Breuss – a pioneer in his time

When people talk about detox these days, they don't automatically associate the trend with the name Rudolf Breuss. And yet by the middle of the last century the Austrian naturopath had already discovered how fasting can influence our health.

Born on 24 June 1899, Rudolf Breuss grew up in Blu­denz in the Vo­ral­berg re­gion of Aus­tria, the el­dest of three sib­lings. At the age of just 17, he was drafted into the First World War by the army and sent to the front. He was se­ri­ously in­jured in ac­tion and was left in a frag­ile state of health. In­stead of just re­sign­ing him­self to this con­di­tion, he be­gan search­ing for al­ter­na­tive heal­ing meth­ods. Breuss fi­nally found what he was look­ing for in natur­opa­thy. He de­voured count­less books, delv­ing par­tic­u­larly deeply into the teach­ings of Pas­tor Kneipp, founder of the world-renowned Kneipp Cure.

Test­ing fast­ing on him­self

Breuss was thrilled with how he was able to im­prove his own health us­ing natur­o­pathic med­i­cine. He de­voted spe­cial at­ten­tion to fast­ing and re­alised early on that fast­ing for sev­eral days brought ex­ten­sive re­lief for the en­tire body, both for mi­nor ail­ments and chronic dis­eases. Breuss thus dis­cov­ered in the early 1960s, com­pletely on his own, the ben­e­fits of what is fash­ion­ably known to­day as detox­ing. He tried out var­i­ous meth­ods and kept mak­ing ad­just­ments while read­ing more and more books. Fi­nally, af­ter count­less tri­als with him­self as sub­ject, he came up with his fa­mous veg­etable juice blend, which he named the “Breuss Cure”.

The best from veg­eta­bles

At the time, Breuss saw his mix­ture as an al­ter­na­tive rem­edy against dis­ease, but for him it was re­ally about find­ing the op­ti­mal com­bi­na­tion of five highly nu­tri­tious sorts of veg­eta­bles which could sup­ply the body with all the im­por­tant nu­tri­ents it needed, with­out plac­ing a bur­den on the or­gan­ism. On the con­trary, in his view the se­lected veg­eta­bles would sup­port the detox­i­fi­ca­tion or­gans (kid­ney, liver, etc.) in their work and thus pro­mote pu­rifi­ca­tion processes.

The Breuss blend lives on

Rudolf Breuss doc­u­mented his ex­pe­ri­ences with the Breuss Cure and his knowl­edge of natur­opa­thy in sev­eral books that are still avail­able to­day in var­i­ous lan­guages. Through­out his life he him­self ad­hered to a bal­anced, plant-based diet with plenty of veg­eta­bles and fruit, and fasted reg­u­larly un­til old age. Rudolf Breuss died on 17 May 1990 shortly be­fore his 91st birth­day.