Welcome to day 4 of the Making Love in the Kitchen group Green Smoothie Cleanse. As I mentioned on Day 1, herbs help facilitate the detoxification process.

In reading further about herbs for cleansing and researching for this post, I came across the site Amazing Green Tea. I’m generally critical about taking “facts” from any source with something to sell because of their obvious bias, but the herbs they talk about are widely available in the myriad of detox products on the market.

An article on the site, includes a table to help you determine which of your organs needs the most cleansing, listing the top symptoms for each organ in need of detoxification. I’d have included it in my previous post had I seen it but post it here:

As I said in my last post, I suspect that the people who do cleanses/detox are the people who need them less.

So what herbs go with which organ? According to Amazing Green Tea:

*I happen to have chickweed in my fridge. Local Bio-Dynamic/Organic farm Kind Organics was selling it at the farmer’s market recently.

A lot of those are commonly accepted, common knowledge. I don’t want to duplicate all their site content, so hop on over.

Recently I examined parasite/intestinal cleanses and saw black walnut used a lot. Dr. Hulda Clark, whose liver cleanse was recommended to me by a satisfied user, talks about parasite cleanses and recommends them as a precursor to liver cleanse. All a parasite is, is any organism that lives on, or in, the body of another organism. They can be responsible for lots of things that make us physically feel less than ideal, and for common ailments that we may ignore (see Alive magazine).

Here’s some more resources:

• 6 Herbs For Kidney Cleanse and Elimination
• 7 CLEANSING HERBS to reduce our toxic burden (CBS news)
• Colon Cleansing Herbs for Herbal Colon Cleansing
• Digestive System Cleanse (about.com)
• Herbs Can Cleanse – Herbs 101
• Herbs for Cleansing (Livestrong.com)
• Herbs To Cleanse The Blood (Livestrong.com)
• Liver- Medical Herbalism Journal
• Herbs to Clean Lungs (Livestrong)
• Lymph Cleansing Herbs (Livestrong)
• Lymphatic System Detox
• Herbs for Urine Detox (Livestrong)

(Nearly half of the links are to Livestrong despite intensive Google search because I liked their sources and the fact that it’s a good website all around.)

On a nerdy level, I don’t know why so many natural health websites look like they were created by an 8 year old. I feel like more people would take the information seriously – see its validity – if the sites didn’t look like the equivalent of a professional paper written with crayon.

Personal green smoothie cleanse update:

I’ve been on and off the wagon the entire time. I figured that if I ate one solid meal per day I’d still be doing okay. Sunday, Mother’s Day, I did a typical Jewish brunch: Bagels, lox, cream cheese, rugelach, coffee – which I rarely drink. That was Day 2 of cleanse, and expected. I drank a smoothie for the rest of the day, a strawberry-collard greens smoothie that was snack and dinner with some leftover for yesterday. I was okay with it.

Then yesterday I fell hard at the end of the day. I successfully refused bake sale participation at work in the morning. I drank tons of water and smoothies instead. Rather than improvising smoothie recipes as usual I used recipes from the Green Smoothie Cleanse book. Most of those call for more water than I use (I like my smoothies dense) so the quantity was the same & great quality but less filling. I was hungry and had a headache that may or may not have been related. In the evening I went to an art opening with colleagues. I could have ordered a salad or something easily digestible. Instead, being broke and having “given myself permission” for “one solid meal”, I went with the freebies: Pizza, quesadillas, calamari. This is stuff I rarely eat anyway because it’s junk. I like to think that I can just eat it and accept myself but even I felt a bit guilty about it. Then I went to a committee meeting (our CSA opens 5 weeks today!) and there were big cookies in front of me, either home baked or bakery. I had two and a half, and a lemon square. Feeling of guilt maintained. On the upside, it gives me another reason to give my digestive system a break today, right? It’s a prime example of life presenting challenges and me making a choice, but every moment is a new moment of choice. Every day is a new day. I wouldn’t berate myself about these choices because that’s not nice. Instead I ask what I’m going to do about it, and move on.

This morning I skipped my usual yoga so that I could get a bit more sleep (meeting ran late) and prepare my smoothies. I have 3-1 liter jars at the office (still working on my “Liver Love Affair” smoothie from breakfast – see the Green Smoothie Cleanse book for recipe).

The count:

Saturday: 1 for breakfast, 1 for snack (same one), soup for lunch, 1 for late night/snack = 4.
Sunday: 1, but it lasted for 2 meals that day.
Monday: 1 for breakfast, okra soup for lunch, 1 smoothie for snack = 3.

9 in 3 days is actually consistent with the challenge but if I’m going to eat a solid meal, it’s got to be one that’s easily digested. This is my goal through Friday. 1 solid meat, easily digested.

