasting, your fat burning will come at the expense of muscle wastage.
So, although you are burning fat, your metabolism hasn’t kicked into a higher gear. Your metabolism is more likely to have slowed and be cannibalising your own body to keep fueling your brain. Doesn’t sound great, hey?
The energy deficit of juice cleanses cancels out their benefits
A juice cleanse, especially one longer than 24 hours, would need to be carefully structured to ensure that the brain and body receive sufficient glucose to minimise muscle wastage.
Many proponents argue that on a juice cleanse you are supplying your brain with sufficient energy because you are obtaining natural sugars, vitamins and minerals from the juices.
However, because the total energy consumed is often very low, there is still not sufficient energy for all your body’s functions.
Your body is still deprived of energy, thus cancelling out the so-called benefits of juice cleansing.
Fresh juices can be a great supplement to a healthy diet. However, they are not a meal substitute, nor will they absolve your dietary sins.
Juice cleansing is just another form of deprivation
Just like any other diet for weight loss, the deprivation of calories on a juice cleanse potentially contributes to weight loss. However, just like when you are on a diet, this deprivation leads to immense hunger.
Experienced juice cleansers will tell you that this hunger will dissipate if you push through it. In many respects, you can.
Your body has the ability to survive through feast and famine.
In times of famine, your body sends hunger signals to the brain, letting you know that obtaining food is a priority.
However, these signals are not always on ‘high-pitch’ as attention and focus are required to obtain food.
Juice cleansing triggers your brain’s starvation mode
So, although you can endure the hunger pains experienced on a cleanse, it doesn’t mean you have overcome your cravings or food addictions. You are essentially starving.
When our energy intake is insufficient, aka when on a diet, it requires considerable mental and emotional effort not to think about or give into thoughts about foods.
When you begin eating again, immense hunger can drive overeating and rapid weight gain. In some cases, additional weight is gained than prior to the cleanse as the body re-calibrates itself.
Unfortunately, this can spur you to embrace yet another diet or cleanse, and now you are yo-yo dieting or weight cycling.
Yo-yo dieting contributes to low self-esteem and self-worth. It has been shown to raise blood cortisol (our stress hormone), promote inflammation throughout the body and increase the risk of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases (Strohacher et al., 2009).
Learn more about the impacts of yo-yo dieting and weight cycling.
Juice cleanses could be a gateway to disordered eating
Some declare that going on a juice cleanse or fast helped them overcome their food ‘addictions’ or fear of hunger.
Although you may experience the elation of powering through your hunger, juice cleanses, detoxes, fasts, and diets can stimulate disordered and unhealthy eating behaviours, such as binge and compulsive eating. They could be a precursor for orthorexia and other eating disorders.
So, if your motivation for embarking on a juice cleanse is to lose weight, it is unlikely to yield lasting results and is likely to cause more harm than good.
Are juice cleanses good for your health?
What if you want to juice cleanse for health?
Unfortunately, research demonstrating the benefits of juice cleansing to detoxify or heal the body is lacking.
Many of the proclaimed benefits of juice cleanses are extrapolated from research on the health benefits of various vitamins and minerals, even fasting, but are not specific to juice cleansing.
For example, scientific research has been conducted on various methods of fasting, such as intermittent fasting. Animal studies have demonstrated benefits such as improving insulin sensitivity and cardiovascular risk, reducing oxidative stress and inflammation and increasing longevity (Mesalhy Aly, 2014).
However, these benefits can’t be extrapolated to juice fasting.
Juice cleansing may actually be harmful to your health
When on a juice ‘cleanse’, not only are you depriving your body of essential nutrition and energy to support your detoxification organs, it may reduce your body’s ability to cleanse. WTF, right?
Juice cleansing may be harmful because it deprives your body of foods such as fibre, resistant starches, fermented foods and probiotics, which have been demonstrated to cleanse and promote the functioning of the digestive system.
