A suddenly major interest among health-conscious people is detoxification. The fact that we are toxifying our bodies in the first place is a subject worth serious consideration and is usually skipped over in the conversation about detoxing. Why should detoxification be necessary at all? Why do we have to "clean up after ourselves"? What are we putting into our bodies in the first place?
What is a toxin? In general, the word toxin refers to something chemical, not considered food or nourishment, and which does not belong in our bodies. Toxins can be chemicals in the air, water, beauty products, and food which we ingest or which are absorbed through the skin. Toxins are, in part, stored in the tissues and lymph fluid.
Toxins are not stored intentionally--why doesn't the body just get rid of them? The body does get rid of plenty of junk we ingest, however, not everything can be eliminated easily. The way that toxins end up stuck in the tissues and lymph is due to a simple process of diffusion. Immediately after eating cooked food, the blood becomes thick. This is the reason one cannot eat 8 hours before surgery: the blood is too thick for surgeons to safely operate. Due to this thickness, toxins diffuse into the lymph which is thin and light in comparison. When fasting or eating raw food, the blood becomes thin and toxins naturally diffuse out of the lymph fluid and into the bloodstream. Then they are eliminated.
More complicated than that, however, is toxic residue. Toxic residue is basically a layer of junk lining the intestinal tract. This junk inhibits proper absorption of nutrients, which is the purpose of the intestines. This reduces the nutrition we can get from our food, even when we are eating what we should in the first place. Where does this come from? Cooked food, especially animal products, which are difficult to digest and do not "burn" cleanly. Toxic residue keeps us out of touch with our bodies. Many people believe food cravings are messages from the body, and sometimes they are, but often we are just craving what we are addicted to. This layer of junk is a barrier between the real messages of our body and our awareness, and our bodies cannot communicate through it. Until you have detoxified, you will not hear very well your body's real messages.
This junk stuck in the intestinal wall can actually ferment by being stuck in the gut for too long, hence becoming toxic. This buildup does also leak continuously into the bloodstream and cause problems, however, as illustrated by Gabriel Cousens, MD in his book Conscious Eating:
"Many people think that the phrase 'toxins in the body' is just some jargon of food faddists. Research over the last 100 years shows that these bowel toxins actually exist. Not only do they exist, but they also have a tremendous negative impact on mental and physical well-being. Toxins usually come from a process called 'intestinal toxemia,' an overgrowth of putrefactive intestinal bacteria in the small and large intestines. These toxins are then released into the blood stream and from there affect both our mental and physical functioning. Intestinal toxemia is predominately caused by a high-protein and low complex carbohydrate diet. Intestinal toxemia not only has been associated with severe mental symptoms such as psychosis, but with a variety of mental imbalances.
As early as 1917, Drs. Satterlee and Eldridge presented 518 cases at an American Medical Association conference that had mental symptoms which were cured by removing the intestinal toxemia. The reported symptoms of intestinal toxemia which are familiar to many people: mental sluggishness, dullness, and stupidity; loss of concentration and/or memory; mental incoordination, irritability, lack of confidence, and excessive and useless worry; exaggerated introspection, hypochondrias, and phobias; depression and melancholy; obsessions and delusions; and hallucinations, suicidal tendencies, delirium, and stupor. Senility symptoms are also common with intestinal toxemia."
Gee, does anyone here know any Americans that seem excessively anxious, stupid, or sluggish??
I'm going to make the bold statement that toxemia is rampant in this country. I do believe that our food HAS made us dumb and complacent, quite easily managed and manageable by the so-called powers that be.
The long-term solution is to eat more raw food and less cooked food, especially less animal products. Eat lots of raw leafy greens and fruit which contain fiber. For a more sudden and possibly slightly painful detox process, you can do a fast which will rather quickly and dramatically release toxins into the bloodstream and then out of the system. This might put you through some unpleasant symptoms as all this garbage comes out from its hiding place. It can be mild to severe, from a headache or a little crankiness to getting a cold or major aches and pains in the body. However, I have heard of wonderful benefits to doing this such as lasting weight loss, disappearance of minor health problems, especially digestive problems, among other things.
The question in my mind is: if we are meant to eat meat and cooked food, why does it leave us with a ton of toxic buildup that causes mental disorders and requires a dramatic fast to get rid of? And then, as popular raw food author, Shazzie, points out: "detox to retox?" because it sounds good to do these fasts or detox diets for anywhere from 3-30 days, but if you're going to go back to your old diet again...? Well, still way better to do a twice yearly fast than none at all.
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Are you saying all cooked foods thicken the blood and hasten toxicity? What about ayervedic food preparation? While I agree with you 100% about the level of toxemia in the general public, and possibly even that the introduction of 'dumbing down' foods was deliberate, I believe there are a variety of extremely healthy ways to eat. There are pockets of people all over the world who have very specific food consumption which contributes to their extraordinary health and longevity - generally things that are local to them and quite common. I do not believe that one way of eating is appropriate for the entire human race. This is my discomfort with the heavy promotion of any one food consumption style - including rawfooderians. your thots?
ReplyDeleteAs far as I understand, all cooked food thickens the blood immediately after eating, though this wears off after several hours (unless you eat again). With your blood in this almost-constant condition, as a cooked food diet would create, toxins diffuse out of the bloodstream and into tissues to be stored. The only way to prevent this from happening, as I understand it, would be to eat a perfectly "pure" diet and never be around any environmental pollutants, amounting to never taking in any toxins. As this is probably impossible, toxins will inevitably be stored and have to be removed through fasting periodically or eating an almost all raw-food diet.
ReplyDeleteAyurvedic food preparation has many healthy attributes but it wouldn't impact this particular issue as far as I understand.
Some of the cultures of the world famous for longevity live in very different physical environments than the "civilized" westerners I generally am referring to. It's hard to compare these totally different cultures, looking only at food. For instance, indigenous cultures are outdoors practically all of the time, exposing them constantly to massive amounts of prana--energy--that constantly fuels and heals their bodies. On top of this, they have practically no stress and no pollutants to deal with, living harmoniously with nature and in non-competitive types of societies. These are enormous differences have powerful effects on our health. I believe it's also very overblown how much meat many indigenous cultures actually consume. From the American perspective, we see and blow up what makes sense to us, what fits with our culture, which is a good amount of meat consumption. When I was in college studying anthropology, there was a movement by many anthropologists to change the term hunter/gatherer to gatherer/hunter because gathering plant foods is, by far, the primary source of food for the vast majority of these cultures. Indigenous cultures are also famous for eating an incredible variety of foods. While modern folks seem to eat 10-15 fruits and vegetables total, these guys eat literally hundreds of different kinds. This gives them an amazing "edge" nutritionally.
I definitely agree that there is not one diet for everyone. However, the idea of adaptation to different foods based on the local geography and culture is really overblown. The only physical differences we have discovered to account for different food consumed in different regions is that different digestive enzymes are secreted based on what the person habitually eats. This can change in a matter of weeks if, for instance, I moved to India and ate totally different food. Our bodies do have other differences, though, and we also have different nutritional needs throughout our single lifetimes too. One thing I do personally believe is right for everyone is vegetarianism. I won't go into all the research behind that view, but it is very clear to me that anyone claiming not to feel healthy or good on a vegetarian diet simply does not give enough variety of plant foods in their diet. Variety is so so important. You cannot eat lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and bread and be a vegetarian. Sorry, I talk too much! Loooooong answer...