Onward.

Eat well, be well.

Image by susanvg via Flickr

As today (May 7) was day 1 of the Making Love in the Kitchen group Green Smoothie Cleanse, I wanted to share some information about cleanses that I’ve researched for you. This is just a brief explanation, cobbled together from various sources. I encourage you to seek out more information. With all the environmental toxins we can all use a little help.

Cleanse…detox… whatever you want to call it. Some distinguish between the two. We encounter so many toxins in our life. For example: Chemicals via food additives, pesticides, environmental pollution, cleaning products including household cleaners, laundry detergent & fabric softeners, toxins in cosmetics and hygiene products including shampoo, toxins in the water you drink and shower in, toxins that other people’s bodies give off (think second hand smoke, perfume, whatever else they’re carrying around that’s airborne, plus their own viruses ‘n’ such). No one can, or would want to, live in a hermetic space. We work, we play.

Good thing is, our bodies are complex machines. We have organs to keep the good and rid the bad.

The lymphatic system carries a clear fluid, lymph, which contains excess proteins, wastes, and other elements. Lymph surrounds the cells of our body to bring them nourishment and carry wastes out of the body. Unlike the blood, the lymph does not have the heart to pump it through the body. It must rely on the movement of the body and stimulation. Lymph is the clear stuff that you see with blood when we have wounds.

The liver, the 2nd largest organ after the skin, filters through the toxins you ingest and sends the toxins to the correct organ for elimination. It is the most important metabolic organ for carbohydrate, protein, fats and hormones. Aside from synthesis and excretion of bile, it also stores vitamins.

The kidneys help the body in detoxing liquids that pass through your body. That is why it’s extremely important you drink a sufficient amount of water. Your kidneys work to sort through good toxins and dissolved waste from acid.

Your lungs are responsible for helping your body get the required oxygen it needs by processing the air we breathe. The lungs are one of the first organs to intake toxins. A cold is usually a sign that your body is trying to rid itself of toxins and waste matter that has built up to the point of overwhelming your immune system. The lungs help in pushing clean air through your body which cleanses the bad chemicals you might inhale. Your lungs also help in eliminating toxic gases that can be found within cells. You will aid your lungs with their job by practicing deep breathing in fresh air environments.

The colon is the part of the digestive system where the waste material is stored. A healthy colon detoxifies the body by extracting water and salt from solid wastes and effectively expelling these waste material and toxins from the body. The colon can hold onto a lot of old waste.

80% of our immune system lives in our intestines, and because of the damage caused by modern toxicity, it is constantly in a state of alert and in attack mode.

So, keeping our insides clean, eating well to begin with, giving it a good spring cleaning, getting enough rest, and nourishing ourselves from the inside out helps keep us disease free. An older woman at my yoga studio has been telling a few of us about a liver cleanse that she does a couple of times a year, how great she feels after, that she looks forward to the next one, and that some of her chronic ailments disappeared when she started. I’ll be doing that one in the near future.

Reported benefits of a juice or smoothie cleanse are that such a cleanse gives the digestive system a rest and the nutrients are more easily absorbed. Add detoxifying herbs to that for a more powerful cleaning. A subsequent blog post will cover herbs.

I suspect that the people who do cleanses/detox are the people who need them less, but we could all use a little boost.

How did I do on day 1? Not so well. A friend was in town unexpectedly which resulted in a meal (a second lunch, after blended soup), then later I had a sugary snack at a play (kicked myself later) despite turning down all food offers in the morning. I did drink 3 smoothies and there’s always tomorrow.

I bought sunflower sprouts, spinach and dandelion greens at the farmer’s market today. Those are all going into smoothies over the next few days. Dandelion might be a bitter weed but it’s supposedly great for the liver, blood and kidneys. I notice myself going to the bathroom more when I consume more dandelion greens. I also bought wild leeks, aka ramps, which I share only because it means that spring has arrived (or, it’s “ramping up”, as I said earlier). They could be used in soup.

A few resources:

• The Green Smoothie Cleanse – Meghan Telpner’s e-book.
• Detoxification For Health & Wellness – The Missing Key
• The Detox Diet (about.com)
• 5 Simple Tips for Your Spring Cleanse
• Herbal Body Cleanses
• Herbal Detox

You might not believe in cleansing, and that’s your prerogative, but I figure that it can’t hurt. At the very least, something like a green smoothie cleanse helps get the nutrients into my life and the potentially toxic stuff out – even if just short term. Necessary? Maybe, maybe not. Beneficial? Definitely.

Eat well, be well.

Related articles

• Why Detox? (bloomnaturalhealth.wordpress.com)
• Natural Spring Detox Tips (foxnews.com)