Whenever someone on Oprah recommends something, you know it’s going to get a lot of attention. The Master Cleanse Diet, also know as the Lemonade diet is no different.

Because Beyonce announced that she prepared for her role in Dreamgirls using this cleanse and lost twenty pounds there’s been quite a bit of talk about the master cleanse.

Some of the claims about the Lemonade Diet seem pretty outlandish. In addition to dropping weight, advocates also say it’s good for increasing energy, clarifies thinking, improves any number of chronic health problems (such as migraine headaches) – in summary they claim it’s good for almost anything.

Is it really that beneficial?

You can find a more complete review at:

The Master Cleanse Review

Here’s brief evaluation.

To start celebrities didn’t invent the Lemonade Diet.  It’s at least 30 years old and was written about in a book called The Master Cleanse.

The diet should probably be referred to as a fast rather than a diet.   The cleansing program consists of having at least eight glasses a day of the cleansing lemonade.

Here the recipe is if you want to try it:

* 8oz water
* Juice of ½ lemon
* 2 tbsp grade B maple syrup
* 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Drink sixty ounces of that over the course of the day. 

Most versions of this cleanse also suggest drinking a detoxifying herbal tea while you’re on the diet.

Because it is very calorie and nutrient deficient I don’t recommend staying on the master cleanse for the full 10 days. Some people recommend even longer periods.

Realize that with so few calories a lot of the weight you’ll lose beyond the first few days comes from muscle.

Putting aside the nutritional profile, main feature of the master cleanse is that it does on excellent job of colon cleansing. This is important because so much of of diet is less than pure these days.

It appears to not only support the function of the GI tract and up overall vitality, it also provides for live detoxification.

Commercial colon cleanse products are available, but you may want to try some of the other colon cleanse recipes you’ll find at:

Homemade Colon Cleanse Recipes

And a good site about all aspects of health and colon cleansing is:

Effective Colon Cleansing

Whether you use the lemonade diet or some other technique, you’ll feel better if you add colon cleansing to your health regimen.