Vegan Cleanse

The 21-day vegan cleanse is the new fad diet created by Kathy Freston and featured in her new book "Quantum Wellness". The diet-- touted by celebrities such as talk show host Oprah Winfrey and Sex and the City star, Chris Noth-- calls for "conscious eating", which means eliminating foods with all sugar, alcohol, caffeine, gluten, and animal products from your diet to detox your system and rebalance your body.

How to do the Vegan Cleanse

The vegan cleanse is all about enhancing your life through your eating. It takes the notion that "you are what you eat" to the next level. The diet is designed to eliminate the body of toxins, and boost energy and health through foods rich in vitamins and minerals.The idea behind the 21-day program is that by replacing certain foods with those of higher nutritional value, a person can enhance their physical, emotional and even spiritual health. Part of the diet includes ridding yourself of bad habits or addictions. The Vegan Cleanse also promotes an awareness of ethics and environmentalism, which is derived from the practice of Veganism.

Vegans live a lifestyle that eliminates the use of animals for food, clothing and any other purpose in support of animal rights. That means in order to do the vegan cleanse you must refrain from eating any meat or dairy and instead stick to mostly raw foods. Meat and dairy products are replaced with vegetable or soy-based products in most of the recipes feature in Freston's book. In her book, Freston includes 45 vegetarian recipes, two weeks of meal plans, and a general shopping list for the diet. If you are looking for alternate recipes for the diet, check out VegWeb.com and The Vegan Chef.

Oprah is one of many that found vegan foods very tasty. In her blog she states, "I can honestly say every meal was a surprise and a delight, beginning with breakfast---strawberry rhubarb wheat-free crepes."

Do you lose weight on the vegan cleanse?

The Vegan Cleanse is more about improving your lifestyle than losing weight, but studies show that vegans are less at risk for obesity, heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.

After three weeks on the diet, you will generally lose anywhere from five to 10 pounds, but unfortunately most of that will be water weight. Joy Bauer, a registered dietitian in New York City, told USA Today, "People are always doing them [cleanse diets], and it's disheartening because they are sophisticated, smart people who know better, but they are so desperate for a quick fix. You don't experience long-term success on them. You may be less bloated. You may feel lighter. You may be losing some weight, but much of it is water weight."

To actually lose weight on the vegan cleanse, the diet has to be a long-term lifestyle change combined with exercise, similar to the South Beach Diet, Atkins Diet and Zone Diet.