CLEAN - Alejandro Junger, M.D.

I read Clean by Junger last week.

There is so much good information in this book that I would love to recommend it to everyone... but it is very hard to navigate through the detail.

I like Martha Beck's style of, "If you want to skip to the plan, go to Chapter XX. then come back and start reading from the beginning."

With Clean "The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body's Natural Ability to Heal itself" it isn't until page 149 that he finally starts giving details about what the plan is, and what to do.

All the 148 pages leading up to that are trying to convince you that you live in a toxic environment, explaining how toxins are stored and removed from your body, what different popular fasts do to your body, and his own path to better health. Fascinating, but I would recommend getting the book and skipping to 149.

You want to know what the plan is, and if it is going to ask you to do crazy, dumb, gross stuff -- or if it seems reasonable. Now, I know over the past 6 years my reasonable meter has under gone huge shifts; but this plan seems very reasonable (even to my husband).

This book inspired me to eat from the "Elimination Diet" -- by which I mean eliminating foods that are hard to digest or cause allergic reactions. The elimination diet is a terrible name for something so simple. In a book on cleansing the word elimination has an entirely different connotation.

I have started eating mainly the foods on the "Yes" list and skipping most of the foods no the "No" list.

The biggest changes for me was a break from wheat - in all it's lovely forms, and dairy - even in my morning coffee. (of course, he recommend skipping coffee for the 21 day cleanse, but I am not going there. I love Coffee, and it and it's good friend Chocolate are a part of my life that I am not giving up. Though, I won't say never.

Page 151 of the book has the Yes - Include these Foods, No - Exclude these Foods list.

He then outlines a program that is meant to be followed for 21 days. If you could only manage 7 days -- you'd still get some benefits. Page 160 is where he finally gives instructions.

Alejandro Junger is a cardiologist; but he is more interested in sparking the body's ability to heal itself than spending his life preforming emergency surgery. He has a great perspective on what we should be doing to improve our health.

Page 115 has his explanation of what Cleansing Is. -- I like that he talks about the importance of providing your body with the right nutrients -- so you can actually draw the toxins out of your body and he runs through the spectrum of cleansing on pages 128-132.

So, though I highly recommend the content of this book -- it is not organized in a way that someone who said, "yes, I'm in, I'll try it, tell me what to do" would be able to navigate to. So this is your cheat sheet for the key pages.

Enjoy!
Jennifer