Below is a brief summary of some points for doing the Master Cleanse, but I strongly recommend you read Lose Weight, Have More Energy & Be Happier in 10 Days as it was written specifically for new people to give them the information that will make it much easier and answer most of their questions, such as:

It also includes a daily journal form, shopping list, alphabetical Q & A list so you can quickly and easily find what you want, and a section entitled “The 12 Most Common Pitfalls Preventing People from Succeeding on the Master Cleanse / Lemonade Diet.” This knowledge has helped thousands of people have an easier time on the cleanse.

“Peter Glickman’s Lose Weight, Have More Energy and Be Happier in 10 Days lives up to its title. While I’m grateful to Stanley Burroughs and his family for the original book The Master Cleanser, I found Glickman’s book to be of greater use to me due to the wealth of up-to-date examples and modern language. With this book as my daily guide, I completed my first Master Cleanse this March—a full 20 days! Along the way, I looked up issues and found answers to questions that enabled me to keep going. As the Community Education Manager at our local health food store, I have referred many satisfied customers to Lose Weight, Have More Energy and Be Happier in 10 Days and have gotten great feedback. Thanks to Peter and those Master Cleansers for sharing their experiences. Buy the book! Do the Cleanse!”

Kathleen Peterson
Nutrition Stop
4101 Mexico Road, Ste. K
St. Peters, Missouri

For a minimum of 10 days, you drink only the lemonade mixture, made with organic grade B maple syrup, fresh-squeezed lemon or lime juice, and cayenne pepper added to spring, distilled, or purified (NOT fluoridated) water.

I have omitted the exact recipe because I have seen that people get much better results when they have read a book first. You wouldn’t believe what people have been told on how to do the Master Cleanse. Even the NY Daily News reported that each lemonade drink was made with a quart of water—that’s 4 times the correct amount!

Breaking Your Fast

Breaking a long fast is very, very important. You should ease your way back to solid food after two additional days of orange or grapefruit juice. If you are going back to raw fruits and vegetables, you may do so on the afternoon of the third day. If you have been a meat eater and/or milk products consumer, shift to home-cooked vegetable soup for dinner the second night and lunch the third day with a salad for dinner.

You may keep the lemonade drink as your breakfast drink after that. Of course, you would do better with the least amount of meat and no milk products as they are very productive of mucus and hinder digestion and absorption of nutrients.

I also strongly recommend you take probiotics AFTER you finish breaking your cleanse to replace the good bacteria you lose when you clean your colon thoroughly. These good bacteria manufacture vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B12, and K and help control bad bacteria, such as Candida. By the way, don’t waste your money taking probiotics during the cleanse. They’ll just get washed out. Do it after the cleanse.

You can read more about what probiotics do for you here.

Detox Symptoms

Detoxifying literally means removing poisons from your body. Once these poisons are gone, you will feel energetic, vital, happy and healthy. It is the poisons that make us feel tired, mentally confused, irritable, unhappy, depressed and ill. Consequently you should look forward to detoxification.

Unfortunately, when the toxins are mobilized, they will bring about those unpleasant feelings and tempt you to quit the cleanse before you are through. So, you need to understand the symptoms of detoxification and ensure that you drink your laxative tea and salt water to stimulate elimination of those toxins.

My experience with the cleanse and with various people doing it has taught me that whatever symptom I experienced one day, it would be gone the next morning with my bowel movements. It is nevertheless helpful to know when you are detoxifying because it helps you to get through that symptom to know it will be gone tomorrow.

