The cleanse consists of four items. Lemon juice is used because lemons contain many minerals, as well as acids that help break down calcified substances in the body such as kidney stones and gallstones. Lemons are also alkalizing. Maple syrup is recommended above all other sweeteners because it is rich in minerals and vitamins. (Agave was, if used more than 10 days, found to cause demineralization!) Cayenne pepper is added because it purifies and thins the blood. (The book also states that when cayenne is placed under the tongue in tincture or powder form, it can even stop a heart attack!) Of course, water is also used in the drink, and the author discusses the various forms of water (distilled, reverse osmosis, etc.)

In this complete guide to the Master Cleanse, we are told what to expect during the cleanse and reminded that a healing crisis is good–it means your body is doing its cleansing thing. The author assures women who are pregnant or nursing that it is safe for them to also participate in a 7 to 10 day cleanse. Children and the elderly too! Even people who have had various organs removed.

We are also told how to end the cleanse, and how to eat to maintain the benefits. (Eat raw as much as possible, and alkaline; avoid processed foods, go organic, etc.) There is a list of 21 things to do to enhance your results, as well as 17 common mistakes to avoid (ex: you should drink the juice within 10 minutes to get most of the nutrients). The author also gives health tips for your lifestyle after cleansing, such as starting out every morning with some fresh squeezed lemon juice, and experimenting with mono diets, juice diets, water fasting, parasite cleanses and liver/gallbladder flushes. There is a discussion of the advantages of vegetarianism, the importance of staying alkaline, and more in-depth talk about water.

The last part of the book discusses emotions and emotional eating. “There is not enough food on the planet to make your feelings and emotions go away,” he tells us. “Eventually, the gnawing away of some past experience or pain that just won’t dissipate may suddenly break through into your conscious awareness and motivate you to step up and make a change.” We are also given tips and info on the importance of filtering the bath or shower water, as well as having nontoxic skin care products and even clothing.

This is a great, easy-to-read little book, a complete guide for cleansing inside and out, and staying clean. Even though I have read hundreds of books on health and nutrition, I found many new little useful tidbits such as suppressing the appetite with essential oils of lemon, ginger, peppermint and spearmint and how to make a concentrate for when you are traveling.

I would recommend it.

The Complete Master Cleanse will save you time, and keep you motivated to understand how to be healthy and the reasonable steps required. Mr. Woloshyn gives acknowledgment to his teacher, and the creator of the Lemonade Diet, Stanley Burroughs. You may also want to read about Mr. Burroughs’ very interesting life, some of which resulted from his life-long pursue of helping people and promoting his diet as a means to cleanse ones system and regain energy and health. Mr. Burroughs was also an advocate of colored light therapy, deep massage, reflexology and other Nature Cure methods, which Tom Woloshyn includes in his book.

I appreciated the clean, organized manner of writing, and editing. I found the broad-based approach to natural health information, physical, mental and spiritual well-being, reasonable not soap-boxy. I found this great little book worthwhile and … no time-chewing here.

I am on day 18 of the master cleanse, so I think my opinions on this book have some validity. I have in fact been drinking less than half the recommended daily amount of the stuff, and as long as I get enough prana/chi from fresh air and drink tons of pure water, I never need more than that. I feel wonderful and will keep doing it until my body tells me it’s time to stop. My body never lies to me.

Having been vegetarian for 20 years this summer, and organic-only much of that time, I am no stranger to fasting, cleansing and detoxing. For those who are, this is a fair introduction to going for maximum internal cleanliness…but there are many much better books on the subject (Bernard Jensen is a good start). As well, Woloshyn puts far too much extraneous personal stuff about his life in the book; it’s really about him more than the cleanse.

The cleanse is largely about eliminating pointless things from your system, and I think this book is also somewhat pointless, considering that all of this info and about a hundred times more is available for free at various websites, most specifically themastercleanse in dot-org-land. That site has endless testimonies and much more info in general than this book. And it’s free.

Woloshyn also doesn’t give enough credit to Stanley Burroughs, the real mastermind behind the master cleanse. Burroughs wrote a very simple little booklet to sell as cheaply as possible. His goal was true health for all, not personal aggrandizement or profit. Woloshyn merely does what so many modern health writers are doing: take a proven old idea and market it under his name.

All you really need to know is this: you MUST use organic lemons and grade B maple syrup (wherein live the essential nutrients; buy it bulk online and save a ton over Whole Food’s price).

Above all, use as much cayenne as you can stand. I use about ten to twelve times the recommended amount, but my body loves the stuff (endless thanks to Jethro Kloss for that idea, in his incomparable Back To Eden). Perhaps that’s why I need so little every day: the peppers really get the body humming.

And then drink at least 12 glasses of water a day.

And really, that’s it.

Enemas are highly recommended to take the cleanse to another level. But even then, they are not essential, though very wise. Making sure everything is organic and going into top-grade filtered water is. That, and lots of sun and fresh air. One quickly learns that that’s where the real source of life lies. Stepping into air conditioning and feeling one’s blood sugar plummet is a strong lesson about our lifeless modern environment. I’ve ingested maybe a few thousand calories in the last 18 days. How could I be feeling so healthy and alive if we really needed 2,000 calories a day? Long walks in the woods (alone or with a happy dog!) also aid immensely in grounding the spirit and bringing much joy. Nature never looks and feels so sparkling as when one is cleansing.

For those who need a book in their hands to guide them, this is ok. But the original booklet works just as well, and the website I mentioned covers all that’s in this book, and so much more.

Not a bad book…but hardly essential. And when the whole point of cleansing is stripping away all but the essentials, why buy something that’s hardly essential?

You will not be sorry

RJ

I highly recommend doing this cleanse. I used to feel so tired all the time, sluggish and heavy and worn out every day, but once I got to Day 3 of my Lemonade Diet, I no longer desperately wanted to crash in the afternoons and I have so much more clarity and energy and can easily work and focus and enjoy life the entire day from early morning to late at night!!!

This book was not helpful. It was mainly an autobiography of the author and what the master cleanse did for him and his practice. It should have been a book about the technical aspect of the cleanse, but it was more a book about the authors belief’s. Don’t make the mistake I made, buy the original book, by the man who made up the diet. The author freeloaded off someone’s ideas and he made money doing it. The lemonade diet or master cleanse was a very good experience for me, but the book was not.