How to Detoxify Your Body: Part Two

This is a continual piece of my previous article How to Detoxify Your Body.

How do you interpret “good health”? Some say they’re in good health as they never get sick. How true is this statement? People always relate “never get sick” to “good health”. In fact, if you never get sick, you’re not guaranteed to be in good health. This misconception has frequently led us to a gradual deterioration of a healthy body. And improper nutritional habits and unhealthy lifestyle are always found to be the primary causes of the lapse into bad health.

Nowadays, modern people are facing intense and competitive pressure, and for them, to stay in health is a big challenge. Their endlessly expanding appetite for new, convenient and fast foods have undoubtedly exposed themselves to the risk of high-fat, high cholesterol, high sodium, low fiber, low carbohydrate, and chemically-enriched substances. Their bodies have been a “cemetery” or “garbage bin” for “consuming” harmful toxins. As a result, the immune system becomes extremely weak and vulnerable to diseases, which will definitely fall prey to all kinds of chronic illnesses. The highly developed medical technology is not always a promising result to cure certain rare diseases but it may induce us with a “drawback” of pharmaceutical preparations, meanwhile causing us to “trap” by the erroneous dietary habits and poor living lifestyle which will inevitably underline many health issues.

Hence, detoxifying body with a natural remedy is a key element to restore good health. It simply means that a healthy and detoxifying diet may help our body to assimilate the essential nutrients for an optimum health while eliminating harmful substances from our body. It’s very important to help your body clear out the unwanted toxins, which in turns will help your body naturally avoid from the attack of free radicals and threat of disease.

At this point, maybe you’ll ask me, “Chan, for detoxification purpose, why must I choose foods carefully?” Then, I answer you, “Undeniably, assimilation of certain kinds of inappropriate foods and drinks do help in detoxification, but they can introduce other toxins to your body. Thus, here comes the importance of choosing a careful diet for sake of your health.”

There are numerous foods and drinks that you must avoid as they’re more likely to either cause secondary harm to your health or worsen your existing health. Below are some of the diets you should be aware as they’ll introduce toxins to your body:

• Any chilled or frozen products like alcoholic foods and beverages should be avoided. Alcohol is profoundly to harm your health as it can cause damage to the liver, headache, damage to the central nervous system, increased heart/ coronary, stroke and cancer incidence rate, high blood pressure, and other unexpected chronic diseases. The latest clinical experimental results show that the intake of chilled or frozen products might be a precursor for the damage of kidneys. Women, chronic patients, elderly and pregnant mothers should particularly take note to these types of foods and drinks to avoid any unexpected incidences.
• Like alcohol, caffeine foods and beverages should also be avoided. This is due to that caffeine may stimulate the nervous system to boost energy, making the heart beats faster. This will eventually elevate blood pressure, causing one feels full of energy or vitality. The over consumption of caffeine can be addictive, so it’s always a potential health hazard. However, appropriate intake of caffeine has a pain-relieving effect to relieve pain.
• All refined and processed foods and drinks have neither nutritional nutrients nor body benefiting properties. This is due to that during the refining process, a considerable amount of nutrients and essential elements have been lessen or loss.
• Soy sauce is a type of seasoning that is used to add an additional taste to the cooked foods. There has been documented that soy sauce may have contained large amount of sodium, which can elevate the blood pressure. And thus, hypertensive, high-lipid, and high cholesterol patients should limit the intake of soy sauce in their daily diets appropriately and accordingly.
• Monosodium Glutamate, or commonly known as MSG, is another commonly utilized seasoning at the kitchen or dining table. It’s added to stimulate the taste buds, making foods taste delicious and tempting. When MSG is burnt in your body, it’s always very hard to get rid of it from your body. Rather, it can “mess up” your immune system, central nervous system and the optical nerves. When you consume MSG constantly, over a period of time, you’ll feel dryness of your mouth and tongue, headache, high blood pressure, fatigue, hair loss and may cause you hard to concentrate either at work or study.
• You should be aware of refined sugar. Why I say so? When this “foreign object” enters your body, it’ll first trigger the release of vitamin B and calcium. Over time, the consumption of the refined sugar may gradually lead to a thickening blood or artery. This explains why you feel a drop in energy and concentration. The decrease in vitality and a strong feeling of fatigue body are two foremost reasons why you should avoid refined sugar. It’s always better to switch to brown sugar.
• Salt has been identified as a main culprit for most of the chronic diseases. Imagine if your body is heavily loaded with salt, you’re actually has your body stored in large quantity of sodium. Do you want to risk your life playing “hide and seek” with a person called SALT? Believe me, you’ll never win in this game but you’ll fall helplessly because of the SALT. Bear in mind that when the storage of sodium becomes larger and larger in your body, a good guy called POTASIUM will be lessen or taken away cruelly. That means when sodium increases, potassium decreases and thus giving short cut for dangerously high acidic substances to pass through which might later cause cells to become cancerous.
• Whether you prepare your foods either deep-fried or sauteed, oil is an important ingredient. But do you know that this type of food preparation will take your body 4 to 12 hours to assimilate completely. Due to its relatively long hour for digestion, it has become a huge burden for your body. Inappropriate use of oil will never benefit you but harm your health. The fat contained in oil, in fact, can cause the hardening of blood/arteries, which eventually leads to the built-up of fatty acids deposits within the artery wall or underlying skins. Due to this reason, the blood circulation might be interrupted from functioning properly and smoothly. The obstruction of blood has been diagnosed to be a cause of stroke, high blood pressure, cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, Alzheimer’s and other chronic diseases.
• People get confusing that drinking milk is good for health. Milk is tainted with Melamine (read more details here) and might be contaminated with impurities during its preparation. Additionally, when undergoing pasteurization, the calcium contained in cow’s milk will become non-organic, a substance which is not good for our health. This is because non-organic calcium cannot be fully utilized by our body to benefit from its calcium content. In contrary, it might cause a built-up of stone (via a process called calculus formation) in your gall bladder or kidneys. Furthermore, when milk has broken down in your digestive tract, a substance of strong acid-resembled “ammonia” is produced in your body. To maintain the equilibrium of acid-base state, your body will withdraw the calcium deposits from your bones. Over time, the calcium content in your bones become lesser and lesser, and by the time when your bones become thinner due to calcium deficiency, they’ll crack and break easily causing a dilemma called osteoporosis.
• Eggs have been found to have contained high levels of concentrated protein which is hard to assimilate, absorb and digest by your body. They may have contaminated with some complicated hormones which can cause allergic reactions to certain individuals. If you eat eggs more than two a day, you’re more likely to be invited by the messenger of Death.
• Meat based foods have long been known as answer to many diseases. More and more people are switching their diets to be more greenery foods as they’ve started to aware the state of their health. Meat in contrast to plant, not only it causes your body to become acidic, but also it introduces many microorganisms (some of them can still be survived under the heat of boiling point) to your intestinal tract. Meat has been found to be injected with many antibiotics and hormones which are put into animals to stimulate their growth in order to fulfill a large demand in the market. Read more details on Amazing facts about the meat and Think before you eat.
• Our water bodies have become a site for oil spilling, heavy chemicals, chemical substances and other unidentified impurities. As our water environments are becoming more polluted, the marine living things dwelling in these waters like crabs, shrimps, fish and other marine animals have had their bodies polluted with considerable amounts of pollutants. When you consume these foods, you’re actually eating toxins. It’s particularly fear that the large quantities of heavy chemicals found in most seafood are extremely harmful to your kidneys.

