The vegetable track
I priced the 3-day guide’s shopping list at a natural foods store in October 2026. Prices change by store and by week, so treat the totals as a snapshot.
| Item | In the guide | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Carrots | 5 (2 lb bag) | $2.99 |
| Celery | 3 stalks (1 bunch) | $2.79 |
| Zucchini | 2 (1 lb) | $1.99 |
| Kale | 1 cup chopped (1 bunch) | $2.79 |
| Sweet potato | 1 | $1.20 |
| Garlic | 1 bulb | $0.60 |
| Ginger | 1 thumb (1 piece) | $1.44 |
| Sea salt, pepper, turmeric, cumin | 1 tbsp each, from the bulk section | $3.00 |
| Total | $16.80 | |
The spices are the one line that depends on where you shop. I bought 1 tablespoon each of sea salt, black pepper, turmeric, and cumin from the bulk section for $3.00 in all. A store without a bulk section sells them in jars, and jar prices run from $2 to $6 each. A small jar of sea salt cost $4.49 at the natural foods store, $3.49 to $3.99 at a mainstream supermarket nearby, and $2.00 at a specialty home-goods store down the road. Four jars at $2 to $6 come to $8 to $24, against $3.00 in bulk. At the high end, that is more than the $13.80 the vegetables cost. Bulk costs less for the small amounts the list needs, and not every store has a bulk section.
The herbal additions
The guide also lists chamomile flowers or peppermint and fresh parsley or cilantro. A 3-ounce bag of chamomile cost $2.80 and a bunch of parsley $1.99, which adds $4.79. With them, the vegetable track comes to $21.59, or about $7.20 a day.
If you add bone broth
The bone broth list adds an onion, vinegar, and herbs.
| Item | In the guide | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Onion | 1 | $1.49 |
| Apple cider vinegar | 1 tbsp (16 oz store brand) | $2.30 |
| Parsley, thyme, bay leaves, peppercorns | 1 tbsp parsley, 1 tbsp thyme, 3 bay leaves from the bulk section, plus a peppercorn shaker | $5.00 |
| Total, without bones | $8.79 | |
Bones were not listed, so that total leaves them out; the butcher counter can give you a price. The 2 carrots and 2 celery stalks on the bone broth list come out of the bag and bunch already counted.
What a day costs
Divide the totals by three. The vegetable track runs $5.60 a day, and $7.20 with the herbal additions. The bone broth items add $8.79 across the three days, about $2.93 a day, before the bones. For comparison, a summary of the USDA’s 2026 food plan figures puts the Thrifty plan for a woman aged 19 to 50 at about $68 a week, close to $9.70 a day. The cleanse comes in under that because the list buys less food.
What commercial cleanses cost
Three-day commercial juice cleanses I priced online started at $87.99 and ran to $134.99. The plans I looked at run six juices a day, 18 bottles in all, which works out to about $4.90 to $7.50 a bottle. At $21.59, the guide’s list with its herbal additions comes to about a sixth to a quarter of those prices. The comparison has limits. The commercial products arrive made, cold, and portioned, and this list asks for a stovetop and an hour or two of simmering. The juice post covers what each approach keeps and takes out.
What you use and what you buy
The register total is larger than what three days use. A 2 lb bag of carrots holds about a dozen carrots at the FDA’s standard 78 grams each, and the list uses five, so the cleanse itself uses about $1.30 of the $2.99 bag. A bunch of kale chops to several cups, and the list calls for one. The leftovers go into the week’s meals: the remaining carrots roast or grate into a salad, kale goes into the next pot of soup, and the spices wait in the cupboard for the pot after that.
Making more follows the same logic. The guide says to scale up if your portions run larger, and the first batch’s leftovers shrink the second batch’s bill: the carrots, kale, and ginger bought for batch one cover much of batch two, so the second pass buys mostly celery, zucchini, sweet potato, and garlic. The spices don’t repeat at all.
The guide says to make more if your portions run larger. The vegetable cost scales with that, and the spice cost barely moves.
What the prices leave out
The totals cover food only. The guide’s equipment list is a large stockpot or slow cooker, a blender for the pureed soups, a fine mesh sieve, and jars or containers for storing portions. Anyone starting without those has a one-time cost the table doesn’t show, and the broth needs 1 to 2 hours of simmering before day one.
How to price your own list
Take the table to your store and price each package, then add. The guide lists kale or spinach, so buy whichever is cheaper that week. Bones need a call or a visit to the meat counter, since they weren’t listed. Prices move with the season and the store, and the structure of the list holds: five produce lines that cost $1 to $3 each, a couple of aromatics, and a spice line that varies the most.
Shopping around
Prices differ enough between stores that splitting the shop can lower the total. The same small jar of sea salt ran from $2.00 to $4.49 across three stores. A shopper with a bulk section can buy the spices there and the vegetables elsewhere, and one without can buy jars at the cheapest store nearby.
A local Indian or Mexican market is another option. I could find every spice and vegetable on this list at one.
Common questions
- How much does a 3-day soup cleanse cost?
- About $17 at the register for the guide’s vegetable track with spices from a bulk section, or about $22 with its herbal additions. Buying the spices in jars adds roughly $5 to $21.
- Do you need to buy the spices?
- If you already own salt, pepper, turmeric, and cumin, the vegetable track costs about $14 at the register, or about $19 with the herbal additions.
- How does the cost compare with a commercial cleanse?
- Three-day commercial juice cleansers I priced online started at $87.99 and ran to $134.99. The guide’s list with its herbal additions comes to $21.59 at a natural foods store.
- Does bone broth cost more?
- At natural foods store prices the onion, vinegar, and herbs add about $9. Bones were not listed, so that figure leaves them out.