I have grouped the detox symptoms I and others have had into five groups:

1. Cravings: Only 1 person in 4 experiences any hunger on this cleanse and drinking more lemonade or water handles usually handles that. I have, however, observed that people on the cleanse crave what they are detoxifying. Proof that this is true is that the cravings usually go away the next morning with bowel movements. You can crave anything when detoxifying, but most likely you will experience cravings for the most toxic foods, such as pizza, hamburgers, barbeque ribs, etc. The way to tell if it’s a craving rather than true hunger is to imagine sitting down to a large, green salad. If that inspires you, you’re hungry. If all you want is pizza; if that is all you can think about; then, you’re experiencing a craving.
2. Tiredness: When your body fights toxins, whether from detoxifying or an infection, it diverts energy into healing and away from the energy you use to work and play. On my first 20 day cleanse, I was not tired except on the fifteenth day. The next morning, I experienced heat in my bowel movements, an indication that acidic toxins were being eliminated. I also lost all sense of tiredness after that morning’s eliminations.
3. Irritability: This includes boredom and the desire to “just chew something solid”.
4. Physical aches, pains, nausea, vomiting, etc.: These are the most severe reactions and only occur where a person is severely toxic, only a small percentage of people experience these. Fortunately, these have gone away after only a day or two in every case I have heard about.
5. Hot bowel movements: Your body wastes are acidic and when you eliminate the most toxic ones, they actually feel anywhere from warm to burning. This experience is very infrequent, but worth mentioning because hot bowel movements after a day of heavy detox symptoms will confirm that you just eliminated significant toxins.

A Special Note on Headaches

In talking to people doing the cleanse, I’ve learned that people with caffeine addiction (coffee, soft drinks, etc.) may experience headaches for the first 2 to 4 days.

“Thanks, Peter…for all your work, all your caring, and all your generosity. It’s such a pleasure for me to be a moderator on the Bulletin Board and a part of all this. Yesterday, I met a woman my age who is undergoing chemo for breast cancer and she knew about raw foods and the Master Cleanse, but had not known anyone who ‘practiced’ both. She has asked me to coach her, starting this week, on going raw or at least incorporating more raw into her life. I’m thrilled…my first client!

“None of this could have happened without you. Thank you. I’ll let you know how she’s doing. In the meantime, I’m busy experimenting in my own kitchen because I’m off to the Living Light Institute in April, for six weeks, to obtain my Raw Chef Certification. I’ve made a life-changing commitment to excellent health and a new career, all because of the Master Cleanse and just so you know, my advice to everyone who knows me and sees the change in me is to start with the Master Cleanse and then transition to a raw vegan diet or as much as one can commit to. You figure prominently in my advice, Peter.”

Stacy Stableford, Connecticut
Master Cleanse Bulletin Board Moderator and
soon to be Certified Raw Food Chef

Final Note

I hope you will have the same wonderful increase in mental clarity, health, energy and positive mental attitude that I and others have found. For more information on how to answer the critics of the Master Cleanse click here.

Not Your Usual Disclaimer

Of course, this information is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any diseases, and if you have a disease you should seek advice from a licensed health professional, but there is a much more important point here. We are all responsible for our own health. Licensed health professionals can diagnose and prescribe, but in the end it is ourselves who must decide to follow the prescription or not. Therefore, I urge you to learn about nutrition and health so that you can make informed decisions to preserve or regain your vibrant good health. Toward that end, this website is dedicated to your education.

Yours in Health,

Peter Glickman

Have a look at our recent press:

“In my environmental medicine practice, I attempt to identify toxic elements, physical and spiritual. Then I can help the patient avoid, protect against or detoxify them. I follow that with nutrition to promote as much additional healing as possible. In detoxification, my goal is always to use what works without further harming the patient and I use many, many things.

“The Master Cleanse is simple and combines & surpasses many other detox methods. It literally has been a God-send to my practice. I am grateful to Peter for seeing, loving, and promoting the values of this cleanse.”

James F. Coy, M.D.
Past President of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine

Peter Glickman and/or his book on The Master Cleanse, Lose Weight, Have More Energy & Be Happier in 10 Days, have been in The NY Times, The London Times, The NY Daily News, Us Weekly, Geraldo’s web blog, CBS News, Fox TV’s The Morning Show and on the NBC Today Show!

“I have personally done this cleanse more than 18 times from 2003 onward for periods ranging from 3 to 28 days. I have counseled my wife 3 times, 30 year old son twice, many, many people on the phone, and, more than 1,500 on the Master Cleanse bulletin board during our annual January cleanses (110 in 2004, 228 in 2005, 365 in 2006, 812 in 2007, 709 in 2008 and 1207 in 2009)!

