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We are exposed to far more chemicals today than generations past -- in the air we breathe, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the household cleaners and pesticides we use, the water we drink and more – that we need to detoxify our bodies periodically in order to be healthy. In fact, a baby is routinely exposed to more chemicals in his nursery than his or her grandparents were in a lifetime! Cancer rates are rising, and many people think this is from the increase in toxins that our bodies are accumulating.
So we are going to discuss some of the ways you can do that with your diet and with food-based supplements. All sorts of types of greens can be very beneficial in detoxifying the body. In addition, there are certain herbs and products that can help you specifically cleanse and detoxify and support your intestines, your kidneys and your liver. These are your main detoxification organs that are overloaded by our living in modern times that need help and support from time to time in order for them to function properly.
Greens in Your Diet Can Help With Detoxification
Greens are good for you in general because they can add much needed nutrients to your diet, including vitamins and minerals. They also have an added benefit of helping the body to detoxify. This includes greens you might eat in your salad or cook up like with spinach and kale, and it also includes greens as supplements. As far as eating greens, the leafy greens are known to be nutritional powerhouses. Try not just salad and spinach, but collard and mustard greens and kale. Organic is really best, not only is it cleaner with fewer pesticides and heavy metals, but usually has a higher vitamin and mineral level as well. Try to grow some of your own greens or buy them fresh from a local farmer. Eating greens in a supplement form like chlorella and the cereal grasses like wheat, oat and barley grass can also help with detoxifying your body. Just make sure and find a supplement that is free from pesticide residue and toxic fillers. Sea vegetables like kelp, wakame and nori, can also be very helpful if you like them.
Intestinal, Kidney and Liver Cleansing Can Jump Start Your Weight Loss and Health
Many health practitioners will suggest some basic intestinal, liver cleanses for helping to lose weight and to combat all sorts of ills. Intestinal cleansing is often recommended first, because if your bowels are not working well, when you start releasing toxins they can get stuck and reabsorbed by your body.
Intestinal Cleansing
This many not be the most pleasant subject in the world, but it is important. According to many naturopaths and other natural health care practitioners, many of us have pounds of old, hard fecal matter stuck to the inside of our intestines, from years of eating the wrong things and not having proper bowel movements. As we get older, we are also likely to have diverticulitis, or pockets of fecal matter that stick out abnormally from the colon. So, a good intestinal cleanse with the right herbs can do wonders for your energy and help you also with your weight loss program.
Psyllium is a natural way to add bulk to your stools and help clean out those toxic pockets. Herbs and other natural ingredients that can be helpful include marshmallow root, bitter gourd and slippery elm bark. Black walnut can help with parasites that many of us have in our colons, and cascara sagrada can help move things along.
Some of the intestinal cleansing supplements we recommend include OxyPowder, the Cleanse Blend by QN Labs and Dr. Schultze intestinal cleanse products. The OxyPowder is a very effective magnesium oxide powder that helps to melt the stuck fecal matter off the sides of the colon. QN Labs's Cleanse Blend is very gentle and works well over time. Dr. Schultze's formulas are very effective, but they tend to be somewhat harsh. Many have had good success with colon hydrotherapy (colonics) as well, which cleans the large intestine by introducing water in large amounts. We have heard testimony that the OxyPowder works as well or better than colonics, however, at a much lower cost. It also helps dissolve any hard matter in the small intestines as well in the lower colon.
Liver and Kidney Cleanse and Support
Our liver is our major detoxification organ, and if you have not cleaned it out lately, it might be very beneficial to do so. The kidneys also are busy filtering our blood, day and night, and can also get clogged up with too many toxins, or just plain overworked. If you haven't done it lately, you might want to think about helping your liver and kidneys to detoxify. Various medicinal mushrooms and other herbs can give your liver and kidneys a boost.
Agaricus biporus and cordyceps are both mushroom extracts that help support and clean the kidney. Milk thistle seed, reishi (mushroom extract), pau d'arco, noni and turmeric all can help support and detox the liver, so these are good things to look for in a liver or kidney cleaning product. B vitamins and minerals are also good for helping support the liver detoxification pathways. As always, we recommend looking for a whole food-based supplement that does not contain any toxic fillers, and consult your health care practitioner if you are already sick before starting a detoxification program.
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