Cleansing Week: Day One

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: Maybe the most delicious pb & j ever. Multigrain bread, crunchy all-natural peanut butter and sweet apple butter made for a lovely, yet lonely, lunch.

The Goods: So, the plan was for everyone in the office to do a cleanse this week and get our digestive systems working good as new. We'll be posting on each of our experiences on our "cooking" day, and let you in on how these little food-free experiments are going. You may have noticed that it says, "the plan was for everyone" to cleanse this week. Well, here's what happened when Elizabeth gave The Master Cleanse a try.

For anyone unfamiliar, the Master Cleanse involves drinking a mixture of filtered water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper for 10 days. It's a widely used cleanse, and seemed fairly innocuous. Elizabeth started on Monday, thinking that having the first day done with when she got back to the office today after the long weekend would be a boon. The cleanse proved to be a touch too intense, and by 9:30 pm Ms. Elizabeth was cranky, dizzy, had an absolutely splitting headache, and was ready to shiv someone for something solid to chew. Thankfully, a well-stocked pantry kept her from committing any crimes, and she thoroughly enjoyed a simple bowl of noodle soup. As the only one in the office who's eating, pb & j seemed the obvious choice for lunch since it didn't make the kitchen smell like food and was portable for a sunny, early afternoon stroll. Make sure to check back all this week and see how the other VN staffers are doing on their fasts, and kudos to them for sticking with it!

Also, we've just received word that VegNews is nominated for "Best Vegan Publication" in the 2008 Vegan Environmental Awards, which is quite an honor considering that the awards are given in Britain and we, as you may have noticed, are based in the US. Click here to vote for us!