Cleanses

[kelownagirl]

I found that I was able to feel many of the positive 'effects' of a cleanse by cutting out most of the processed foods, and eating more veg and fruit and whole grains and water. Personally, and in my fairly uneducated opinion, I think the biggest 'toxic' issue is the toxic effects of constipation. If you do a cleanse, or if you change to a more fresh-food-based, higher fibre diet, you get things moving and feel better over all.

[OakLeaf]

From an evolutionary standpoint (addressing what our kidneys and liver are "for"), our hominid ancestors didn't evolve to eat every single day. That just wasn't an option, and still isn't for wild things. Traditions of fasting arose in primitive religions long before we started eating highly processed foods.

Even if you eat reasonably clean, you're still inhaling toxins, ingesting them in your water (via additives, pollutants, naturally occurring contaminants and leaching from containers), and absorbing them through your skin. Reducing the load on your kidneys and liver for a day, or a few days, on a regular basis, might not be enough to eliminate everything that's built up in your body, but it's got to help.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I found that I was able to feel many of the positive 'effects' of a cleanse by cutting out most of the processed foods, and eating more veg and fruit and whole grains and water. Personally, and in my fairly uneducated opinion, I think the biggest 'toxic' issue is the toxic effects of constipation. If you do a cleanse, or if you change to a more fresh-food-based, higher fibre diet, you get things moving and feel better over all.

I strongly agree with this. People don't get nearly enough natural fiber in general, and fiber I think is the greatest natural health "cleanser" of all.

Even if you eat reasonably clean, you're still inhaling toxins, ingesting them in your water (via additives, pollutants, naturally occurring contaminants and leaching from containers), and absorbing them through your skin. Reducing the load on your kidneys and liver for a day, or a few days, on a regular basis, might not be enough to eliminate everything that's built up in your body, but it's got to help.

The only way we won't ingest toxins is by being dead. Even cavemen ingested toxins- smoke, volcanic ash and fumes, sulpher, rotting meat or rotting fruit, heavy metals, insect borne diseases and parasites, poison fungi and other toxic plants, contaminated water and bacteria....
My own opinion: The toxins that are easily eliminated enough to get eliminated during 3 days of fasting would probably be eliminated anyway during those 3 days whether we ate or not. Nastier stuff like lead, dioxins, DDT, or mercury is not going to budge even if we starve ourselves to death.
I'm not saying it's bad to just drink juice or tea for a day- most of us ingest way too much fat and calories anyway, and a day long juice or water fast would likely make anyone feel better! I just don't believe it accelerates the natural toxin elimination functions our healthy bodies have already.