Brian Johnson’s

PhilosophersNotes
TM

More Wisdom in Less Time

THE BIG IDEAS Clean

Failing Detox Systems
The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body’s Natural Ability to
And what we can do about it.
Heal Itself
BY ALEJANDRO JUNGER · HARPERCOLLINS © 2009 · 304 PAGES
Symptoms & Root Causes
Focus on the root causes, please.

Milk Is Poisoning Us
Seriously. Quit consuming it. “Modern medicine’s fascination with molecules and micro-technology has targeted
attention obsessively on smaller and smaller aspects of our biology while losing
Atkins: Not a Good Idea
Are you on it? Please get off. :) interest in looking at the big-picture systems in the body that keep us surviving
Quantum Toxins and thriving. This is a mistake. Many of the health problems that trouble so many
Detox your thoughts! modern humans and cost society so much money can be alleviated when—instead
Stop Complaining of getting more detail-oriented in your approach, recruiting more superspecialists,
A key to self-mastery. inventing more technology, and adding in more medication—you take a broader
Different Outcomes perspective and do something simpler: turn your attention to the treasure that is
Require different actions.
already there, the detoxification system, and reactivate its potential.”
Being Clean
vs. Being attractive garbage. ~ Dr. Alejandro Junger from Clean

Our Fabulous New Homes Are you feeling a little funky?

Time to maintain ‘em!
There’s a very good chance that your body’s detox systems are overworked and could use a little
re-start! And, helping you do that wisely is pretty much what Dr. Alejandro Junger’s great book
is all about.

Written in a smart, inspiring and grounded style, Clean is packed with Big Ideas on the hows
and whys of detoxification and creating optimal health. I think you’ll dig it.

If you’re feelin’ it, pick up the book.

“At the most basic,
obvious, and literal level,
we are what we eat. Food
provides the materials for
the construction of our
body’s architecture. Food
becomes us.”
~ Dr. Alejandro Junger
If you’re really feelin’ it, cruise on over to www.CleanProgram.com and hook yourself up with the
Clean kit and get your detox on!! (Plus: Enter coupon code “PNotes” and get $15 off! Yayuh! :)
For now, let’s jump in and explore a few of my favorite Big Ideas!
FAILING DETOX SYSTEMS
“Commonplace complaints such as headaches, bowel irregularities, allergies, weight problems,
depression, anxiety, and pain are largely caused by failing detox systems. Looking older, feeling
more tired, and losing the radiant luster of health are also directly related to this overburdened
state. Yet all of this can be reversed and, frequently, healed when we pay attention to
detoxification.”

Our bodies have an extraordinary ability to keep us healthy.

But, when we tax ourselves with too much stress, terrible food, inadequate rest and other aspects
of modern living, we push our detox systems too far and they can’t keep up with the onslaught—
leading to breakdowns that show up in the form of everything from headaches and depression to
heart disease and diabetes.

This book is all about dealing with those challenges as we get our detox on.

Let’s explore some whys and hows. :)

