How Eating Raw Triggers Detoxification

Cleaning is an every-day part of our lives. If we’re not cleaning the house, we’re doing laundry, cleaning the car, cleaning out the garage or attic, or clearing our desk of the never-ending piles of bills, junk mail, and coupons we accumulate. For the computer-savvy, cleaning is even an every day process in order to maintain an optimally-running, reliable and safe system. We even clean the outside of our bodies in some form or fashion on a daily basis, from showering to teeth brushing.

So, if cleaning is such a healthy part of our every day lives, logic would dictate we should do the same for the inside of our body as well, right??

Anterior view of the abdominal region. Skin is translucent in order to see the lymphatic system (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Detoxification and tissue cleansing is the process of purging environmental and chemical toxins from your body. Such toxins can disrupt every system in your body. If our body is polluted with such toxins, its own detoxification system – namely the liver, lungs, skin, kidneys and lymphatic system – cannot work properly, and these unruly poisons set up shop in every cell of our body, and soon begin to wreak havoc with our physical, mental and emotional well-being. (For more on toxic load and and how to minimize its impact on your health, visit http://www.newholisticliving.com/toxicload.html.)

These contaminants can create such problems as lethargy, foggy thinking, unhealthy skin, decreased vision, mood swings, and digestive disorders. However, by adopting a healthier and cleaner lifestyle, including eating healthy raw foods, our body can conduct its own ‘spring cleaning.’ And contrary to what most might think, raw foods are actually more easily digestible than cooked foods are.

Eating raw foods also enables the digestive system to ‘clean house’ and begin the process of purging the dangerous environmental and chemical toxins from the cells of the body, thereby restoring the systems to their optimal states. In addition, since raw foods are so nutrient-dense, they also simultaneously provide the body with much-needed and missed nutrients, vitamins, and minerals it needs in order to continually perform optimally on an ongoing basis.

Whether you choose to continue on a raw food diet long-term is up to you, but it's great for cleansing and purging toxins from your body on a short term basis as well.

Try a 5-Day Body Detox Plan

In today's world, you can not realistically go a single day without encountering pollution. At work, you may not be so sure of the cleanliness of the water you drink or of the food you eat. We are all surrounded by people every day, and you can can't escape the fact of air pollution, be it from smokers, perfumes, air "freshener" sprays, or from the exhaust of vehicles. This greatly affects your health in one way or another, whether you know it or not. Don’t be so sure that when your body does not visibly react, that means all is well - many (if not most) chemical interactions may not show any symptoms in your body for months, if not years, down the road (and by then, you won't even know what caused them).

Image via WikipediaFor these reasons, detoxification is necessary in order to maintain a healthy body, contributing also to a healthy mind, and healthy relationships with others.

Our body has its own means of healing and detoxifying. However, when pollutants that enter our body have  accumulated more than the our body's capacity of self cleansing can handle, we are giving our inside mechanisms a hard time. Then the tissues are stressed and therefore can malfunction. And because they are weakened, the internal cleansing process is also affected.

We definitely want a clean body. But we also need to help our system in regulating the body processes. However, you should not wait for your body organs to be stressed out and overworked before doing something. The 5-day detox plan will do a great help in keeping the body systems at work. This 5-day detox plan will rejuvenate the body as well as the spirit, keeping it clean and toned.

A detoxification diet is a part of the 5-day detox plan. During the period of detoxification, certain foods should be avoided. Your meals consist mostly of fresh fruits and green, leafy vegetables. Fats, oil, preservatives and food additives are a big no-no when undergoing the process of detoxification. (YOU SHOULD AVOID ALL PROCESSED AND ARTIFICIAL "FOODS" DURING THIS TIME.) Also, meats should be kept out of the diet during the detox process because they are hard to digest, which makes it harder and slower for the body to rid itself of toxins.

Ideal foods that can be part of your diet are as follow: garlic, broccoli, beets, greens, sweet potatoes, squash, and beans or nuts. Fresh fruit juices can be taken as beverages except for grapefruit. And since water is a universal solvent, six to eight glasses of this should be recommended daily. Water is also a major factor in the detoxification process. It flushes out the toxins in the forms of perspiration, urine, or stool.

Image via WikipediaAlthough you seem to eat less when detoxifying, rest assured that you will not starve, and ironically, you will even boost your stamina. This is because your food intake is limited only to foods which are healthy and are good to the digestive system.

A detoxification plan should be done at least quarterly. To ensure that you are doing your detox correctly and safely, it is best to consult a nutritionist or an alternative healthcare professional. You should also seek a doctor’s advice to ensure that what you will do during the process is actually detoxifying, and not an addition of toxins to your body.

Through the process of detoxification, the toxins are flushed out in your body and new energy is supplied to the body providing you both physical and mental alertness. Cleanliness will then be obtained not only on the outside, but also on the inside.

A Few Detox Resources: