Friday, March 7, 2014

You Keep the Kale, I'm Trying the New "Ice Cream Cleanse"

A California creamery claims that raw, saturated fat is a "miracle worker" for the human body -- it's also their ice cream's main ingredient
I am an ardent fan of the juice cleanse. I've tried many of the commercial ones (with Blue Print being my favorite) and always enjoy the results -- if not the first 12 hours.

The leaning out, the de-puffing, the clear(ing) complexion -- all aces in my book. And, I absolutely love the no-brainer convenience of reaching for a bottle and not having to plan a meal. Factor in that I genuinely like the way most of them taste (that nasty macadamia milk notwithstanding) and, if they weren't so gosh darn expensive I'd be happy to juice cleanse my way through life.

In fact, I've been contemplating placing order for a 5-day "Excavation Cleanse" -- spring break is just around the corner -- but this morning, something came across my Feedly feed that may have (permanently) altered that plan.

The headline alerted me to the fact that Kippy's, an organic, non-dairy ice cream shop in, where else?, Venice, Calif. is promoting the first-ever "Ice Cream Cleanse." Had it been April 1st, I probably wouldn't even have bothered to click through but, as it turns out, this is on the up and up.

The shop, which scoops Truly. Raw. Gourmet. ice creams and sorbets which are "100% Real Food" ("We use ingredients that are as close as possible to the way nature made them. We never add fillers, emulsifiers, or preservatives (like guar gum or xanthan gum) or anything that is not 100% Real Food."), offers a $240, 4-day cleanse that has you eating 5 pints of ice each day. For reals.

In a very convincing couple of paragraphs, Kippy's explains (and justifies) the cleanse, hammering home the point that "raw saturated fat helps us digest, repairs the gut, feeds the brain, boosts metabolism," and is pretty much the holy grail for all that ails you. Oh, in addition to all the internal benefits, as a result of living on ice cream for the better part of a week, you'll also lose weight and feel great so, what's not to like?

Call me a skeptic but, even after reading the rationale, I wasn't too sure I bought the concept, I mean, talk about sounding too good to be true. So, I did a little Googling and found a story on Fitmodo by a guy, Brent, who'd taken the cleanse for a spin.

Despite having determined that a pint of Kippy's Truly Raw Coconut contains 820 percent (!) of one's RDA for saturated fat, Brent was an eager participant and dug into his pints with gusto. Aside from a couple of urgent bathroom visits, intermittent lulls in energy and some wacky dreams, the four days passed without much drama and he ended up losing nearly 6 pounds. (Which, in typical post-cleanse fashion, had returned within a week or so.)

"[I] generally felt pretty good for most of it," he writes. "At no point did [I] ever feel truly hungry. Even cravings were very manageable, which was pretty shocking."

So, I was left to digest what I'd learned and ponder… A bottle of blended spinach, beets, ginger and apple or a pint of dark chocolate Himalayan Fire Salt ice cream? Seems like a no-brainer, right?

For most normal people, sure, but, truth be told, I don't even like ice cream all that much. However, in the name of science (?) and because it's my journalistic duty to get to the bottom of these types of critical beauty mysteries, I'd be willing to give an ice cream cleanse a shot.

How about you?

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