“Please believe me when I say that the Master Cleanse by Stanley Burroughs is, in my opinion, the fastest and most effective way to regain your vitality and to feel the joy of living again, never mind that it will help you lose weight, detoxify and give you astounding energy.”

Also available on Audio CD and in Spanish!

Some people suggest psyllium husk and bentonite clay shakes during the cleanse. I don’t recommend it. Part of the power of the Master Cleanse is not eating any solid food so your body doesn’t have to digest anything. This frees the body to use that energy to repair the body. That’s one of the reasons most people have tremendous energy on the cleanse.

Also, some people sell cayenne pepper capsules. I don’t recommend them either. Master Herbalist, Dr. Richard Schulze, said that cayenne affects nerve endings in the mouth when taken and that taking capsules bypasses those beneficial effects. He said that people who take capsules don’t get the same results.

If you don’t like cayenne, it’s probably because you took too much at one time. So, start on a gradient. Take a little. Take as much as you can tolerate and still want to drink the lemonade. Then increase it.

The other thing you should know about cayenne is that not all cayenne is the same degree of hot! Some kinds of cayenne are very hot (90,000 HU–heat units). I include 30 – 40,000 HU cayenne powder.

As for salt, non-iodized sea salt is healthier as it contains more than 70 trace elements as opposed to just sodium and chloride in table salt. But more important, non-iodized sea salt is easier to drink in the salt water flush!

Celtic Sea Salt® is naturally harvested by a cooperative of farmers in Brittany, France. The method used for gathering the nutritional salt follows a 2,000 year-old Celtic tradition and is supported by modern quality control standards. The French Government prides itself in this unique resource and has preserved thousands of acres of pristine wild marsh, as a “National Treasure” and “Protected Site” so that these areas will continue to produce Celtic Sea Salt for centuries more. In 1991, the French Ministry of Forests and Agriculture gave its most honorable “Superior Quality Food” mention to Celtic Sea Salt.

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Why is the Lemonade Brigade™ important to the Master Cleanse?

Our Lemonade Brigade trademark is your guarantee that you’re getting the original, time-tested Master Cleanse and ingredients as developed by Stanley Burroughs. This is the recipe that has stood the test of more than half a century and produced amazing results for hundreds of thousands of people. You would think that people would respect what works and keep it effective for others. Unfortunately, this is not so.

In their 2 Feb. 2009 issue, Us Magazine, wrote that eating fish is part of the Master Cleanse and advised doing 2 days on and 1 day off for a week! In the 17 Aug. 2006 article in the New York Daily News, people were told that each lemonade drink should include 32 oz. of water! A popular ebook on the web tells people they can eat celery while on the Master Cleanse. Another company on the web sells Master Cleanse kits with shakes, protein, and vitamins just to increase their sales. Another company sells palm syrup and claims it’s part of the Master Cleanse.

None of these are part of the time-tested Master Cleanse as developed originally by Stanley Burroughs. None of these are what has produced excellent results for hundreds of thousands of people.

A June Time Magazine had a staff writer do it for 2 days and then write up his opinions. There is a good reason the minimum recommended time for the Master Cleanse is 10 days. That’s because the body take 2 or 3 days to switch over to burning fat and waste rather than muscle. That makes days 2 and 3 the most difficult. After that, most people feel light, energetic and happy. So, telling people what it’s like to do 2 days or to do 2 days on and 1 day off are just self-destructive. These people won’t get any benefit and they’ll feel miserable.

The Master Cleanse is a modified juice fast and gains much of its power from the fasting you do. Adding anything solid, such as fish, celery, protein powder, shakes, gelatin capsules (made from hoofs, tendons, etc.), or vitamin pills, requires the body to use its energy to digest rather than clean house and rebuild. And I have no idea what would happen if you made each 10 oz. drink into a 32 oz drink since you need to drink at least 6 per day!

Unfortunately, Stanley Burroughs did not trademark the Master Cleanse when he developed it. So now there are even some shady companies that advertise the Master Cleanse and sell their own colon cleanses instead!

