What is it you wish to cleanse? Your liver, kidneys, colon? These are kind of the three biggies, as they are the body's filters and way stations, if you will. It depends of course on your particular situation. If you're not sure what needs a boost, you can always go to a naturopath (spelling?) and get your blood and hair and piss, etc. tested. They can look at your hormone levels and go from there, or can see if you have, for example, heavy metal toxicity in your system from enviornmental pollutants (a certain friend had this from using powdered pigments in her studio practice.) But don't bum out! Most of it can be fixed. The heavy metals for example are now gone. Or an Acupuncturist can read your situation too, in other ways.
If this is too hard, you can just skip the testing and assume that everything could use a little freshening up now and then, because it's true, and then just pick and choose at your fancy.
Team Shredder wanted it all. We figured pretty much everybody probably has parasites. They're kind of everywhere. I won't list the types of foods they are most frequently found in because I don't want to ruin anybody's quality of life. It doesn't matter anyway. They're all over the place. Forget about it.
By the way, if you have hypochondriac tendencies or a history of eating disorders, always proceed with caution when doing cleanses.
Team Shredder started with a 30-day parasite purge because our research told us that even if you do other cleanses etc., what's the point if you still got those little bugs up in there, going crazy, harming things, as Mountain Man once said.
The parasite purge is incredibly easy: no change of diet or habits, just take pills that are made up of basically diatomaceous earth. It is kind of like finely ground up glass to the parasites--they eat it and it SHREDS them! It's what those "ceramic" water filters that people take to other countries are made out of, and farmers feed it to their livestock to keep the bugs at bay. It may change your #2's for a while, since all kinds of toxic stuff will be exiting your body. What we did was take #2 assistant pills (herbal) along with the parasite shredders, to assist our #2's and get those parasite carcasses O-U-T! There is a brand we like called Hsu & Co. and we ordered the pills from their website. But you can probably get it at the hippie store too.
The #2 assistant pills are called DC 1, and let me tell you, they really get things rolling. For the ultimate along those lines, do the parasite shredders (called DIA-MIN) along with the DC 1 for a month, and then for a second month do DC 1 combined with DC2, the next level. OH. MY. GOD. You will NOT BELIEVE what comes out your ass!
Toward the end of our first month of DC1 and parasite cleansing, we undertook The Master Cleanser. It's sometimes thought of as an intestinal/colon cleanse, but actually it clears out the toxins and congestion that acumulates all over the body, in the achey joints, the skin, blood, organs, everywhere. I have to say I felt fucking great after 7 days of it. You can do it for up to 40 days apparently, but I wasn't ready for all that. You can even do it for 2-3 days. But anyway, here is the booklet about it:
The Master Cleanser, by Stanley Burroughs, ISBN -0-9639262-0-9. They sell it at the hippie store.Basically the recipie is:
2 Tbsp organic lemon or lime juice (1/2 fresh squeezed lemon)
2 Tbsp genuine maple syrup (not maple flavored sugar syrup) all grades can be used, but the darker the better as this has most minerals
1/10 Tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste
Spring or purified water
Combine the juice, maple syrup, and cayenne in a 10 oz. glass and fill with room temperature or cool water.
Drink 6 to 12 glasses of the lemonade each day. Nothing else, except plain water, mint or herbal tea. Not even vitamins.
I was impure and had black tea w/half and half in the mornings--call me crazy--and on a couple days when I got more hungry I had miso w/a little brown rice. Whatever, I still felt great, so what does it matter. And it's really not that hard to do.
There is a lot of other useful info in the little master cleanse booklet and I can't break it all down here, chil'rens, so just get the book and it will answer all of your burning questions.
Kidneys are easy: just eat nothing but watermelon for a day. Done. You can do this any time. Preferrably not imediately after a drinking binge. Give yourself a day or so to recover first.
Liver cleanses are a whole other universe. They can get serious, as in the liver/gallbladder/gallstones flush easily found online. I haven't tried this one yet--something about eat nothing but organic green apples and apple juice, water, and special herbal liver cleansing pills for a day or three, then drink 1/2 cup olive oil at bedtime and the next morning it's a gallstones and bile avalanche! I'm sure there's more to this one, and I feel this one should be done under the supervision of a trained professional, chil'ren, as freeing and passing gallstones carries a certain risk (can be painful/dangerous I guess.)
But there are many ways to freshen up the liver. Epsom salt baths draw out toxins and relieve aches and pains. Milk thistle, more apples and apple juice in general, and other herbal remedies. I personally am on "month 2" of my odyssey, so I'm taking the aforementioned DC1, DC 2 (which is basically psyllium husk, ) and "LIV-C" pills, which are herbal liver cleansers. I got all of these pill things from Hsu & Co., but I'm not trying to promote any particular company or program in any way. Look at the ingredients of these pills and you can find them elsewhere, maybe even cheaper. (Especially the psyllium husk.)
Go to an herbalist or natruropathic doctor or healer to get the best advice, and a customized cleansing program. Theres tons more approaches out there. Ayurveda in general has great things to say about getting in balance. Simple and natural. Deepak Chopra, you may or may not like him, but he is good at esplaining the Ayurveda. Gree C. Hair has more experience than me in these cleansing matters, so maybe she'll chime in.
OK I'm stopping now.