As we have pointed out in the past, "juice cleanses" are bullshit, scams peddled by sharps to to sucker the desperate. Still, today brings yet another first-person trend story about juice cleansing. But—progress is being made!

To be clear, the idea that drinking nothing but a few bottles of juice for days on end will help you lose weight is not bullshit. Indeed it will, as would a bread-and-water diet. But the idea that this somehow "cleanses" you, or that this juice is so special that it's worth $65 a day, is a scam on the order of healing crystals and vitality-bestowing magnets.

The good news: juice cleanse trend stories have now evolved to the point that the bullshit of the "cleanse" is the premise of the article itself. Judith Newman does an admirable job today laughing at herself, and at the Blueprint Cleanse, and its salespersons and aficionados and, not least, at its nasty juices. She speaks to several doctors and nutrition experts who explain exactly why this is dangerous bullshit! But after three days of juice, she acknowledges, "I wasn't craving anything. I was free."

You wanna be free, Judith? Free to be hardcore.