By trademarking the Lemonade Brigade™, I can give you an assurance that you are getting the original, time-tested Master Cleanse. I think that’s important.

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My mailbag: high blood pressure meds and the cleanse

I get so many emails it’s impossible to answer all of them individually in the time I have. However, here’s an email I received this week that is typical of many, many others:

“I have a question regarding the MC. I would like to do the MC, but since I am taking pills for my high blood pressure I don’t know if I should do this or not. I’ve been on these pills for almost 18 years after I gave birth to my twins. I really want to do this. I even bought all of the things for the MC, but somehow I am afraid to do it since I read the part of the book [that] says you can’t take [any] pills when you’re on MC. My sister in Texas … did it for 10 days and said she’s feeling good, a lot different from before she did the MC.

“I need your advice. I know I need to do a detox inside my body.”

This person has a very, very common misunderstanding regarding prescribed medicines and the Master Cleanse. Stanley Burroughs, in his book The Master Cleanser, says not to take supplements. Nowhere in his book does he say not to take prescription medicines. You should not discontinue any prescription medicine without consulting a licensed health care practitioner.

Now, if you’re taking a non-prescription medicine that you select from the corner store, you should discontinue that for the duration of the Master Cleanse as your body will then get a chance to detox more completely.

By the way, fasting is known to lower blood pressure and the Master Cleanse is a form of juice fast. So, if you are on high blood pressure medicine, please keep your doctor informed so that you can reduce your dosage as appropriate.

Is it a detox symptom or am I sick?

Most of the people who do the Master Cleanse have no or very little trouble and get great benefits from it. However, there is a small percentage that is worried about detox symptoms. So, here’s some information to reduce your worries.

Many, many people feel lightheaded during the Master Cleanse. This is remarked on in Cleanse and Purify Thyself by Dr. Richard Anderson and Dr. Joel Fuhrman in Fasting — and Eating — for Health. Dr. Fuhrman also mentions that about 5% of people who fast experience nausea and/or vomiting. This, he says, is usually from not drinking enough liquid each day.

Detox symptoms, or healing crises as they are also called, usually go away within 3 days and are “ghosts” of previous illnesses or injuries from the past. On the Master Cleanse, these usually lessen with the next morning’s eliminations.

There are five classes of detox symptoms: tiredness, irritability (or wanting to quit), boredom, aches & pains, and hot or burning bowel movements. I go into these in somewhat more depth in my book.

Women commonly begin their periods early when on the Master Cleanse as a woman’s period is a form of elimination. By the way, if you have been trying to get pregnant, fasting in general, and the Master Cleanse, has been noted as improving fertility!

I get so many emails it’s impossible to answer all of them individually in the time I have. However, here’s an email I received this week that is typical of many, many others:

“I’m diabetic. After all I’ve heard about the Master Cleanse, I’d like to do it, but I’m diabetic. I saw a Master Cleanse Kit from someone else for diabetics with agave nectar. Will that work?”

Rather than agave nectar, Stanley Burroughs actually had special instructions for diabetics which were edited out of the later editions of The Master Cleanser. These can still be found in his book Healing for the Age of Enlightenment.

He said to use molasses instead of maple syrup starting with one tablespoon and gradually increase it to two. Then switching to maple syrup. Carefully monitoring blood sugar and adjusting the insulin dosage accordingly. Of course, this should be done in conjunction with a licensed health care practitioner.

A good friend of mine was diabetic and did the cleanse and his doctor was impressed with the reduced amount of insulin needed after the cleanse. This doesn’t mean it will work for everyone, however.

Burroughs also says that diabetes is a deficiency disease caused in part by too much white sugar and white flour. Nowadays, you might avoid high fructose corn syrup, too. So, be sure your diet includes lots of fresh raw veggies and the minimum possible of prepared, refined, artificially flavored, colored, sweetened and preserved foods, especially diet soda.

Excerpt from The Fasting Cure by Edward Dewey, M.D.

