Going on detox diets is all the rage and promises so much to those unfortunate enough to be taken in. Your body performs miracles every day to remove unwanted waste, so why interfere with it?
In other words, detox diets are a solution to a problem that needn’t really exist. So, you may ask, what about all the toxins we take in each day in the form of atmospheric pollution, insecticides in food, and additives? Let’s look at it properly.
Detox Diets and Pollution
If you have to go into city centres and are affected by the pollution, there’s very little you can do about it and detox diets won’t help. However, your body will soon set to work removing pollutants from the bloodstream – provided you drink sufficient water – and inhaled particles will stimulate mucous creation to clear the respiratory tract. This is not to say that pollution is harmless, far from it, but no amount of whacky drinks or special diets will improve things. It’s unfortunate that overcrowded cities are not very healthy environments. Stay away if possible and try to eat and drink healthily and think about your diet and nutrition in general. More on that later.
When it comes to food, excluding junk food is the obvious basis of detox diets.
It’s obvious junk food should be avoided. Unfortunately, the definition of junk food is so woolly it’s quite meaningless.
We’ll go into details elsewhere, but our diet is appalling, the greatest toxin being sugar and it’s partner in crime carbohydrate. Sorry, we did not evolve to eat cereals! It’s hard for many to take but the high carb/low fat fad of the last 35 years has seen an explosion in the incidence of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. This is a fact, but in spite of this, governments bow to the food and drug giants and keep on promoting the current “death diet”. An explanation and more information on the scientific evidence for these statements will appear shortly. For now, please accept there are better ways of eating.
Detox diets means eating expensive organic food.
The danger from pesticides is somewhat over-rated and it’s been mooted that pyrethrum, a known carcinogenic, has been traced on some “organic” apples!
Detox diets - are all apples safe?
Pyrethrum is an organic pesticide and therefore, in the minds of some, quite safe! This is no real surprise if you think about it. Before the boom and hype machine started rolling to promote organic food it mast be said it was pretty sorry looking stuff.
Apples were often damaged and, in some instances, contained holes from burrowing creatures. How strange that fresh organic fruit and vegetables are now pristine! One has to wonder how on earth the growers managed to prevent pest attacks?
Reducing carbohydrates is the first step to a healthy diet.
If we remove the main culprit (sugar and it’s precursors) from our diet, what else causes trouble? Generally, processed food is a problem. We really should eat as much fresh food as possible. Failing that, frozen food is as good, or in some instancess better than fresh. After all frozen veg have been prepared at a blinding speed and haven’t sat around deteriorating on shelves for days.
Food additives get a bad press and there’s little doubt they don’t provide anything useful to the body. However, if the consumer insists on demanding quickly prepared ready-meals, then they’ll just have to put up with them along with the undesirable fats they contain! By the way, all is not as it seems on the fat front, but we’ll go into the issue of fats elsewhere. Let’s face it, the choice often comes down to food poisoning or the possibility of consuming toxins. Use fresh, or frozen, ingredients and you can avoid both risks.
So, do we need detox diets at all?
If we avoid sugar and junk from the diet, what’s left to detox? There should be very little, after all, if it doesn’t go in, it can’t really come out whatever weird detox diet you undertake.
The simple fact is if we pump a load of rubbish into our sytems, then we will experience deteriorating health. There’s therefore little point in embarking on a detox diet as a short term fix for a problem that shouldn’t arise in the first place. It’s bit like not doing any housework and then having a blitz once a year! One week of normal messing up and you’re back to normal! Detox diets seem to work because if you go on one, it’s inevitable you will not be consuming the foods that detox diet claim to eliminate.
Your liver and kidneys will cope very well with the stuff that’s thrown at them and perform a body detox but it makes sense to minimise the work thay have to do.
We all want to live forever but abandoning self destruction for a week whilst going on detox diets consuming an organic lemon juice and water diet or some other barmy scheme is not going to help long term.
By the way, detox diets do seem to work, but that’s an illusion. If whilst on the diet you cut out the rubbish, you’re halfway there. After all a healthy diet is a detox diet plan so why not forget detox diets per se and just eat properly in the first place?