Food Truths & The Need to Detox

Today I would like to talk to you about food, not the good kinds. Our supermarkets are filled with food that has a nutritional value of, well nothing! Foods which are packed with chemicals, toxins and hydrogenated fat just to make them ‘tasty’ and more importantly convenient!

It does sum up really why the world in general is getting unhealthier; supermarkets are filled with quick, easy, processed convenience foods due to the high demand for simplicity. These foods aren’t good for you and this is a major factor in the high obesity figures we see in today’s society. I like to call these foods fake foods!

Processed foods make up a large amount of the toxins we consume every day, if you see a food with ingredients you can’t pronounce then I would recommend you just put it back. This is the reason why I am such a big advocator of untouched organic food.

The main purpose of fake foods is to compete against the more expensive real products. Many people are drawn in by the cheap price rather than what is actually contained in these cheap products. Margarine is made up from hydrogenated oils and was introduced as a cheaper alternate to butter. These fake foods are mare primarily of different chemicals and sometimes contain gums and sugar fillers. The different types of fake foods on the markets include microwaveable snacks, ketchup, hydrogenated oils, margarine, ketchup and sadly many more.

I read a very good and quite worrying comment:

“It is a dangerous experiment that humans are living on processed, junk, and invented foods that have never before existed as part of our food chain.” - Jesse Hanley.

I feel as if this comment is a fair reflection on society; we were not put on this earth to eat these types of ‘foods’. It is just overtime most people have become lazier in their nature and the quick fix, cheap option seems to be most popular.

Lots of these toxins entered the supermarket as “helpful” time saving, longer lasting or improved cleaning, smelling wonder products which we as a society welcomed with open arms because we are so busy, I would recommend taking an extra ten minutes each day on making a proper meal which can help to ensure long term health.

Hydrogenated fats are also something to be very wary of. Hydrogenated fats came about by injecting hydrogen into vegetable fats when under a high amount of pressure and heat. This chemical configuration is not found in nature, the result is to prolong shelf life of certain products. Trans fats are actually banned in Denmark, and should be avoided at all costs. Did you know that if a product contains less than 0.5g of trans fats then it can be advertised on the pack as containing 0g of trans fats!

The best thing I would recommend is to be a lot more interested in the back of the packets rather than the price on the front. Have a quick look at the ingredient list and most of you should be able to tell pretty soon whether it is a good product or not.

I would just like to give a quick mention about high fructose corn syrup, in my opinion another bad food product which you should avoid. It is a sweetener used for foods (particularly processed foods) and beverages. Food manufacturers love it as it is cheap to make, has a long shelf life and is just as sweet as other sweetener products.

You will find it listed in the ingredients of many products like soft drinks, ketchup, other sauces, ice cream, salad dressings and sometimes even in bread! As you can imagine too much sweetened foods are bad for you and can lead to weight gain, so it doesn’t help that sweeteners are placed in so many of the foods that we buy. High fructose corn syrup as even been linked to causing an increase in type 2 diabetes. You need to be wary.

Another artificial sweetener which should be avoided is Aspartame. Aspartame is the technical name for brands such as Nutra Sweet and Equal, they both contain phenylalanine and methanol, and should be avoided. Splenda (sucralose) is marketed as natural because it is made from sugar. It starts out as sugar, but winds up as an artificial, synthetic product. The structure of sugar is changed chemically by substituting three chlorine atoms for three hydroxyl groups. These product types are also used in many of the diet soft drinks, and thousands of other "diet" or low carb products.

As you can see many food manufacturers are not thinking about our health when creating these new products.

The Need To Detox

So with all of these ‘foods’ on the market damaging our health what can we do? Well in my opinion, as well as many others a period of detoxification is the best way to start to rid your body of all of these unwanted substances we have been placing into your body.

The main aim of a detox is to cleanse the blood and the gut from harmful toxins.

The amount of toxins which are contained in the products I’ve mentioned as well as in the very air we breathe can take our own health temporarily out of our hands, so I’m going to teach you how to regain control of our health.

These stored toxins combined with stress can affect your health in very unpleasant ways:
- weight gain
- headaches
- feelings of fatigue and weakness
- heartburn
- sore muscles and skin
- joint pains

A detox will help you to eliminate these symptoms, you may experience headaches or sore muscles, but that is because the toxins are released faster than your body can eliminate them. These symptoms will not occur again if you detox regularly.

From the many thousands of possible sources of toxins that affect us there are THREE main sources of toxicity that effect us every single day:

1. Food & Drinks that we consume

2. Air & Water

3. Personal Products we put on our bodies

It is very common though for your body to struggle to adapt to a detox at the start, many people take time off work to start a Detox diet. When detoxing, you may suffer from symptoms as your body expels the toxins from your body. This is perfectly normal and is not a sign that you’re getting sicker.

You may even find that the detoxing process causes you to suffer the old symptoms that you have had that the body has suppressed. You may think that you are becoming ill but it is important that you continue with the detox and don’t take any medications to help with the symptoms. The aim to flush chemicals from the body, not introduce more!

Before you start to detox you should prepare your body for it first. Try eating more fruit and vegetables and 1 litre of water for every 50lbs or 3.5 stones of body weight for a week before and cutting down on the intake of toxins. Cut out a few of the following the week before to give you the best possible start: caffeine, alcohol, dairy, processed food, sugar, wheat.

The amount of toxins in the world today is frightening, I am not trying to start a scare campaign but I believe I have a duty to inform as many people as possible about this great process called detoxification. I would like everyone to experience the same great feelings that I did myself.

A detox diet will guarantee that your body is dramatically reducing the amount of toxins entering the body compared to normal as well as helping to drive out the toxins all ready in the body through a number of different techniques.

If you have a severe build up of toxins it really does get hold of your body and bring you down. Toxins affect our normal functioning of all the organs and muscles in the body and if there is a lot of toxins it slows it right down. A heavy toxin build up can prevent our usual bodily functioning which can lead us feeling tired all of the time.

Exercise is made even harder when we are toxin rich we have to work a lot harder because we were all ready exhausted before we began. I found a new lease of life with my exercising post detox, I really had so much energy and made me enjoy working out even more.

By ridding your body of these toxins it can jump start all of your organs and give them the licence to work to their full potential, leaving us feeling great!

Please, please try it for yourself.

Richard Clarke