Detoxification Through Organic Food – Step 1

Detoxification Through Organic Food

The Importance of Detoxification

Toxicity is one of the bad things to get out of our lives and the importance of getting the toxins out can’t be underestimated. If you try and make any positive change in your life while your body is under heavy toxic stress, you’ll find it very hard. Your body is just under so much pressure from the toxins that it’s hard for it to help with anything positive. Here is the definition of “toxic” from the The American Heritage® Stedman’s Medical Dictionary;

• Toxic
  • Of, relating to, or caused by a toxin or other poison.
  • Capable of causing injury or death, especially by chemical means; poisonous.

Toxic materials are simply poisonous to our bodies. Why would we want anything like this near us or in us? Unfortunately, some of the poisonous effects of the toxins are not strong enough to be easily noticed, but they create chronic conditions all the same. Then we get the typical situation where somebody who has been suffering from low level toxic stress for years or decades “suddenly” gets sick. Any suggestion that they should quickly change some of there practices that lead to the toxic situation often results in replies like “well, I’ve been eating/doing/using that for decades and it hasn’t made me sick in the past”.  It’s difficult for people to see that the body is quite resilient and it can put up with a lot of the bad things we do to it, but it can only keep this up for so long. Eventually, the effect of the abuse shows up as an illness. The cause of the illness doesn’t have to be something new that’s just appeared, often the cause is the cumulative effect of the toxic stress we’ve caused for our body. Any small step we can make to reduce toxic stress is a step in the right direction.

Something that happens in our society today that’s really horrifying is that sometimes (often?) we are brain-washed by the advertising of large companies that toxic substances are safe for us. And still worse, sometimes our medical practitioners are promoting the use of toxins. What hope do we have? Some scary examples of this include the American Dental Association’s approval of the use of mercury fillings in our teeth (see their endorsement on their website today), and the fact that food companies have lobbied governments so they don’t have to label MSG as MSG (the same lobbying power now is being used to avoid having to label genetically modified products) and how governments have told us that adding fluoride to our water supply is safe. Who can we trust? Maybe we can only trust ourselves.

The most important thing today is to start taking steps, even small steps, baby steps, to remove toxins from our lives. Every small step reduces the toxic stress our body is undergoing. Here are some suggestions to think about.

Step 1 – Detoxification Through Organic Food

So much of the food we buy is already toxic. Anything that has been processed is likely to have artificial preservatives, colorings, flavorings and fragrances. Think about this for a second. Why does our food need all this stuff? The obvious answer is that if we knew what it really smelt like, looked like and tasted like, we wouldn’t want to buy it. And that wouldn’t suit the food company would it? They can only make profits if you buy something that they make very cheaply. So they have food that is really crap (often not food at all actually) and put all the artificial stuff in it needed to make it look, smell and taste good enough for you to buy. Then the next problem is that the food companies want to be able to ship the food around the world and be able to sell it over a long period. They don’t want it going off, so they pump it with artificial preservatives. So now, what are you buying and putting into your body? Basically, a bunch of crap that you could hardly call food with a number of the latest and fancied chemicals (all toxic) aimed at fooling you into wanting to buy it.

One of the worst artificial additives in processed food is MSG, and the food companies (in the U.S.) don’t even have to label it as MSG. They can use “Yeast Extract” or “Natural Flavoring” instead. How terrible! Here’s a page from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that shows how they still keep the loophole open for not having to label MSG. See this interview with Dr. Russell Blaylock to learn more about the horrors of MSG.

If you buy you food from an organic store, your chances of avoiding all of these artificial chemicals go up tremendously. Processed foods obtained in an organic store should not have any artificial chemicals added. It’s not a guarantee, but the chances of getting toxic substances in these foods is greatly reduced. Just checking the labels on products in an organic food store shows that it’s rare to see any artificial preservatives, colorings, etc. One really good example is to look at organic dried apricots. They are brown and dried up, as they should be. Then have a look at the non-organic version – they are almost bright orange and plump and juicy – and the label shows that several artificial chemicals have been added to make them appear this way. Do you want dried apricots, or a chemical cocktail that happens to look nice?

When buying fresh produce from an organic store, we get multiple benefits. Organic practices include two things really (see the film Fresh), natural farming methods that ensure that the soil is nutrient rich to help the plants grow strong and well, and the avoidance of using artificial chemicals included in products like pesticides and fertilizers. This means we end up with stronger and healthier fresh produce at the same time as avoiding artificial chemicals. That’s great – more nutrition and less toxins!

If you buy fresh produce from a normal supermarket, you run the high risk of getting a range of toxins from things like pesticides at the same time and, of course, genetically modified molecules that are also toxic.

Just buying your food at an organic store is step number one in making a significant reduction in toxins entering your body. Food really is the best place to start when trying to detoxify and reduce toxic stress. Not only is food one of the biggest sources of toxins in our lives, but food is also meant to be the source of nutrition for our bodies. That’s the same nutrition that the body needs to fight toxins. So, if we get the food equation wrong and consume loads of toxins with very little nutrition, then we give our body a double whammy. Changing the quality of the food we eat really can be quite easy and its effect on us can be enormous and very quick (for an excellent example, see the Simply Raw Movie).

Also see Finding the best food for your body

For a good definition of organic food, see this post – http://cheekychimpsmoothies.com/info/organic-food/

Here’s another article on the dangers of MSG and aspartame – http://seattleorganicrestaurants.com/vegan-whole-food/MSG-aspartame-GMOs-can-damage-central-nervous-system.php

More small steps towards detoxification

Future posts will cover the following methods of detoxification. As the posts become live, the links below will become active.

• Detoxification Through Avoiding Alcohol – Step 2
• Detoxification Through Natural Personal Care Products – Step 3
• Detoxification Through Natural Cleaning Products – Step 4
• Detoxification Through Water – Step 5
• Detoxification Through Eliminating Medications – Step 6
• Detoxification Through Eliminating Mercury Fillings – Step 7

I’d love to hear your thoughts and about your experiences with detoxification. Please leave a comment. Thanks.