WASHINGTON---First Lady Michelle Obama occasionally goes on what she calls a "cleanse" to purge her body of certain foods, she told Ladies Home Journal.

Don't confuse a "cleanse"--to get certain foods out of your system-- with other techniques to detox, such as colonic irrigation.

Mrs. Obama, in an interview given to promote her "Let's Move" anti-obesity campaign talked about the "cleanse" and the dislike, which she shares with President Obama, of beets.

"Neither the President nor I have the beet gene," Mrs. Obama said. But talking about healthy foods when she was interviewed in June in the White House led her to disclose her internal purification routine.

"Recently I was on a sort of cleanse and I was just eating vegetables," she said.

Asked how it worked out, Mrs. Obama said, "The cleanses are good for a short period of time. I can't live my life on a cleanse. But they help me clean out my palate. Because when you start adding things like sugars into your diet, you start craving them.

"And the more you eat, the more you crave. . . . So maybe I'll do a cleanse for two days. It isn't a way of life, because I like food too much. But it is good to break your mind-set," she said.

Mrs. Obama, in her many speeches on diet made this year in connection with her anti obesity campaign--where she often talked about her own experiences in getting her family to eat healthy--has never mentioned a "cleanse" before.