The No-Breakfast Plan and The Fasting-Cure by Edward Hooker Dewey, M.D. was published in 1900, but it reads like it could have been written in the last 10 years. I excerpted the article below from the book and edited it slightly to make the text more modern. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Apparently, fasting was as misunderstood in those times as the Master Cleanse is in ours.

“The literature on what to eat and not to eat, what to do and not to do, on medicines that convert human stomachs into drug-stores, is simply boundless. If we believe all we read, we must not cool our parched throats without the certificate of the microscope. We must not eat without an ultimate analysis of each item. In short, there is death in the air we breathe, death in the food we eat, death in the water we drink, until we seem to walk in the valley and shadow of death, ever subject to the attack of disease.

“It appears many lives would be lost except for the miracles of cure promised in public magazines and newspapers, and even in our best medical journals.

“The methods in this book are so new, so revolutionary, that their first impression has never failed to excite every form of opposition known to language, and yet their practicality is so great that it is rarely questioned by those who test it fairly.

“My initial practice of medicine was during the civil war in a large hospital of 1000 beds. And I soon found that, no matter what the disease, every surgeon was different as to the quality, quantity, and times of his doses of medicine, and yet, the survival rate of the different doctors was apparently about the same.

“As for the medicinal treatment of my sick, it was unsatisfactory from first to last. After all these years I cannot believe that, except for the relief of pain, any patient was made better by my dosage of medicines.

“I began the general practice of medicine in Meadville, Pennsylvania in the autumn of 1866. Among the many physicians located in the city at that time were men of ability and large experience. There were those who administered with great faith doses too small for mathematical estimate; those with equal faith who administered huge amounts of substances limited only by the size of the patient’s throat; those who fully believed in whiskey as nourishment and those that believed that milk is liquid food. And yet death would still result from starvation aggravated by disease.
Most of the cases of disease that fall to the care of the physician are trivial, cure themselves, and rapidly recover under even the largest dosages; Nature really winning the victories, the physician getting the honors.

“People believe the disease is simply an attack, and not the sum of violated natural laws of health perhaps from birth. People believe symptoms are merely evidences of destruction, and not the visible efforts of Nature to restore the normal condition.

“The universal conception of disease as a foe to life, and not as a rational process of cure; the boundless faith in remedies as means to resist the attack, revealed by symptoms, makes the professional care of the sick the most difficult of all human occupations to both head and heart.

“For full ten years I visited the sick and dosed them according to the books, but with far less confidence and faith than any of my brother doctors, and all were required to take nourishment to keep up strength for the combat with disease.

“My doses were confined to only a few of the most potent medicines, and these were given while watching for favorable results and yet always with disappointment.

“As the years went on, my faith in remedies did not increase; but I had to dose to meet the superstitious needs of the people. I now see that Nature’s victories are often won against great odds of treatments that are simply barbarous; and yet Nature is so powerful, so persistent in the attempts to right all her wrongs, that she wins in the great majority of cases no matter how severely she may be opposed.

“I was called one day to one of the families of the poorest of the poor, where I found a sick case that for once in my life set me to thinking. The patient was a girl in early maturity, with a history of several months of digestive and other troubles. I found a very sick patient, so sick that for a period of three weeks not even one drink of water was retained, not one dose of medicine, and it was not until several more days that water could be drunk. When finally water could be retained my patient seemed brighter in mind, the complexion was clearer, and she seemed actually stronger. As for the tongue, which at first was heavily coated, the improvement was striking; while the breath, utterly foul at first, was strikingly less offensive. In every way the patient was very much better.

“I was so surprised at this that I decided to let Nature continue to take her course, and so it did until about the thirty-fifth day, when there was a call, not for the undertaker, but for food, a call that marked the end of the disease. The pulse and temperature had become normal, and there was a tongue as clean as the tongue of a nursing infant.

“Until this time this was the most severely sick case I ever had that recovered, and yet with apparently no more wasting of her body than with other cases of lengthy illness. And all this with only water for thirst until hunger came and a complete cure!”

