How To Detox Your Body With A Healthy Detox Diet

Posted by Kym on October 18th, 2008 at 01:15pm

You should never go hungry when you are detoxing. If you want to learn how to detox, you really can eat as much as you like. Have between-meal snacks. The only rule is that you stick to detox foods and detox drink. If you have stocked your kitchen in advance, it should not be too hard.

Go Organic

What is the point of going to a lot of trouble preparing detox drinks and food to cleanse the toxins from your system if you are simultaneously reintroducing new ones with every morsel you eat? By choosing organically grown foods, you can avoid the most harmful pesticides.

The ones that are used on organic crops are strictly regulated and natural farming methods are used to control pests, such as crop rotation and the planting of anti-pest plants alongside crops.

Harmful Chemicals

Some fruit and vegetable crops are treated with more harmful chemicals than others:

• Non-organic strawberries are covered in captan, a fungicide that has been linked to cancer, damage to the immune, nervous and reproductive systems, and birth defects.
• Non-organic apples contain diphenylamine, which some experts believe causes brain and nervous system damage, and thiabendazole, which may damage the reproductive system.
• Non-organic celery contains permethrin, chlorothalonil and acephate, all linked to cancer.
• Non-organic spinach will often have up to 40 harmful pesticides on its leaves.

Preparing fruit and vegetables

No amount of washing or peeling will shift these chemicals because the soil they were grown in, which has nurtured them, is replete with toxins. You should still wash and peel them but do not kid yourself that you are solving the problem - organic produce will always make the best detox drinks and detox drinks.

Is organic more nutritious?

Researchers at John Hopkins University looked at the results of 41 studies over a 50-year period and concluded that on average organic food contained 30% more vitamin C, over 20% more iron, 30% more magnesium and 14% more phosphorus than conventionally grown food, as well as 15% fewer harmful nitrates.

Although meat is not a detox food that you can eat when detoxing, it is worth knowing that organically reared animals cannot be fed the growth enhancers and parasiticides that non-organic animals receive. Antibiotics are not given preventively and, if the animal gets ill and requires antibiotic treatment, it is removed from the organic herd. Their feed must be 100 percent organic, with no genetically modified ingredients and no animal by-products. Finally, when the meat is sold, it should contain no artificial ingredients, food colorings or chemical preservatives.

Without going into gruesome details, pork is probably the most toxic of non-organic meats because pigs don’t sweat out toxins in the way that some other animals can; and non-organic chicken can be seriously bad for your health with more than 60% of factory-farmed birds infected with campylobacter from their own faeces, and more than 30 per cent infected with salmonella.

If money is tight

If you cannot afford to buy all organic for your detox diet, at the very least avoid the fruits and vegetables with the biggest toxin load when they are grown conventionally: strawberries, apples, cherries, apricots, blackberries, pears, raspberries, peaches, imported grapes, peppers, celery and potatoes.

Tags: detox diet, how to detox

Under Diet Tags: detox diet, how to detox