Detoxified

Do you often feel sluggish, lethargic, bloated or suffer indigestion after eating? Are bad breath and irregular bowel movement regular occurrences?

If you answered positive to the questions, it’s probably timeto detoxify. Detoxification neutralises and eliminates any bodily toxin–compounds that harm the structure or function of body cells and tissues. Also, ‘detox’ gives the body time to rest, cleanse, and recharge itself.

Although the body is capable of detoxifying on its own, through defecation and urination, detox advocates point out that modern lifestyles have piled on toxins faster than our bodies are able to remove. They pinpoint in particular the astronomical amounts of synthetic and processed foods in modern diets, pollutants in the physical environment, and stress factors that trigger the release of stress hormones into the system.

Detox strategy

Sim Nget Seer, proprietress of Biogenic Cuisine, explains that there are three methods of detox fasting–juice fast, dry fast, and water fast. A juice fast refers to a diet of fruit and vegetable juices; a water fast simply means all you ingest is water; while a dry fast means abstinence from food and water and is the most severe.

Of the three, Sim recommends the juice fast as most suitable for people to start with. She says, “People’s systems have degenerated, so to speak. Most will be unable to endure just water, let alone no food and no water.”

Sim also encourages abstinence from cooked foods during detox, as more vitamins and minerals will be retained when foods are eaten raw. A juice fast can also be fortified with supplements like whole plant extracts of spirulina, Brussel sprouts, chlorella, and broccoli. However, due to the average person’s dependence on carbohydrate- and protein-rich meals, it is necessary to detox in stages. He must be slowly weaned off carbohydrates and proteins, while the intake of juices is slowly increased.

Sim recommends detoxing at least three to four times a year, with each round of detox lasting ideally three weeks to allow the digestive system ample time to rest. During detox, it is best to limit exercise.

And instead of gorging on rich and unhealthy foods all year then embarking on an intensive detox programme for a few weeks, it is much better to adopt a regular, controlled cleansing diet.

Eat plenty of fibre everyday, which can be derived from foods like beetroot, brown rice, cabbage, broccoli, and organically-grown fresh fruits. Experts also advocate regular exercise as one of the most important ways of detoxing the body, as exercise brings into the body large amounts of purifying oxygen.

The necessity of detoxing strikes home when Sim likens detoxing to maintaining toilet sanitation “Despite flushing the toilet everyday, you still need to clean the toilet thoroughly every so often. If not, it will become clogged. It’s exactly the same with the digestive system.”

Indeed, no one wants to be choked up with rubbish and waste, so give your body a thorough cleansing now! •