Why Drinking Green Smoothies Won’t Detox Your System

Nowadays the media and several food companies promote the idea that simply doing a 7 day juice cleanse or drinking a special tea will totally renew your body from the inside out and voilá: you are clean as a baby! I’m sure drinking green juices and tea is good for your health and has positive effects, however getting rid of toxins which accumulated in the body over time requires a bit more effort.

What are toxins?

In general, everything that has a harmful effect on a biological mechanism is considered a toxin. In our modern world, we encounter toxins nearly everywhere. In the Morning, you might use shampoo containing SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate) which is a detergent that enters your bloodstream easily via the skin and circulates in the body for up to 5 days while leaving traces in the heart, liver and brain. Sorry to say but beauty products contain a lot of harmful ingredients and in order to learn more you can check out Dr. Mercola who lists a lot of products and toxins on his webpage. As the day goes on you are very likely to grab a bottle of water made with BPA (Bisphenol A) which is a carbon based, synthetic compound preventing plastic bottles from crushing. It is known to mess with your hormones especially oestrogen and it has been found in 92.6% of the American population older than 6 years. Dr Josh Axe looked into the topic more specifically and provides a great article here. In the Evening, you might have some fish for dinner, which unfortunately is full of mercury and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) which are synthetic chemicals that have been used for handling and greasing machines. PCBs are now banned but they are still flooding through the oceans. PETA explains that some Inuit who are consuming mainly fish have a PCB level measured in their breast milk and body tissues which would be classified as hazardous waste.

The reason why especially fatty fish is so high in toxins is that in general the body, also a human body, stores toxins in the fat cells. If you are regularly exposed to toxins and not able to get rid of them via the natural detoxing pathways, which are pee, poop, sweat and breath the unwanted substances need to go somewhere else and the body simply dumps them into the fat cells. Why that is: fat cells are not as important as muscle cells and they are used less to keep up homeostasis which makes them a great storage for toxins so we can deal with them later - if at all. In order to detox you need to break down the fat and the toxins and even more importantly your detoxing organs such as the liver and kidneys should be happily assisting you with the process of excretion otherwise the toxins will be broken down but cannot exit.

Natural detox pathways

Sounds like a vicious cycle but you also need to know that your body has lot’s of equipment to deal with toxins and it’s also normal that it produces toxins as a waste product from creating energy. The real problems start when the toxins accumulate up to a critical point where they start interfering with cellular function, which then will most likely cause diseases.
If you want to support your body in releasing toxins, you should simply support all your metabolic functions as the body is designed to clean up with its own master strategy. It makes a lot of sense to minimize the exposure to toxins so the body doesn’t get overwhelmed by unwanted substances and can keep up the normal work. In order to accelerate the process you can start practicing Pranayama, which is an ayurvedic breath work practice that is said to cleanse your lungs and mind.

Additionally make sure to break into a sweat from time to time by moderate exercise or using a sauna. Eating a lot of fibre can also help with a healthy rhythm of bowel movement and last but not least drink! Drink a lot of water first thing in the morning and to maximise effects add a bit of lemon in order to support your liver, which will kick start the process to flush out the toxins that have been broken down during the night.
As an extra tip, you can swallow some activated charcoal pills before meals in dodgy eateries. The activated charcoal binds positively charged toxins (even heavy metal!) and bacteria due to its negative charge and escorts them out of your system which unfortunately drinking a green smoothie, without looking at the big picture, is not.