For the next 30 days I am going on a very strong detox cleanse with the added benefit of losing my winter love handles.  For Christmas my mother gave me “The Raw Divas Menu Planner” that outlines a month of menus, weekly shopping list, and detailed recipes.  Made easy for both a busy and lazy person like me, all I have to do is check the menu for the day and whip up my meal.  I admit that this is not a New Year’s Resolution nor a purely health-based rationale — Chris and I are going on our honeymoon in March to Puerto Rico and I don’t want to be caught dead with fluff on my hips as I stroll the beaches.

Currently I am sipping a modified-version of “Green Revolution Smoothie” — modified in the sense that I can never follow a recipe but always have to improve on it.  My version contains a banana, handful of dandelion greens, black dinosaur kale, raw cashews, pineapple juice and a teaspoon of probiotics.

The premise of body cleansing is based on the Ancient Egyptian and Greek idea of autointoxication, where ingested foods can putrefy and produce toxins that harm the body.  A rather large fight rages in the health communities as to whether detox “diets” improve a body’s system or not, but I’d like to point out some common-sense in the fray of fad vs. beneficial detoxing.

So why go on a cleansing detox diet, heralded as Gen X fad of health hippies who care more about sheik hip living than about balancing their checkbook and living in the real world?

Toxic Water and Marine Animals

In the recent documentary by Hedrick Smith entitled “Poisoned Waters“, Smith documents how toxic water, containing heavy metals, PCB’s, and other contaminants are passed along from plankton to fish to humans.  Six years ago in West Virginia a scientist discovered small mouth bass were being decimated by organic pollutants. Chemical compounds, known as endocrine disruptors, were found within the fish that interrupt growth, the thyroid gland, estrogen, testosterone, and sexual reproduction in not only fish and frogs but humans as well.  These fish were found to have intersex issues, in that immature eggs were found in the male testes.  Frogs have been found to have six legs and become hermaphroditic or have a lower sperm count, known as oligospermia; these indicator species are the “canaries in the mines” for humans, showing how truly polluted many waterways are.

In our own Puget Sound region, Orca whales (Orcinus Orca) have become the barometer of Sound health.  They are studied because of their “apex predator” status, in that they eat at the top of the food chain, consuming all the smaller organisms.  Recently, in one year seven Orcas died; there are currently only 87 left.  The blubber is tested for contaminants, and has been found to be high in PCB, or Poly Chlorinated Biphenyls, a family of industrial compounds that accumulates in the Orca blubber, resulting in pathogenic or teratogenic interference with embryonic development, which is why young Orcas might be having a harder time surviving than the older Orcas.  PCBs have been found in an Orca mother’s milk that she then passes along to her offspring.  PCBs were banned three decades ago and yet they are still the number one persistent toxic build-up in food webs.  The Center for Whale Research predicts that within the next 20 years Orcas will be extinct unless drastic measures are taken to preserve them.  Along with Orcas, NOAA stated that the King Salmon (Oncorhynchus tschawytscha) in the Puget Sound are more contaminated with PCB than any other fish species.

The New York Times recently published data collected by the Environmental Working Group on Tacoma’s drinking water standards.  The article examined whether contaminants in our water supply met two standards: the legal limits established by the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the typically stricter health guidelines.  Here we find that Tacoma has 4 contaminants below legal limits but still above health guidelines for safe water.  The article states, “In some states a small percentage of tests were performed before water was treated, and some contaminants were subsequently removed or diluted. As a result, some reported levels of contamination may be higher than were present at the tap.”

What was found in Tacoma water and above safe health levels:

• Arsenic
• Lead
• Radon
• Trichloroacetic acid (this forms when chlorine or other disinfecting agents react with organic material)

Tacoma’s North End Neighborhood Council recently was briefed on the potential of a microbe, Cryptosporidum, to cause diarrhea and death if unchecked.  Tacoma Public Utilities found the microbe once in eight years, forcing them to choose between one of two costly water systems: Filtration system which would clean up other toxins in our water but would raise rates 10-20%, or UV radiation which is not as effective and would raise rates only 5-10%.  The filtration system is superior and would drastically clean up our potable water.

Pesticides

There are over 20,000 pesticide products containing 620 active ingredients on the market. Each year, 1 billion pounds of active ingredients in conventional pesticides are applied in the United States.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says humans are exposed to thousands of these agents either singly or in various combinations every day through air, drinking water, food, and dust.  The health effects of pesticides depend on the type of pesticide.  “Some, such as the organophosphates and carbamates, affect the nervous system. Others may irritate the skin or eyes. Some pesticides may be carcinogens (cancer-causing).  Others may affect the hormone or endocrine system in the body. EPA’s human health risk assessments for many pesticides are available on the web.