We’re unfortunate that we’re getting more exposure to toxins every day. If you don’t detoxify your body, the toxins can be piled up day by day, causing more toxins remain in your body. These toxins are always entered your body through your mouth and nose. So, it’s important for you to care what you put into your mouth. The foods may look tastier and tempting, but they may be dreadful toxins to your body. Here, I’ll introduce you one healthy detoxification diet. And I’ll touch more on this topic in the near future.

Basically, a healthy detoxification breakfast should include one portion of fruit, two portions of leafy vegetables, one portion of sweet potato and one portion of brown rice. Wherever possible, choose for the organic foods. Here’re things to be noted while preparing for this healthy detoxification breakfast:

• Fruits should be selected those grown locally, in season and those which are picked at peak production times. Any fruits that are imported, out-of-season, or those have been kept storage or refrigerated should be avoided for consumption. Vegetables should also be selected based upon the principle stated here. It’s advisable to include different portions of vegetables which can be root, stem, fruit and flower.
• You should select the yellow-fleshed potatoes while selecting sweet potatoes as they contain the most nutritional value than other color of flesh. If sweet potatoes are not grown locally, then you may substitute them with regular varieties that are available in the market or to your nearest store. Make sure you clean and rinse the potato thoroughly, so that it’s clean for you to consume it along with its skin. For those who’re suffering from chronic diseases, I advise you to increase the intake of sweet potatoes in your diet (two parts per meal is recommended).
• You’re recommended to include purple rice varieties, job’s tears (a kind of wild grass seed), soybeans, multi-grains, old corn, red beans, green beans, millet, or any other type of grains while preparing brown rice. 

Here comes a menu for your lunch and dinner. Both lunch and dinner should include 25 to 30% of vegetables, 5 to 10% soup broth, 60 to 65% whole grain cereals, and 10 to 15% legumes.

• Always select a method of stewing, boiling, steaming or scalding for your food preparation. Avoid deep-frying, frying, grilling, charcoal-burning foods.
• The whole grain part should include 30% coarser food grains and 70% of staple foods like rice, brown rice or wheat.
• Drink at least 3,000 cc of good fresh alkaline water. However, certain individuals should limit the intake of water (Read more details here).
• Eat fruit as a between-meal snack, but bear in mind not to consume two or more types of melons at a time as it might cause vomiting or diarrhea.
• Boil your soup broth with appropriate amount of wakame (Japanese green seaweed), konbu, seaweed or laver.
• Those who’re suffering from high uric acid level, cancer, gall bladder and kidney diseases are discouraged to eat the full portion of protein from legumes.
• Leafy vegetables and sprouted plants are excellent for health but they may be an unsatisfactory diet for people who are experiencing the process of recuperating from illness.
• To allow your body to absorb optimum quantity of enzymes (read more details on enzymes here), you should eat ½ to ¾ of raw/uncooked vegetables

I wish you all good luck! Happy detoxifying!

Now, you can gain more health knowledge by visiting my health blog entitled HealthAssist. More upcoming updates and latest health information is right on the way!