1 PhilosophersNotes | Clean

“To kill the symptoms
without changing the
conditions that caused
them is insulting to the
body’s intelligence.”
~ Dr. Alejandro Junger
“The reason many of these
problems persist and get
worse with time is that
modern medicine tends to
focus on making a diagnosis,
instead of looking at what
is behind it.”
~ Dr. Alejandro Junger
2 PhilosophersNotes | Clean
SYMPTOMS VS. ROOT CAUSES
“When the leaves of a plant start looking sick, wise gardeners will dig out the root to take a look.
Even though it is buried in soil, hidden from view, gardeners know they must go to the root
to find where most plant diseases begin. It does not surprise them that it was far away from
the root, on the leaves, that the first symptoms appeared. They know that for the leaves to be
healthy, they must receive nutrients from the roots, where they are absorbed from the soil. I
learned this as a kid, watching the gardeners in my own backyard.”
This is the lead paragraph to a chapter discussing the importance of looking for the CAUSES of
our ailments rather than merely treating the SYMPTOMS.
Symptoms vs. root causes.
Modern medicine is nearly exclusively focused on dealing with the SYMPTOMS we experience
when we’re not feeling well. Although the technological advances we’ve made are stunning and
often life saving, there’s too much REACTION and not enough PROACTIVE prevention.
Here’s how Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn puts it in his GREAT book Prevent and Reverse Heart
Disease (see Notes): “I still cherish the naive dream I had when I started this research. We
have shown that the number one killer in Western civilization can be abolished, through
consumption of a plant- based diet. But we can do much more. If the public adopted this
approach to preventing disease, if, by the millions, Americans abandoned their toxic diets
and learned a truly healthy approach to eating, we could largely limit all those diseases of
nutritional extravagance— strokes, hypertension, obesity, osteoporosis, and adult-onset
diabetes. Meanwhile, we would see a marked reduction in cancers of the breast, prostate,
colon, rectum, uterus, and ovaries. Medicine could relinquish its primary focus on pills and
procedures. Prevention, not desperate intervention, would become the order of the day.
Even I am not optimistic enough to believe that this could happen overnight—that the entire
population of the United States would switch to a plant-based diet the moment its benefits are
widely known. But we can get there. The first step is to educate the public, teaching the truth
about what we know about nutrition and the ravages of the traditional Western diet.”
Here’s to going after the causes of disease via effective preventative measures rather than
relaying on desperate intervention that treats the symptoms!!
MILK IS POISONING US
“We became the only mammals that drink milk after we stop nursing from our mother’s breast.
And we go even further—we steal the milk from different species. It’s like putting jet fuel in a
motorcycle; it damages the engine. Worse, now that milk is full of hormones and antibiotics, a
questionable argument becomes undeniable. Milk is poisoning us.”
Milk is poisoning us.
It really is that simple.
In fact, according to Dr. Junger drinking milk is “like putting jet fuel in a motorcycle.”
How’s that? Let’s think about it for a second.
What did Nature create milk to do?
Simply put: Milk is the essential food mommy mammals provide their infants during the early
days of their lives. For humans, that milk-nourishment helps us go from a birth weight of around
8 pounds to a weight of around 20 pounds in a year. For a COW, on the other hand, that milk-
nourishment helps the calf go from a birth weight of around 80 pounds to a year-old weight of
over 1,100 (!) pounds.

“Americans are eating too
many processed foods
loaded with chemicals,
simple carbohydrates,
and fats designed in
laboratories.”
~ Dr. Alejandro Junger
PhilosophersNotes | Clean
* scratching my head and pondering *
Hmmm...
Sure seems like the nutritional makeup of cow’s milk is probably a tad different than human
milk, eh?
Indeed it is!
Hence, as Dr. Junger tells us, drinking it is “like putting jet fuel in a motorcycle.” (Last time I
checked, that wasn’t a good idea. :)
So...
Let’s cut the milk out of our diet and focus on consuming the foods designed for our bodies!
P.S. Dr. Neal Barnard, author of Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes (see
Notes) believes that eliminating dairy products (and all animal foods, in fact) is critical to
optimal health and puts it this way: “Just as a car performs dramatically better when it has the
fuel it was designed for, your body performs far better when you give it the food it needs.”
P.P.S. To repeat: Dairy isn’t good fuel for the human body. (Just sayin’. :)
ATKINS: NOT A GOOD IDEA
“The Atkins diet works; it is guaranteed to make you fit in your bathing suit by beach time. What
it doesn’t guarantee is that you will be alive to enjoy it... High animal-protein content in our diet
is acidifying, contributing to inflammation in general and to cardiovascular disease, cancer, renal
insufficiency, gout, and osteoporosis in particular.
... Whenever people ask me what they should eat, I first ask them, “What are you eating for?” If
you are eating to get lean, fast, Atkins is your best choice, but your worst choice if what you want
is radiant health and longevity.”
If you’re on Atkins, please get off it. It’s killing you.
Here’s how Colin Campbell, one of the most respected nutrition scientists out there puts it:
“Perhaps it is a testament to the power of modern marketing savvy that an obese man with
heart disease and high blood pressure became one of the richest snake oil salesman ever to
live, selling a diet that promises to help you lose weight, to keep your heart healthy and to
normalize your blood pressure.”
Campbell continues by saying: “I have heard one doctor call high-protein, high fat, low-
carbohydrate diets “make-yourself-sick” diets, and I think that’s an appropriate moniker.
You can also lose weight by undergoing chemotherapy or starting a heroine addiction, but I
wouldn’t recommend those, either.”
Seriously.
If you or someone you love is rockin’ Atkins, please stop. :)
QUANTUM THOUGHT TOXINS
“Toxicity is not limited to the realm of food and chemicals. There is another kind of toxicity
that is just as pervasive and influential on modern health—even though it’s harder to measure
and isolate. Toxic thoughts, toxic relationships, the undercurrent of anxiety that is almost
an automatic by-product of making it in the modern American world—all these things are
pollutants in that they disturb the peace and normal body functioning we were born to have.
Although it doesn’t come up on the EPA’s list of worst environmental dangers and is still not
fully recognized by many busy doctors in hospitals (as the lack of adequate therapies in them
3

