Posted on by Dianne Caine Australia

In our modern age it is almost impossible to completely avoid toxins; whether it be from our environment, our clothing or our food. The truth hurts, but there are a fair few steps we can take to lower our toxic load, especially through our diet!

1. Eat as fresh as possible

Eating as close to nature means you are lowering or even eliminating the chances of ingested synthetic compounds, additives, preservatives or artificial sweeteners and increasing your body’s health and vitality. When your diet is rich in plant foods such as vegetables of many different colours, fruit, legumes, pulses and fruit, you are fuelling your body with vital nutrients and enzymes that it needs to adequately detoxify toxins from your body. 

Unfortunately, if you eat mainly from the packaged food aisle of the grocery store, you really aren’t getting much, if any nutritional value whatsoever as many of the vitamins and minerals in our food is lost in the process of creating such products. Not to mention all the additional nasties that go hand in hand with packaged and processed ‘goods’.

2. Organic as much as you can

This is a tough one, especially for those of us who really can’t afford to purchase all our food as organic. It can get expensive! So how do we get around this?

If you can only afford to buy a few things organic, try to buy your meats organic first, especially chicken, beef and pork. After that, choose organic varieties of berries, and fruit such as bananas, grapes, apples and tomatoes. If you still have some money to spare, go for the organic capsicums, celery, potatoes, greens and stone fruits.

Search in your local area to see if there is a farmers’ market or harvest market. Usually these markets are a gold mine for local and organic produce at a fantastic price! Eating locally has benefits of it’s own!

Grow your own food! This may seem like a pain in the butt to do but the benefits are endless. Gardening is fantastic exercise, great for stress relief and you know exactly what goes onto and into your plants and therefore, your food. You can enrich your soil with nutrients, use organic methods of growing and feel the utter joy of accomplishment that comes with eating food that you’ve grown yourself.

3. Avoid packaged and processed foods

Packaged and processed foods such as deli meats and packet food usually come with a price. When you’re out shopping next, have a glance at the nutritional panel and ingredients list. Usually the product is high in sugar or trans fat or even sodium and has a list of ingredients as long as your arm! Most of the ingredients are harmful to us such as vegetable or canola oil, sucralose and other artificial sweeteners and MSG to name only a few. It’s a great idea to educate yourself with what chemicals go into processed and packaged foods and choose whole, lean proteins; both animal and vegetable protein and shop mostly from the fresh fruit and veg aisles as opposed to the packaged food aisles.

4. Wash your fruit and veg

This is so important and it’s surprising how many people don’t bother to wash their fruit and vegetables. There is a neat trick that some people do to lower the toxins on the outside of their fruit and vegetables that has become quite popular on social media. Place your fruit and vegetables in the kitchen sink, add a cup of apple cider vinegar and fill the sink with water. Allowing your vegetables to soak in this water will help to clean and remove a certain level of nasties from the outside of your food.

5. Greens – chelation

Adding greens to your diet in the form of vegetables but also powders such as spirulina or cracked cell chlorella on a regular basis can aid your body in detoxification and by chelating heavy metals and flushing them out of your body. If you are a regular smoothie or vegetable juice drinker, consider adding some greens next time; spinach leaves, blanched kale leaves, spirulina powder or cracked cell chlorella powder.

Ensure the chlorella is definitely “cracked cell” as this a much more bioavailable form and will allow it to do it’s job in the body more effectively!