My Mailbag: diarrhea and the salt water flush

I get so many emails that it’s impossible to answer all of them individually in the time I have. However, here’s an email I received this week that is typical of many others:

I like your website, it’s been informative, thank you. This is the 2nd day of my first master cleanse. I had diarrhea this morning a couple of times, so I skipped taking the salt water flush. I was double-checking my resources because I thought that was the way I was supposed to handle the situation, but could not locate that information. Am I doing the right thing in regards to my diarrhea?

Is it actually diarrhea or is it the salt water flush? Approximately one half to one hour after drinking the salt water flush, if you’ve gotten the amount of the salt right, you’ll experience several urgent eliminations. They can be quite watery and after most of the solid waste has past, are usually bright yellow. The bright yellow is liver bile. If that’s what you’re experiencing, you’re doing it correctly and should continue. If you’re not experiencing several urgent eliminations after one half to one hour, you need to alter the amount of salt you add to the quart of water. (Start by gradually increasing it.)

If it’s actually diarrhea, then you did the right thing by discontinuing the salt water as Stanley Burroughs points out on page 27 under “Recap of the steps…” and then “In the morning….”

Detoxifying too fast?

Occasionally, I’m asked about someone having severe detox symptoms and what can they do. Here’s a typical one:

I just finished my first 10-day cleanse and feel fine. My 26-year-old daughter, however has lead poisoning, multiple chemical sensitivities, an infection of the thyroid and low blood sugar. She started the cleanse today. She did not put cayenne in her first drink, so she doubled it in her next drink. She felt bad immediately and had a very bad reaction. She tested allergic to cayenne about 18 months ago, but we thought it had gone away. Is there an alternative for the cayenne pepper or do you have any suggestions?

I was sorry to hear about her daughter’s reactions.

Although I am not a licensed health care practitioner and therefore cannot diagnose, prescribe, cure or treat any disease, I did make some suggestions she could discuss with her licensed health care practitioner.

First, she needs to understand that her lead poisoning diagnosis meant her daughter has a super-abundance of toxins in her body. (The definition of “lead poisoning” is too much lead—a toxin—in her body.)

Secondly, she needs to understand that detoxification is not a single action—first the toxins are here and then they’re gone. No. Detoxification is a three step process—first they are mobilized from where the body has stashed them to protect itself. Then they are neutralized and finally, eliminated through the colon, kidneys, skin, lungs, and tongue.

If you bring the toxins out of storage faster than the body can neutralize and eliminate them, you get a detox symptom/reaction.

The Master Cleanse is perhaps the second fastest method of detoxification. (A pure water fast is the fastest.) This is why I talk about people who should “take it easy” on the Master Cleanse in Lose Weight, Have More Energy & Be Happier in 10 Days. It is also why I say on our Master Cleanse Bulletin Board that people undergoing chemotherapy or with several-year histories of taking strong medical drugs should not do the Master Cleanse without doing slower types of detoxification first. They have too many toxins to try to detoxify quickly. It will cause too many seriously unpleasant reactions.

Since one of the things cayenne does is dilate blood vessels and dissolve mucus, it acts like an accelerator pedal for the Master Cleanse. So, it’s possible that her daughter “double-whammied” herself when she did a Master Cleanse lemonade with double the amount of the cayenne.

Here is my scale of detoxifying actions ranked from fastest (1) to slowest (10). I recommended she discuss these with her health care practitioner and then choose one of these slower methods:

1. Pure water fast
2. The Master Cleanse
3. Fruit juice fast (fruits are detoxifiers)
4. Vegetable juice fast (Veggies build up the body with vitamins, proteins and minerals.)
5. Enemas (Can be combined with all other methods except the Master Cleanse.)
6. 100% raw vegan diet
7. Predominantly raw vegan diet with the rest of the diet being cooked vegetarian food.
8. 100% vegetarian diet without artificially preserved, colored, flavored, sweetened, or prepared foods.
9. Drinking at least a pint of freshly made green smoothie every day. (By the way, I forgot to mention that you should use very cold water from the refrigerator to make these taste even better.)
10. Soaking in a hot Epsom salt bath (2 cups to a regular sized tub) at least 3x a week for at least 12 minutes. (Note: this method can be combined with any of the others.)