“It is rampant in modern
life; unproductive thinking
rules us and controls our
lives.”
~ Dr. Alejandro Junger
“It’s a universal truth:
when you are fit and
healthy, you crave the good-
quality foods that maintain
that state.”
~ Dr. Alejandro Junger
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reveals), the stress of modern life is as much a toxin as the chemicals in our food, water, and air.”
Optimism.
It’s Principle #1 in Optimal Living 101 and we scientifically know that whether we’re a pessimist
or an optimist directly affects our health.
Wondering just how toxic our thoughts are?
Here’s how Martin Seligman puts it in his great book, Flourish (see Notes): “We estimate that
being in the upper quartile of optimism seems to have a beneficial effect on cardiovascular risk
roughly equivalent to not smoking two packs of cigarettes daily.”
Wow.
We focus on dozens of different ways to build our optimism muscles throughout these Notes.
Check out the Notes on Learned Optimism and A Guide to Rational Living in particular for
some focused goodness to help you detox your mind!!
For now, here’s another wisdom nugget from Dr. Junger: “If some of the biggest obstacles to
radiant well-being are the quantum toxins of stress and endless thinking, then one of the most
important acts any of us can do to achieve better health is to engage in quantum detoxofication:
clearing the debris and toxic waste that fills up the mind on a daily basis, and recapturing some
of that lost attention that drains out of our brains in random, repetitive thinking.”
Quantum detoxification.
It’s a key part of creating optimal health.
We need to tame those little drunk monkeys in our minds and escort the ANTs (automatic
negative thoughts) our the back door!
How?
Well, one key way that Dr. Junger recommends is a simple meditation practice for as little as five
minutes a day. Check out the book for more goodness there and (*fingers crossed*) we’re hoping
to work with the good Doctor on a Guided Blissitation where he delivers the goods in a powerful
meditation we can plug into on a regular basis! :)
STOP COMPLAINING
“Stop complaining... Any complaint is really the expression of a negative emotion or state. It
gives the complainer a sense of immediate relief, even pleasure. This is perhaps the reason why it
is such a common practice worldwide.”
Looking for another way to deal with toxins from stuff other than your food and environment?
STOP COMPLAINING!!
Dr. Junger describes his meeting with a guy named Hugo Cory who told him that a key to Self-
Mastery lies in our ability to get ourselves to stop complaining.
It’s powerful stuff.
We cover this in detail in the Note on Will Bowen’s great book, A Complaint Free World, where
he challenges us to go twenty-one days without complaining, criticizing or gossiping. Try it.
(Warning: It’s harder than you think. :)
Bowen reminds us that “You can best get what you desire by expressing what you want rather
than complaining about the way things are.”
And, Bowen tells us this regarding our health and our thoughts: “Doctors estimate that 67
percent of illnesses are a result of “thinking sick.” Our thoughts create our world and our

