Weekend Diversion: The Last Detox Diet You'll Ever Try!

"My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people." -Orson Welles

I just completed my 35th trip around the Sun yesterday, which was a great time! But, it got me thinking, has my time in this world resulted in a build-up of toxic substances in my body? Is there any way to get rid of them? Is there anything, as Olenka & the Autumn Lovers might sing, that can get me

Clean?

Well, maybe there is, if you look in the right place!

Image credit: http://www.cleansevsdiet.com/. *NOT* an endorsement, by any means! Image credit: http://www.cleansevsdiet.com/. *NOT* an endorsement, by any means!

Think your kidneys and liver aren't doing a good enough job of removing harmful toxins from your body? Tired of fads that don't work? Worried that changing your lifestyle and food habits is just too hard and expensive?

Image credit: AisleTracker blog, via http://www.aisletracker.com/. Image credit: AisleTracker blog, via http://www.aisletracker.com/.

Then you need these sugar-free gummi bears!

Image credit: Haribo candies, via http://www.amazon.com/. Image credit: Haribo candies, via http://www.amazon.com/.

Made with five real fruit flavors and coming in crystalline, jewel-like, sparkling clear colors, you'll delight at the taste of these delicious candies, all without any sugar at all.

Instead, of sugar, these are sweetened with Lycasin, a hydrogenated glucose syrup. And what a deal: this five-pound bag of deliciousness contains over 1,000 individual gummi bears!

And unlike other detox diets that only cleanse one organ in your body and require you to starve yourself, the Haribo sugar-free gummi bears will clear out your entire digestive tract, and do so in a splendidly violent manner!

Image credit: Screenshot from Amazon. Blue arrows added by me for emphasis. Image credit: Screenshot from Amazon. Blue arrows added by me for emphasis.

But don't take my word for it; let's hear some real customer testimonies from Amazon:

Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/. Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/.
Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/. Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/.
Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/. Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/.
Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/. Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/.
Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/. Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/.

With sixteen pages of customer testimony, you know you can't go wrong with the Gummi Bear Detox Cleanse!

Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/. Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/.
Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/. Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/.

And if you're ever in in Phoenixville, PA, make sure you stop by Andrew Schaefer's office for a rollicking good time.

Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/. Image credit: actual customer review of Haribo sugar-free gummi bears from http://www.amazon.com/.

It's even a selling point on the product itself!!!

Image credit: Haribo candies, via http://www.amazon.com/. Image credit: Haribo candies, via http://www.amazon.com/.

Warnings are features, too! Remember, folks, intestinal distress isn't a bad thing, it's just your body's way of undergoing purification. Not since the Onion have I seen such a spectacular promise of weight loss and detoxification. So what are you waiting for? Order yours today!!

(Warning, the above post may contain satire. Also, toxins don't actually work the way the "cleanse" image indicates; the wikipedia page on detoxification is fascinating. If you actually have serious problems with sugar and are looking for a tasty, sugar-free snack, these are apparently delicious. Just know what you're getting yourself into.)

More like this

"I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won't contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That's what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act." -Orson Welles It's like that for…
Yesterday, the real-life mailbox brought the Pharmboy household the Fall 2009 issue of DukeMedicine connect, a biannual publication on current news from the Duke University Health System. Produced by DUHS Marketing and Creative Services, it "strives to offer current news about health topics of…
“Some days you go bear hunting and you get eaten. Some days you come home with a nice rug to roll around on, and bear steaks. What they don't tell you as a kid is that sometimes you get the rug and steaks, but you also get some nice scars to go with them. ...once you realize what can go wrong, it's…
“Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset? And he's carrying a beautiful rose in his beak, and also he's carrying a very beautiful painting with his feet. And also, you're drunk.” -Jack Handy The diversity of the world's…

Are there really people in the world who are stupid enough to fall for this crap?

Are there really people in the world who are stupid enough to fall for this crap?

Yes. This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.

You'll find plenty of evidence by looking into the people Orac ridicules on his blog.

By Eric Lund (not verified) on 04 Aug 2013 #permalink

Just in case, while others do think like that, I don't think these particular people were looking to detox, just to buy sugar free candy. This is not a scam product. There are similar reviews for example for sugar-free Twizzlers. If you are lucky enough not to get diarrhea you're golden.

^ That was a response to the comments, not to the post. I know it was satire.

Happy 35th birthday Ethan! I'm 22 orbits ahead of you & I hope you'll keep me in touch with the current thinking in your field for as long as I'm here. BTW Have theoretical cosmologists accounted for the relation of colour to electric charge in high energy gummions?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ-pSfXcXtw

I suspect it's an open field of inquiry. Please keep on doing your thing. It's good.

By Michael Fisher (not verified) on 04 Aug 2013 #permalink

Hell, there's sugar-free caffeine-free Red Bull.

Talk about effing stupid...

I love gummy bears... in fact, I love all those gummy treats.. the snakes, bares, cola's etc..

But let's be realistic... it's rubber... eating any amount doesn't make our stomach happy :) And 20pcs isn't a small amount. :D

but agree that sideffects in this are a bit hard. My girl friend had a similar reaction while eating peanuts, one or two might have been a bit stale. She wanted to die that night. I ate from the same batch and had no issues...

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 04 Aug 2013 #permalink

WOW!!! Where can I order such an enormous gummi bear???

"...in case you haven’t had a colonoscopy prep,"

The prep involves what has been aptly described as "the night of a thousand waterfalls"

That's great, I mean the news about sugarless little buddies as I am a super huge fan of them since I was a kid. Now when I am on a diet I tend to make sort of healthy gummy bears at home (grabbed recipe over here http://www.askwiki.net/How-to-Make-Gummy-Bears the second recipe) although they turn out to become not that chewy. I don't really believe in like completely sugar free candies as I still don't get how you can do that. So my point is you better make them yourself at home to be sure they will correspond your diet type.

That’s great to hear about detox diet. Thanks Ethan for amazing using healthy informative article. Nowadays many people are not aware of diet and most of the people are addicted to junk food or fatty foods. It’s much needed article for me. I regularly prefer for natural diet instead junk food or fatty foods it’s takes longer time to digestive and get rid. By consuming natural diet our bowel movements will be frequent and easy to move away. Once again thanks a lot.

By JuanitaFrapp (not verified) on 25 Aug 2013 #permalink

How long a chain they are tells you how you will digest them: small chain sugars are easy to digest and will have a different biological effect because the mechanisms for regulating blood sugar in the body (it's used as a disinfectant, you know, strong sugar solutions: they are inimical to life) don't have enough time to work out that there's been sugar eaten.

you guys made me laugh so hard lololololololololol

By onionkisss (not verified) on 04 Mar 2014 #permalink

Well, Steven Hawking said it all started from a singularity. There was a big explosion. Then there were a lot of singularities in a pile of black holes. Seems like it all may have started from the gummy bears, maybe .....

Question: how does your poop look like if you only eat gummy-bears?

Go eat some to find out for yourself. 2lbs sounds like a favorable quantity. Good luck. :)

These really do work. Even if they do contain calories, what is subtracted out of your body from shitting so much is pounds if not kgs. Good if you need a real colon cleanse. Unfortunately, all laxatives just melt out water content really. Ongoing use of them can be harmful to your body, just like most things are. So yes, weight is melted off your body, because you shit it out.