Body cleansing diets

By Mixey Blob

Body cleansing diets and supplements like the acai berry to be all the rage right at the moment; movie stars, celebrities and ordinary folks alike are jumping up and down in joy over the acclaimed benefits of detoxing your body and ridding it of all those unwanted chemicals we have spent many years accumulating in our systems. Insecticides, preservatives, fats, chemicals, hormones and the like tend to get stored in our bodies for years, and lots of people say that the key to losing weight, feeling better, functioning the way nature intended, and enjoying a greater feeling of wellness is to is to embark on reliable recipes for detox diets.

If you thought (like many people) that detoxification was only meant as a method for bringing alcohol abusers and drug users down off their chemical dependencies, you would only be partially correct. But this is not the case with detoxifying diets and formulas. Formulas for detox diets are designed to clean our body's system of impurities that build up from the food we consume and even the air we inhale. Generally, detoxification systems are formulated to cleanse the liver and colon, where impurities tend to accrue.

The key to nearly all body cleansing diets is to eat as much fiber as possible, drink lots of water (preferably spring or filtered water), and eat plenty of fruit, nuts, vegetables, beans and other pulses. Notice that this list of cleansing foods does not include meat! Most detox diets will require that you reduce your meat consumption to as little as possible or (usually) none. What is also missing? Processed starches like bread and pasta. These foods are notoriously always absent when you are on any diet that is designed primarily for cleansing your body's digestive tract.

Many people find that cleansing drinks are a terrific way to give an additional boost to a successful detoxification of your digestive system. Just get some of your favourite fruits such as berries, bananas, mangoes, grapes (red grapes also contain resveratrol, which helps reduce aging) – whatever you find particularly delicious and nutritious. Just throw them in the food blender with some spring or purified water. Whip them up until they thicken but still remain drinkable, and you have an perfect snack or even breakfast that will help your colon get rid of the yucky toxins that reside there.

Health-boosting wholesome soups of various kinds can also be used for detox diets. 'Alkaline' and Gazpacho soups are used by thousands of people frequently for effective colon detoxification and general body cleansing. An alkaline diet is a diet that relies very heavily on nuts, legumes, and vegetables, which have little or no 'acidifying' effect on the body, and all of which help to keep things moving along in the digestive tract. Thus, these are highly beneficial ingredients for any detox soup recipe.

One very common and particularly popular and delicious alkaline soup recipe is for a vegetable broth. It is not hard to make: all you do is simply chop up spinach, broccoli, zucchini, and celery into small pieces then add them to a large pot of distilled water and simmer them for about 30-45 minutes. Then, run the ingredients through a colander or strainer, reserving the liquid. Because all the natural minerals and vitamins stay in the water when you boil these vegetables, you can now discard the left-over vegetables and drink the broth.