Detoxing with Smoothies

Detox is a trendy word in health and beauty circles. It is short for detoxification, which refers to removing toxins from your body or cleansing your body of pollutants and chemicals. Detoxing is an integral part of maintaining and achieving vibrant health, and can also be a quick route to losing weight.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

We’re bombarded by chemicals and toxins on a daily basis. These come from the foods you eat, the air you breathe, the beauty products you apply to your body, and many other things you come into contact with. Ideally, we’d avoid coming into contact with all the bad guys, but that’s not possible. Our best bet is to reduce exposure and consume foods that help our body get the toxins out.

My personal detoxification strategy is to consume foods that bind to and help pass toxins out of the body, as well as those that support the body’s natural detoxification efforts. You can accomplish both of these at the same time with smoothies.

A quick note on detox diets, which are becoming increasingly more popular. A typical detox diet involves severely restricting calories and eating only those foods or liquids that help detoxify the body. This can last for a period of days, or even over a week. A traditional detox is not easy to do, and furthermore, there is little scientific evidence that it does you any good. Not only is it difficult to limit your calories so severely, doing so can actually cause you harm. Detoxing in this way can make you tired and fatigued. It can even lead you to have nutrient deficiencies or to become dangerously dehydrated. Extreme detox diets are risky and difficult. For these reasons, I do not advocate detox diets or detox smoothie diets.

A better approach to limiting and eliminating toxins from your body is to use regular and small detox strategies. This may include getting exercise every day, taking a sauna, drinking plenty of pure water, practicing dry skin brushing, and eating organic foods. You can also help detoxify your body a little bit every day by thoughtfully creating smoothies that include naturally detoxifying ingredients. There are many such ingredients that are tasty, nutritious, and promote toxin release that work well in smoothies. Include these in your daily smoothies to help keep your body clean and healthy.