Teaching people the power of supporting their body’s detox process is teaching them to take their healing into their own hands; creating an independence from the health care industry. Western medicine flourishes if your disease symptoms are suppressed. Suppression creates customers to the system. Healing creates freedom.

Understanding detox efforts in one’s health and healing lifestyle requires a quick look at human biology. Our bodies are built for detoxing. We are detoxing every minute of every day. I will keep the biology very basic.

Your liver is a main organ of detox; constantly filtering blood and eliminating the “toxins” via the colon.

Your colon is an organ of detox as it eliminates solid wastes from food digestion and the products of metabolic breakdown (liver) from the body.

Your kidneys keep themselves busy filtering the blood and eliminating waste products down through the ureters, into your bladder, and out through the urethra.

Your lungs eliminate waste, toxins, through your breath.

Your skin eliminates waste through the process of sweating.

Your lymphatic system moves fluids around your body and helps to eliminate waste and toxins within this system of the whole: *the holistic view of biology, health, healing, and vitality.

Anyone who has ever been constipated for 3 or 4 days may remember how they felt. The colon is an organ of detox. When it is not eliminating well, there is a back-up of wastes within the body. The back up of colon waste can create systemic low energy and general malaise.

Use this “constipated” thought process for all your pathways of detox: sweating, urinating, exhaling respiratory waste, lymphatic movement, and bile production and release into the small intestine. All of these detox mechanisms work more smoothly and efficiently when we nourish our whole body to work as nature intended.

Your body is detoxing in every second of your life and will continue to do so until your life force energy is finished in your physical body.

Our western medical system view of detox is the process of cleansing drugs or alcohol from a person’s system. Most western medicine professionals are not trained in natural healing and/or teaching patients how to nourish and support their natural systems of detox, healing, and vitality.

A natural, holistic detox is simply assisting and supporting your body in what it does every minute of every day: detoxes and heals. When a natural healer (Naturopathic Physician, Herbalist, Holistic Nutrition Professional, Functional Medicine Practitioner, etc.) offers a detox plan, the recommended detox foods and herbs are nature’s tools to nourish the organs of detoxification. 

These foods and herbs are not a biological vacuum cleaner. They are foods and/or herbs that are high in nutrients that build cellular health and support maintaining healthy body organs. If your body organs are well nourished from whole food eating; they perform their biological jobs as nature intended.

Human beings have been supporting and assisting their organs of detox from time beginning.

The natural cycles of life support this detox action. For example, wild leeks and dandelion greens in the spring support stimulating our digestion, circulation, and immune systems. Our bodies wake up in spring. These spring available foods support the process of physiological spring cleaning. This is how we naturally, with the cycles of life, nourish our body’s innate processes.

In the seasonal flow of plants comes stinging nettles grows in the spring. Nettles are a green plant that supports the body’s natural detox systems by contributing deep nourishment to every body cell.

We can follow wild and cultivated plants all growing season to discover the very plants people have traditionally used for supporting their cell nourishment. Well-nourished cells create healthy organs and organ systems. Healthy whole means well-functioning organs of detox.

Moving on to spring and summer berries, they provide a hefty does of nourishment to our body cells. Also, think about the progression of spring, summer, and autumn foods in a backyard garden. These perfect provisions of nature to give us the nourishment we need when we need it. Think cooling cucumber in the warm summer. There is lots of juicy nourishment in cucumbers that aid the pathways of detoxing

In the winter, non-growing seasons, people prepared for the lack of fresh foods. Roots, barks, leaves, and berries of medicinal plants were gathered and dried for the long winter months. These foods were used, when needed, to support detox and ill health symptoms that needed healing support to release symptoms from a body. Think winter colds and flus and the healing herbs and foods that were traditionally used to support nourishment back to health: onions, garlic, hot peppers, bone and veggie broths, and healing herbal teas. I mention a very simple herbal tea below.

Let Food Be Thy Medicine and Medicine Be Thy Food.  Hippocrates

For the herb part…

I am, right now whipping up a pot of dried nettle, peppermint, oregano, thyme, and rosemary tea. All of these herbs support circulation, cell nourishment, and ultimately healthy detoxification. All of this healing medicine in a simple ‘ole pot of tea.

Proper medicinal tea preparation: https://www.paulayoumellrn.com/making-herbal-infusions-teas

*Whole Health / Holistic book recommendations:

• Male Herbal, James Green
• Holistic Anatomy, Pip Waller