After going through the Garden Of Life Raw Cleanse for all 7 days, here are the details and my thoughts on everything.  For the overview, my first post about the cleanse is here.

The process for this 7 day cleanse is pretty easy to follow.  There is a packet you take in the morning, capsules you take with breakfast & lunch, and a powder you mix with water and drink before bedtime.  One thing I didn’t like was that the directions are not clear about what else you can or should ingest while doing the cleanse.  I discussed with one of the employees at Sprouts and also researched online.  I found that it is recommended to drink plenty of water, eat mostly fruits, vegetable, and nuts, and add some healthy fat like coconut oil or flaxseed oil.  Also, it is recommended to eliminate high allergen foods (wheat, dairy, soy, etc.) and eliminate sugar, refined flour, processed foods, and caffeine.

Step 1

The first step is a little packet that you take first thing in the morning.  The instructions are to open the packet and dump it in your mouth.  Then add a little bit of water and swish it around your mouth.  Finally, swallow the whole thing.  The idea of this step is to balance out your mouth – which is the first point of access to your digestive system.  It contains probiotics that work in both the mouth and the intestinal tract.  It is a defense against toxins at the entry point into your body.  I like the idea of this “point of entry” defense and haven’t seen this idea in other cleanses.

The taste of this packet isn’t bad at all.  I did find that it clumps up pretty easily and sticks to the insides of your mouth.  My suggestion is to put some water in your mouth first and then pour the packet in.  That seems to help the powder mix a little better.

Step 2

The second step is capsules that you take throughout the day.  These are marked as organ detoxifying and contain things like milk thistle for liver function and green things like chlorella and spirulina as antioxidants.  You take 6 capsules each day.  The directions recommend taking 3 capsules with breakfast and 3 with lunch.  The idea of this step is to support liver function so that your body can better eliminate normal and environmental toxins.  It also contains a range of antioxidants to help with this as well.

Being capsules, obviously there is no taste to discuss.  The capsules themselves are fairly large, but I found them fine to swallow and didn’t notice any aftertaste or refluxed taste.

Step 3

The third and final step is powder that you mix into a glass of water and drink down. This is done about an hour before bedtime.  The container comes with a little plastic scooper and you add two level scoops to a tall glass of water.  The powder doesn’t really fully dissolve, so you are left with a large glass of thick chunky liquid to drink.

I use the term “drink” loosely – it is more like “chug while trying not to gag”.  The taste isn’t very good, and it is hard to deal with the thick consistency.  This was the worst part of the cleanse.  While it doesn’t taste great, it isn’t terrible and if you just gulp it down quickly it goes fine.  This is the most noticeable step because the contents act as a fiber bulk and your bowel movements the next day will be decidedly larger and bulkier.  It is made up of natural fibers like coconut fiber, flax seed, and chia seed.  The product material claims that the fibers used are less harsh on your digestive system than things like psyllium which many other colon cleanses contain.

Final Thoughts

I did the whole 7 days of this cleanse and it was a good experience overall.  While I did not notice anything drastic, it did feel like my digestive system was a little more settled and happy.  As I mentioned above, the 3rd step of the powder noticeably affected my bowel movements and it seemed to clean me out a little.  Compared to the Master Cleanse, the results are far more subtle.  It was a positive experience, but I’ not sure how often I would repeat the process.

Have you done this cleanse or any others?  If so, or if you have any other feedback or questions, please comment and let me know.