“The human body has an
amazing natural ability to
defend, repair, heal, and even
rejuvenate itself.”
~ Dr. Alejandro Junger
PhilosophersNotes | Clean
words indicate our thoughts. Complaining about an illness will neither shorten its duration nor
lessen its severity.”
P.S. Maya Angelou puts it brilliantly: “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change
it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.”
So, if you’re serious about detoxing, quit complaining. :)
CREATING DIFFERENT OUTCOMES
“If your instinct is pushing you toward a detoxification program but you need motivation, just
look around at the people on the street, or in the mall, or in the airport. How healthy and happy
does the average person look? Read some of the health Web sites that are talking honestly about
the real state of health in America today. Too many people are sick. Too many people are taking
medications, going to the doctor, or suffering with some kind of symptom. Half of Americans
will have heart disease or cancer in their lives. The other half will likely develop other kinds of
conditions and diseases that will continue to make the pharmaceutical industry one of the most
profitable industries of all time. So as you consider whether you can successfully do the Clean
program, it can be helpful to ask yourself, do you want to be a number in the American bad-
health statistics? If you do what most Americans do and you eat what most Americans eat, how
can you expect a different outcome?”
The bad-health statistics are truly shocking.
—> “Half of Americans will have heart disease or cancer in their lives. The other half will likely
develop other kinds of conditions and diseases that will continue to make the pharmaceutical
industry one of the most profitable industries of all time.”
As Dr. Junger advises us, if we do what most Americans do, we’re going to experience what most
Americans experience.
So, let’s choose wisely and pick a healthier course!!
And let’s keep this in mind: “In an era when heart disease, an almost entirely avoidable
condition, is the number-one killer in our country; when a staggering portion of the American
GNP is used to pay for drugs and treatments for the so-called diseases of civilization; when
the percentage of men and women who use prescription drugs daily is sky high and growing,
especially among those in midlife and older; one kind of future is laid out before you, one of
ever-worsening health and a diminishing sense of well-being. Why not choose a different future,
by digging the well now, when you have the strength to dig deep—before you have been further
weakened?”
Here’s to digging the well of health BEFORE we get sick!!!
BEING CLEAN VS. BEING ATTRACTIVE GARBAGE
“Some old ideas have been turned on their heads. For example, one accepted belief is that
bacteria and viruses attack you and make you toxic and ill. This is like saying the mice and
roaches make the trash can full—a crude analogy, but an apt one. The real reason roaches and
mice hang out in the trash can is because garbage is there attracting them. Likewise, bacteria and
viruses will land and thrive in bodies that are already toxic.”
Although we’re conditioned to believe that bacteria and viruses just randomly show up and make
us sick, that’s not quite the way it works.
Fact is, those bacteria and viruses need a good host if they’re going to take over and destroy our
health—kinda like how mice and roaches like to hang out in a gross trash can. Ew.
Begs the question: Are your insides looking like a dirty trash can and offering a sanctuary for
5

“When given a chance, even
the most fatigued body
wants to find its way back
to balance.”
~ Dr. Alejandro Junger
If you liked this Note,
you’ll probably like…
Prevent and Reverse Heart
Disease
Revive
The Engine 2 Diet
The RAVE Diet
The China Study
The Thrive Diet
6 PhilosophersNotes | Clean
viruses and bacteria to flourish?
If so, get your Clean on, yo! :)
MAINTAINING OUR FABULOUS NEW HOMES
“If you constructed a fantastic new building, it would be foolish not to maintain it. If you
invested in a new car, you’d maintain it just as the user’s manual instructs, to keep it running
well over the months and years to come. For some reason, we’re more resistant to this idea
when it comes to our health. It’s easier and more convenient to let things go a little and then
look for the next fix-it solution when systems and organs start to degenerate. The “magic bullet”
approach is rampant in American culture today. Ignore these things until they get intolerable,
and then hunt out that diet, supplement, surgery, or natural therapy that promises to reverse
it all tomorrow. Magazines, movies, and TV shows support this approach overwhelmingly.
Magazine covers feature pictures of celebrities with headlines about what they did to look ten
years younger—which becomes the next fad of the moment. But what if we saw that celebrity a
few months or years later? Often they’ve backslid from that high state of health back to where
they were before, or worse. Usually lack of maintenance is the cause. They did the kick-start
without any follow-up.”
It’s one thing to re-set our detox systems with an awesome cleanse. It’s an entirely separate thing
to keep the new house clean! :)
With that in mind, Dr. Junger gives us a plan to rock it. As always, it’s best to avoid the magic
bullet solutions as we focus on diligently, patiently, persistently and playfully rockin’ the
fundamentals!
Hope you enjoyed this quick look at a great book and here’s to getting our Clean on!! :)
Brian Johnson,
Chief Philosopher
About the Author of “Clean”
ALEJANDRO JUNGER
Alejandro Junger, M.D., is board certified in internal medicine and cardiology
and has studied Eastern medicine in India. He was the medical director of WE
Care Holistic Health Center in Palm Springs, a world-famous center for fasting,
cleansing, and detoxification. Currently, he is in private practice at the renowned
Eleven Eleven Wellness Center and is designing an integrative medicine service
for Lenox Hill Hospital’s Heart and Vascular Institute of New York.
About the Author of This Note
BRIAN JOHNSON
Brian Johnson is a lover of wisdom (aka a “Philosopher”) and a passionate
student of life who’s committed to inspiring and empowering millions of people
to live their greatest lives as he studies, embodies and shares the universal truths
of optimal living. He harts his job.