Eating food is important for stimulating the release of stomach acid, digestive enzymes, bile salts, and protective mucus, as well as promoting microorganisms that nourish the intestinal cells.
Unfortunately, juice does not contain components to stimulate all these functions. Thus, it does not promote the functioning of your digestive system.
The other issue with juice is that it contains simple sugars that are rapidly absorbed by the body.
When drinking only juice, there is no requirement for the body to break down complex carbohydrates or other foods. This can result in a dramatic spike in blood glucose, which can affect the energy and concentration of healthy individuals.
Avoid the risks of a juice cleanse
For those with chronic illness or on medications, caution should be taken.
Juice cleansing should only be undertaken after seeking medical advice.
Juice cleanses should be avoided for children and pregnant or breastfeeding women, as they have specific nutritional requirements for growth that can only be obtained through regular eating.
By now, you are probably getting the idea that juice cleansing is not all it’s cracked up to be. But you might be thinking, what do I do?
You may like the idea of ‘cleansing’ your digestive system and enjoy the feeling of lightness that a cleanse creates.
However, instead of a juice cleanse, you may want to adopt eating behaviours that DO promote ‘cleansing’ of the digestive tract—aka foods.
What is the best way to ‘clean out’ your digestive tract?
Quite simply, the best way to cleanse your digestive tract is the same way you clean your floors, with water and a broom!
Drink water to support your body’s natural detoxification
Water supports detoxification through the liver, kidneys and lymphatic system.
Adequate water intake can assist in reducing constipation, thus promoting the removal of waste from your body.
Drinking sufficient water is the first place to start to cleanse your body.
Eat sufficient fibre to support your body’s elimination
Fibre promotes regularity of bowel movements and is important for removing wastes from the large intestine. It is your best intestinal cleanser—like an internal broom.
Eating whole grains, fruits and vegetables provides many vitamins and minerals to help keep things moving in our digestive tract.
Simple, right? But nowhere as exciting and Instagram-worthy as those colourful juices!
The best way out is always through.
— Robert Frost
How to reduce your ‘toxin burden’
If you want to rid yourself of those toxins you have consumed over the year, you don’t need to juice cleanse, fast or detox.
You could try cutting out or substantially reducing your intake of alcohol, fried foods, transfats, charred meats, soft drinks, artificial flavours and colours. You could try this for one month a year, cut out one thing a month over the year. The approach you take is very personal and depends on the ‘worst offenders’ in your diet.
You are unlikely to undo a year of unhealthy eating with a few days of juice cleansing. The belief you can have a yearly ‘spring clean’ or hit the reset button on your digestive system or health is flawed and is unlikely to have a noticeable impact on your overall health.
Changing your eating habits is a far better approach to improving your long-term health.
What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.
– Gretchen Rubin
What to do instead of juice cleanses
I recommend learning to listen to your body and creating dietary changes, one change at a time. So that you are not overwhelmed by the change.
A great place to start is with a food swap—swapping a food that you know doesn’t feel great to your body with a whole food equivalent.
Taking a more balanced approach to your eating, rather than swaying from one extreme to another, is a much better way to foster a healthy relationship with food and maintain long-term health.
Check out my blog on restriction and embracing whole foods to learn why restriction doesn’t work and how to embrace eating more whole foods.
Joyful Eating: How to Break Free of Diets and Make Peace with Your Body
“… practical tools to help people release their sabotaging thoughts, enabling them to eat more intuitively and find joy in the moment.”
— Michelle Stanton, author of The Timeless World.
References:
- Strohacker K., Carpenter K.C., McFarlin B.K. Consequences of Weight Cycling: An Increase in Disease Risk? Int J Exerc Sci. 2009; 2(3): 191–201.
- Mesalhy Aly. Role of Intermittent Fasting on Improving Health and Reducing Diseases. Int J Health Sci (Qassim). 2014 Jul; 8(3): V–VI.
