Detox Q&A: Why I no longer do the liver flush (part 1)

Photography by Ndoema

This two-part post is in answer to Karen who left the following comment regarding an earlier Juicing Q&A post: How to help the liver & colon eliminate more effectively?

“I’ve never done them during a juice fast because I use avocados (I’ll discuss my liver flush protocol in a different post)…”

Ndoema, I recently stumbled across your site because of your posts on juice feasting; I initially read the above quoted comment a few days ago, and it’s honestly been bothering me ever since. How do you use avocados during a juice fast to detoxify your liver? I’m sorry if you did write a follow-up post and I just haven’t found it at your site yet, but I am extremely intrigued. I am on Day 5 of my first major juice feast (shooting for 2 weeks but I’m thinking I may just want to continue into May)… I’ve juice fasted before, but juice FEASTING is an entirely different animal! That being said, I have a little avocado in my cupboard that I keep looking at, wondering how it might be incorporated into this great nutritional undertaking of mine. Do you puree your avocado and mix it with another juice? Do you take it with herbs? How do you use your avocados? Searching elsewhere online has only unearthed the thought that an avocado during a juice feast/fast will slow the body’s detoxification because of the extra fiber and fat it has to process–so I’d love to hear your reply, if you have a moment or two. Thank you very much.

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of liver cleansing, let me first congratulate you on your juice feast! That’s wonderful and yes, juice “feasts” are a class of their own.

Also let me make a brief clarification. What I said in that earlier post is that I do NOT do liver cleanses when I’m juicing because I use avocado.

So indeed, ingesting avocados while on a juice fast will kick your system back into digestion mode and temporarily slow down your detox process. Sorry to disappoint here, but yes forget about that avo lurking into your cupboard until your fast is over and then – if so inclined – try out the liver cleansing protocol I will be sharing with you.

I had known and read about the “classic” liver flush for a good year (or two) before I gathered enough courage to give it a shot. As you now know, I’m big on cleansing the liver so I needed no convincing as to the benefits. Plus I’m super curious and always gung ho about trying out new things. But that olive oil and grapefruit juice mixture was a serious deterrent. Just the thought of it was so repulsive that I’d postponed my attempts repeatedly until that blessed day 5 years ago, when I finally decided to take the plunge. It was the culmination of a series of synchronistic events I’ll share in later posts but suffice to say that day was a major turning point in terms of my own inner and outer transformations.

I followed all the instructions to the letter. From the precisely timed out epsom salts intake to guzzling that half a cup of olive oil mixed with grapefruit juice. It was gross but I survived it 😉 The next morning, not much seemed to be happening so I was tempted to pass on the last rounds of epsom salts (not my favorite drink in the world) but I decided to stick with the plan and give the full protocol a fair shot. By midday, just when I was about to conclude that the liver flush didn’t work for me … I experienced the first of many astounding gallstone releases. Literally hundreds. It was so mind blowing and I was so psyched with the results that I completed 12 more liver flushes within the next six months (basically one every two weeks).

I tweaked things a bit to make the experience a bit more bearable. I would mix equal part of oil and lemon juice and take this first, followed by a 16 oz glass of freshly squeezed (and chilled) grapefruit juice.

This liver flush protocol is wildly controversial. One of the common arguments against liver cleansing is that stones simply don’t exist. Never mind that laparoscopy (gallbladder removal) is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures in the United States according to the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons, and that stones are routinely spotted via medical procedures such as endoscopic retrograde cholangio pancreatography and ultrasound imaging.

The second most common argument is that the gallstones released via this method are “fake” gallstones. They’re just a mixture of the olive oil and epsom salt that were ingested. Well, my experience has proven otherwise as I now routinely release gallstones without the intake of oil nor epsom salt. The amusing fact is that those who most vehemently attack the liver flush (I’m not pointing fingers, those posts are easy to find if you care to read them) have actually never tried it themselves…

I’m totally not interested in convincing anyone to agree with me or do as I do, only in answering questions and sharing honestly my own experiences.

So… I was so inspired by the benefits I received from the liver flushes that I decided to experiment with another powerful detox practice: juice fasting. Within the next year I completed twelve 5 and 7-day juice fasts, three more “classic” liver flushes (and continued to release more stones) before embarking on my first 92-day juice feast (I’m currently on day 24 of my fourth 92-day juice feast).

I think it’s important to mention these juice fasts because I believe that juice fasting has had a phenomenal healing effect on my liver (and all internal organs) and is the prime reason for the ease with which it is now able to perform its detoxing functions and allowing me to release stones quite effortlessly.

So… fast forward to the last days of my first three-month juice fast, and I don’t know it yet but everything is about to change big time … (Read Part 2 here)