Official Student Newspaper of Henry M. Gunn High School

The Oracle

Official Student Newspaper of Henry M. Gunn High School

The Oracle

Official Student Newspaper of Henry M. Gunn High School

The Oracle

Juice Cleanse Experiment leaves staffer hungry: Senior Anyi Cheng embarks on a one-day juice cleanse to test the theory of detoxification

Written by Anyi Cheng

When I was a kid, I was told to stay away from juice. I knew that if I drank too much juice, my teeth would fall apart and I would suffer extreme organ damage—at least, that’s how my teachers and parents made it sound. But then juice cleanses came along. As part of a new wave of crazy—sometimes mind-boggling—fad diets, the trend of eating nothing and drinking juices for an extended period of time took the health-nut world by storm with its seemingly overnight results.

Now, I took AP Biology and therefore consider myself a reasonably educated girl; it was pretty hard for me to believe that juice cleanses were the miracle they were touted to be. But health bloggers raved about the almost-instantaneous results, how they felt invigorated and that the abundant “toxins” in their bodies had been flushed out. To achieve this bodily nirvana, all I had to do was drink juice? Count me in. Of course, we weren’t talking about drinking a gallon of orange or cranberry juice in one day. Turns out, the juices I needed were full of green leafy things with big names like “spirulina” and “kale.” Well, so be it. Beauty is pain! I headed to the grocery store, loaded up on Odwalla bottles and pre- pared myself for a day of eating nothing and drinking juice. By noon, I felt like I was starving. I was in a bad mood, I felt unbearably hollow and I was having the biggest cravings for non-juice things, like pumpkin pie and chicken alfredo. Suddenly, I was counting my lucky stars that I had planned to only do one day of the cleanse. It sure didn’t feel like toxins were flushing out of my body, even though I was hitting the bathroom a lot more frequently than I usually did. How was I going to make it to dinner—excuse me, I meant my evening bottle of apple-flavored spinach puree—without giving up?

Well, I’ll spare you the gory details, but I made it through the rest of the day without breaking down, and I consider that a testament to my iron-hard will. The next morning I woke up groggy and as far from refreshed as possible. If anything, I felt normal, albeit very hungry. I didn’t feel like I had been purged of any toxins at all.

As they say, all mistakes are learning experiences, and trying just one day of a juice cleanse was definitely a mistake. Not only had I drained (literally) half my cat-sitting income, I also lost out on an entire day of food-induced bliss. Lesson learned: don’t skip out on solid food!DSC_4167.png

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