Diets have a way of capturing America's attention unlike almost anything else. It's like the food equivalent of passing an accident on the highway: you just can't. stop. looking. Someone lost 11 pounds in 30 days! Someone ate the same three meals for a month! Someone's going to jail for creating a bogus diet! So when a diet's shrouded in a little bit of mystery — like the Purification Rundown that Scientologists follow upon joining the church — we're alllll up in that.

If you've heard about the detox before, you might've also heard it called the Purif (what's a diet without a snappy nickname?) or the Hubbard Method. The latter is a nod to the founder of the detox program and the entire religion, L. Ron Hubbard. He began it to rid new church followers of toxins from earlier drug or alcohol abuse. But, like anything else associated with The Church of Scientology, it's pretty controversial.

LOIC VENANCE

For starters, this diet's not focused on detoxing the old fashioned way, by eating naturally while eliminating certain food groups. Instead participants are encouraged to chow down on the same stuff they always do, whether that's grain bowls or McDonald's. The detox comes from huge doses of a vitamin-cocktail that's main ingredient is niacin, which, according to Hubbard, alleviates and prevents radiation sickness. In his book Clear Body, Clear Mind, Hubbard recommends starting with doses of 100mg and increasing to 5,000mg over the course of the program. Want to know how much doctors recommend taking if needed? 15 mg. The Purif doses are so large, participants have revealed severe reactions like skin irritation, dizziness, and headaches. Hubbard says this is just your body releasing poisons.

In addition to the vitamins, people going through the Purification Rundown are told to drink a blend of vegetable oils (they supposedly replenish the body's fatty tissues), and an anti-dehydration drink of water, salt, and potassium. The fear of dehydration comes from the fact that participants are forced to hang out in a sauna for up to five hours a day in order to — what else? — sweat out the body's poisons.

SAM KINGSLEY

While the whole program's meant to rid people's bodies of harmful toxins, there's no rule in the Scientology handbook that says churchgoers can't consume alcohol or cigarettes on a regular basis — you know, substances known to negatively affect the human body. They're only prohibited from poppin' bottles and takin' puffs in the 24 hours leading up to and during auditing sessions, which are believed by some to be periods when participants are hypnotized and asked questions.

As we've learned, most detoxes and diet plans (even the super-popular ones) are subject to debunking, but this one seems particularly suspect. And, per usual, we're not going to hear anything from the inside Scientology ring. So, um, Leah Remini? If you're out there reading this, we've got an episode idea for season two of your docuseries.

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Sarah Weinberg Deputy Editor Sarah Weinberg is the deputy editor at Delish and has covered food, travel, home, and lifestyle for a number of publications, including Food Network Magazine and Country Living.

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