Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I tried the Master Cleanse back in the fall, not really to lose weight, but to flush out all the bad stuff in my body. The "lemonade" wasn't actually that bad -- I had plenty of energy and was never hungry or grumpy. However, it did make me realize how much my life revolves around food because I was BORED CRAZY. No going out to dinner or drinks with friends, no cooking at home, no lazy brunch on the weekends -- not even my favorite cup of tea at night. I broke down 5 days into it, not out of hunger, but because I just missed eating so much. I really can't see a foodie getting into a cleanse like this. That, and the lemonade really hurts your teeth enamel. Oh and the benefits? There weren't really any. I wouldn't recommend it for much more than a test of personal will.

I had a friend in college who swore she was deathly allergic to shrimp... but NOT fried shrimp. Somehow fried shrimp was okay. A miracle of science?

Goat cheese brie. Mmmmmm.

malaysian curry soup with udon noodles, tons of veggies and whatever protein is in the house. yum. love that coconut milk + hot pepper oil combination.

Hog Pit and Ninth Street Market both have excellent CFS. Yum.

I tried the master cleanse about 3 years back, but only for 4 days (due to some life circumstances) Those 4 days were actually quite helpful, and kickstarted my weightloss and physical activity.
I was fairly sedentary (though I walked to and from work every day, about 1 mile each way) and had some poor eating habits.
After the cleanse, I had more energy, and began going to the gym, and eventually went from (6'2") 230 pounds, to 198... I've slacked off on the gym slightly since then, but maintained most of the eating habits, and currently I'm 210... It's probably not for everyone, but I did find that it helped, even for such a short duration. The energy increase was the biggest benefit I found.

Sorry eathermaiden but you're wrong about the salt water. Salt actually raises the boiling point (temperature at which it will boil) so that the boiling water is hotter with salt than without. I'm not sure if the hotter water cooks pasta faster or if it is just that the higher temperature results in a better end product.

This is the same reason why cooking at high altitudes is a problem as the lower atmospheric pressure lowers the boiling point of water. Water boils at lower temperatures and so doesn't properly cook things since the water molecules can't get any hotter than the boiling point and still be in a liquid state.

How about:

1) Olive oil has fewer calories than butter.
2) Drinking milk will make you lose weight.
3) You can't put yucca in soup (I bought yucca root and said I was going to put it in soup. My mother said, "You can't put yucca in soup." She perhaps meant, "You can't put yucca in soup and expect me to eat it").

@tracyd - I think the pesticide-thing depends on fruit/vegetable involved. For example, it's impossible to really wash everything out of your broccoli, but a smooth-skinned fruit might not be so bad. Ideally, I would buy organic produce whenever I intended to eat the skin. But, uh, I earn hourly wages, so I'm just happy to have fruits and vegetables!

I have a friend who insists that calories are not a factor in weight gain, but that the weight of the food determines how much weight you gain. So, you can eat a pound of brocoli or a pound of chocolate cake and it will have the same effect on your waistline. Oh, if only that were true.....

My mom insists that the skin on fruits and veggies is so contaminated with pesticides that the only healthy way to eat them is to wash and peel the skin first. It drives me crazy because I know that the vitamins are most concentrated in the skin. The pesticides can not be that bad, can they? Can't we just wash them off like we always have in the past?