The Master Cleanser: With Special Needs and Problems
by Stanley Burroughs
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Book Reviews of The Master Cleanser: With Special Needs and Problems
Book Review: Can't lose diet.
Summary: 3 Stars
Water, not protein-fat-carbs, is the essence of life. Flavored with lemons or not, it can sustain life while trimming off pounds and, if you will, purifying the body. Moreover, by forcing you to stay away from dairy, wheat, excess sugar, etc., a diet/fast such as this could get you past the allergies that, unawares, you had been tolerating, perhaps barely, all these years.
Although there are numerous spin-offs, this little booklet (and perhaps some additional website info available free of charge), is all you need. Here are the potential "negatives":
1. The recommendation to chug down a quart of sea-salt water first thing every morning is not necessarily feasible for every constitution. After the first time or two, you may find yourself more averse than ever to getting out of bed.
2. The assertion that upon drinking the salt water the imbiber will experience in short order elimination of internal toxins assumes that the human digestive tract works like a car radiator. Simply flush it out and get on with your day. But even if you follow a recommendation to drink laxative tea the night before, there's no guarantee that the process will complete itself nearly so expeditiously. In fact, if you plan to drive to your day job, best that you not be expected before afternoon.
3. The "gotcha" qualifier. No one is going to be able to adhere to this diet/fast to the letter. If it doesn't work, it's because you used regular salt rather than sea salt, regular lemons rather than organic lemons (be prepared to shop every other day because of their limited-time freshness), tap rather than pure distilled water, or you cheated on the early morning cleanse, etc. Hence, regardless of your success or lack thereof, there's no way the diet or its promoters can lose.
Book Review: A must have for anyone even thinking about trying a cleanse or fast
Summary: 5 Stars
I think it's great that S.B. kept this book short and simple. I've paid more for greeting cards than I paid for this book yet I get so much more out of it.
The internet is full of descriptions and interpretations of how to do the Master Cleanse. The problem is that most of these descriptions and even supposed online free copies have slight alterations. I've done this cleanse about 7 times and still use the booklet to refresh my memory to make sure I do it correctly and haven't forgotten or confused measurements, timing, allowed and not-allowed variations etc. I don't count the first time I attempted to do it because I didn't have the booklet yet and ended up failing because the online instructions I read turned out to be wrong. The slight difference in that person's take on things turned out to make a huge difference. Once I got the book, my first real master cleanse was a fabulous success.
Get the book and know for sure the real way to do the Master Cleanse without other people's opinions injected on how they think it can be improved or modified, etc. If you ever decide to try a modified version of it, that's fine too, but at least you will know what is the Master Cleanse and what is something else that was inspired by it.
PS: in case you don't understand the instructions to drink water in the book, drink lots of it! I find I have the best results if I do not count saltwater, tea, or lemonade toward my daily water intake and pretty much drink one or more glasses of water for every glass of lemonade I drink. My one complaint about this book is that this is not stressed enough and a person might miss mention of water and assume that drinking all those lemonades means they won't need water or may think that drinking any water at all is just optional.
Book Review: Save you money and research detox first
Summary: 1 Stars
My husband decided to try this cleanse after a friend of his did it. I had been feeling rather unhealthy lately and the idea of cleansing my body sounded like a good one, so I decided to try it with him. Concerned that we got the diet correct, I decided to buy the book. It was a waste of money. All of the important information in the book is available on the web. Apart from the diet, everything that Burroughs writes is ridiculous. Other reviews have recapped it, so I won't. Burroughs has no credentials and nothing to back up anything that he says - including why the diet is healthy or works. But I'm pretty sure there's a better way to detoxify your body without starving yourself or taking a bunch of supplements as many "detox diets" want you to do.
That said, my husband's buddy had done it and said it seemed to do what it claimed. From what I've gathered on the web, lots of other people have also done it and declare it's virtues, so we decided to go ahead with it. We did the minimum 10 days (I am on day 10 as I write this).
I think there must be something to it because after 10 days on liquids, my body is still eliminating solids. And I have felt fine, if a bit hungry throughout the diet. My husband even kept up his daily swimming workouts, taking it a little easier than usual. But I am concerned that to do the Master Cleanser any longer than 10 days, or to do it repeatedly, might actually do my body more harm than good. I will research more about detoxification - hopefully finding some info that is actually backed by science and research - before I try any more detox diets. But I'm pretty sure that there is a better way of detoxifying without the extreme of a liquid diet or the plethora of supplements that other "detox diets" require.
Book Review: maybe the clense works, but this book is bad science
Summary: 1 Stars
Below is something I plageurized from a yahoo group about the master cleanse. It echos my sentiments exactly. I think the author pushes bad science that could endanger your health in his zeal for this cleanse. I'm not saying this cleanse doesn't work. I'm just saying this guy is an ego-driven quack. Find the book for free online and judge for yourself.
<snip>
There are a few things in the book that are just plain wrong,
such as this statement re: protein: "We first need to understand
that pure protein is primarily nitrogen, with oxygen, hydrogen and
some carbon. We all know we get a large share of our oxygen and
hydrogen needs from the air along with some carbon. There is four
times the amount of nitrogen in the same air as there is oxygen,
hydrogen and carbon combined. Since we are able to utilize and
assimilate a large amount of our needs of these elements into our
bodies we are able to assimilate and build the nitrogen also into our
bodies as protein. This is done by natural bacteria action which is
capable of converting it to our use." The idea that we can
assimilate nitrogen from the air into enough protein for our bodies
is simply not true. Our bodies need protein from food sources! His
information on feeding infants is not only not true, but would be
disastrous for the health of an infant, and quite possibly deadly.
(He suggests feeding infants coconut milk and the lemonade mixture if
they are not breastfed .) The fact that these items that I am
knowledgable about are so far off base makes me wonder if the things
that I am not so knowledgeable about are true. How does anyone know
that the body is *really* being cleansed?
Book Review: 9 days were enough for conclusions
Summary: 2 Stars
Us usual there is no gain without pain. I and my wife haw suffered 9 days on this diet. Results are us follows.I have started with 256 lbs of weight. First 5 days I had lost 12lbs. My weight after that, at 244lbs, has not dropped any more. Similar was with my wife with starting weight of 120lbs and 6lbs drop. I have maid then some calculations and found out that day intake at 18 tbsp (medium of the proposed dose) of maple syrup gives you 900kcal. What a surprise! I need to take 3200kcal to maintain 256lb weight (surely I would like to weight less) so day intake was about 1000kcal - 3200kcal = - 2200kcal short. If you know that 1lb of fat has 3500kcal then you can calculate that I could only drop 2000 / 3500 = 0.6lb per day. My wife with daily needed 1800kcal, then has 1000kcal - 1800kcal = - 800kcal minus, which gives 800 / 3500 = 0.2lb drop per day. What we lost more was water from our bodies and some dirt (mucus) material, and this weight will return when we will eat again. If you want more, then you must do something physical. I'm also not sure if I only lost fat and mucus (toxins), but book points to that.
Additional information: To drop 1 lb with swimming you must swim for a 16000 yards. Energy (fat), as we know from physics, can not simply banish, you must transform it. We are good machines and do a lot of work with a little needed fuel (which is unfortunate for quantity of food we intake).
Also medical changes are not detectable. I was dizzy for first four days, but other days were better. I had no energy lifting only some relaxing in my abdomen area and easier breathing. I made a list with my health problems and almost nothing was cured. Ok, I made a rest for organs which should be good. I hear and smell better, but that was not what I mainly wanted.