Lemons are a nutritious fruit high in vitamin C and low in calories. Fruit juice, including lemon juice, is a common ingredient in detoxification diets. Although detox diets are designed to eliminate toxins and purify the body, they are not scientifically proven to do so. Because detox diets are frequently low in calories, they are sometimes used as a weight-loss aid but do not provide effective weight loss. If you must try a detox diet, do it under the strict supervision of your doctor.
Lemon Fasts
One popular detox diet that includes lemon is the Master Cleanse, created by holistic practitioner Stanley Burroughs in the 1950s. The Master Cleanse involves drinking a mixture of maple syrup, cayenne pepper, lemon juice and spring water for a period of 10 days. Burroughs wasn't a doctor, and the diet is not proven to purify the body -- trying it could be dangerous. Fasts that involve drinking only fruit juice may also contain lemon juice. Like the Master Cleanse, juice fasts purportedly detoxify the body by having you drink as few calories as possible and go without food for approximately a week. Juice fasts are not proven to be effective.
Considerations
Lemon juice fasting diets may include the use of an enema to flush toxins out of the small intestines. According to Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D., in the MayoClinic.com article "Detox Diets: Do They Work?," drinking only liquid and using enemas is not necessary to remove waste and toxins from the body -- the kidneys and liver serve this function already.
Nutrition Facts
The Master Cleanse Diet recommends drinking between six and 10 glasses of a lemonade mixture composed of 1/10 tsp. cayenne pepper powder, 2 tbsp. lemon juice, 2 tbsp. maple syrup and 8 oz. water per glass. The mixture contains approximately 100 calories per glass, but does not contain any fat, fiber or protein.
Risks and Drawbacks
Because fasting diets contain very little nutritional value, they may cause weight loss. But this weight loss is not sustainable or safe. Detox diets starve the body, causing it to shed water weight. But when you begin eating solid food again, the weight will return. Fasting diets like the Master Cleanse are not only ineffective, but they may be deadly. Burroughs was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and practicing medicine without a license when one of his patients died while following the Master Cleanse.
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