Common Chemicals Around Us

The United Kingdom’s Daily Mail online reports these common chemicals that are around us and found in humans:

Brominated Flame Retardants - used to make products fireproof, found in carpets, foam-filled cushions, TV and computer screens and plastics.

Linked to breast cancer and cause sterility in mussels and marine snails, as well as rats to miscarry. They are released into the atmosphere where they are inhaled, and also mingle with house dust and settle on food.

Phthalates – found in plastics, perfumes and toiletries. A recent American study linked exposure to phthalates to a higher risk of genital abnormalities in baby boys. Some experts believe that women may also be vulnerable.

Children can be exposed by chewing older PVC toys as phthalates leak into saliva. Phthalates can also be transferred from plastic packaging into meat and dairy products.

Perfluorinated Chemicals (PFCs) - exposure to perfluo-rinated chemicals such as PFOS and PFOA may cause birth defects, damage the immune system and disrupt thyroid function, which can lead to develop-mental problems in pregnancy.

A 2005 Greenpeace study found PFCs in umbilical cord blood from newborn babies. PFCs are used in non-stick pans, stain removers, floor waxes, and fast food packaging.

What the Medical Community Has to Say

In a July 1968 British Medical Journal article printed online and entitled “Pesticides in the Body“, the author admits that pesticides and other harsh chemicals, specifically DDT, are commonly found in human fat and breast milk, but argues that “a compound such as D.D.T. has the undoubted virtues of low cost, safety in use, and effectiveness.  Since millions of people must benefit from the use of these compounds it seems likely that we must be prepared to accept some invasion of the privacy of our fat.”  Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” showed the world the deadly effects of DDT, leading to a DDT ban, but the scientific community continues to use other deadly chemicals.

It seems that Chemists and Medical Doctors the world over are turning a blind eye to the deadly cocktails absorbed, inhaled, and ingested daily by humans through carpets, paint, pillow cases, pesticides, food, and the like.

Despite mainstream science ignoring toxic cocktails, there are a few good people left who act as watchdogs against toxins in our environment.  The Washington Toxics Coalition vows to protect public health and the environment by eliminating toxic pollution and promotes alternatives, advocates policies, empowers communities, and educates people to create a healthy environment.  Their current focus is the Safe Baby Bottle Act which would eliminate BPA from baby bottles but was sadly defeated last year by chemical companies and Wal-Mart.  Every few months they offer a screening of children’s toys to test whether toxic chemicals are present or not that can be ingested by the child.

Hide n’ Seek

Where do all the chemicals go in the human body?  Two main storage places are in fat and the liver, where they are locked away until a release is enacted.  The Detox community is large and bickers amongst themselves who is right and who is inferior, but there are several key components to look for when finding the right program (or making up your own if you have the right knowledge and understanding of how the body works).

1) Protein is vital to survival. Is it included in your program?  If not, delete that as a fad.  Protein can be found in nuts.  Harvard School of Health says vegetable sources of protein, such as beans, nuts, and whole grains, are excellent choices, and they offer healthy fiber, vitamins and minerals.  Using flaxseed oil also provides Omega-3 fatty acids (also found in fish, but flax seed oil is a better source than fish oil).  Since I am on a raw food diet I can blend up raw nuts or use flaxseed oil, or even sprout beans and grains.  A helpful hint: it takes fat to lose fat.  Don’t be afraid of flaxseed oil, avocados, or other high-fat raw foods.

2) Zinc, Magnesium, Iron and Vitamin B12 must be supplemented to the diet since they are difficult to obtain on an all-raw or vegan/vegetarian diet. (Side note: using powdered supplements are superior to swallowing a pill since the powder is easily and fully absorbed into the blood stream).  Vitamin B12 deficiencies are found in vegetarians which affect energy on the most basic level (I know, because I’ve had to give myself B-shots since my early twenties due to being a vegetarian with low B levels).  Most people, including carnivores and vegetarians alike are deficient in vitamin D and are encouraged to supplement a minimum of 5,000 IU’s (International Units) per day (if deficient start out at 10,000 IU’s going up to 20,000 IU).  A high fiber diet can cause iron-deficiency anemia by inhibiting iron absorption.

For dinner, I am making a carrot and avocado soup, complete with all raw celery, carrot juice, avocado, dill and cilantro, and diced cucumbers, peppers, broccoli, and red cabbage, with a handful of blended cashews added to the fray.  Tomorrow I start my massive juicing project, with my first drink consisting of wheat grass, carrots, jalapeno pepper, and a beet.  If you see a short white girl with a BPA-free Nalgene bottle full of a purple drink scrunching up her face as she drinks, well, that would be me around T-Town.  L’Chaim.  May this decade be healthier than the last.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/naturalmom/

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under Health & Living, Ripe!, Tacoma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.