Spring has sprung, and if you’re already into spring-cleaning your home, take it one step further, with a spring detox to clean up the waste and toxins building up in your body.
As organic food advocate, Dr. Mark Hyman says, “A detox diet is a way to clean house inside and out.” Spring is when nature renews itself and creates life, regenerates, and refreshes, so why not follow her lead and use this time to remove waste that may have built up from winter indulgences.
Cleansing the body looks different for everyone. The use of insecticides, fungicides, fertilizers, and weedkillers is strictly monitored in organic food production, so you can decide simply to choose organic to eliminate the foods and products that contain the more than 700 chemicals used in conventional agriculture. In other words, if you choose certified organic foods, you’re already naturally detoxing.
If you’re ready to take your spring detox to the next level, below we’ve highlighted the best organic foods for detox, plus simple ways to incorporate cleansing into every meal.
Studies link eating organic to a variety of beneficial health effects, which is especially important during a pandemic. Switching to an organic diet decreased levels of cancer-causing glyphosate – the main ingredient in Bayer-Monsanto’s pesticide Roundup – by 70 percent in participants’ bodies in just one week, according to a study Friends of the Earth study.
Chemicals used in conventional food production have been linked to health-related problems and diseases by several studies. For example, one study found that exposure to fungicide, herbicide and insecticide cocktails can lead to DNA damage and elevated death of blood cells. Pesticide exposure has also been associated with depression and Parkinson’s disease.
Eating organic is better for your health, according to other studies, and certain organic foods, like onions, have been found to be more nutritionally dense, compared to their conventional counterparts. A comprehensive review of the literature found much higher levels of antioxidants and lower levels of pesticides in organic fruits, vegetables, and grains, compared to conventionally grown produce.
You can find out more about the study here.
Some benefits of cleansing include weight loss and a boost in energy levels – some whole organic foods actually cause the body to burn twice as many calories as processed foods. Since essential nutrients are required to keep the metabolism functioning optimally, it’s best to focus not on how many calories you give your body but rather on the quality of the foods and the nutrients they offer. We suggest you count the chemicals you’re skipping rather than the calories you’re consuming when choosing organic food.
You can reduce your toxin load just by eating organic, but you can take it one step further and eat fresh organic produce to accelerate the detoxing benefits. That’s why we launched our fresh organic food challenge, which asks participants simply to add one piece of fresh organic produce to every meal. Bonus points if you buy the produce locally, from an organic farmer, but if that isn’t an option, look for a delivery service that offers affordable organic produce delivery. One of these companies can help:
Finally, consider retraining your tastebuds so you enjoy eating your fresh fruit and vegetables uncooked. The live enzymes we get in food die when it is cooked or processed, so conventional processed foods are often depleted of valuable nutrients (and packed instead with full of chemicals and sugar), so experts suggest making any meal on your spring detox at least 51% raw veggies.
When you choose fresh organic produce, look for the fruits and veggies that stimulate the cleansing process. We recommend incorporating these top 5 detoxing organic foods into your spring detox:
As with all recommendations from Only Organic, we strongly suggest running any dietary changes by your certified nutritionist, functional medicine practitioner, or dietician.