Today we cannot escape environmental toxins as they are increasingly in the air, water, soil and by extension, in the food we eat. Of course we can always grow some of our own food if we are lucky enough to have a backyard and use natural compost and fertilizers and I highly recommend this.

Probably the most toxic thing that is happening to our planet is coal gas seam mining and horizontal drilling which is literally flooding our underground water channels with thousands of toxic chemicals. This is a good reason to install a rain water tank. As the North American Indians said about the white man, “Only when the last fish is poisoned will man realize that he cannot eat money”.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution there is an estimated 83,000 chemicals that have accumulated in our environment. These chemicals vary from heavy metals (arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmium etc), pesticides, volatile organic compounds (eg. solvents, petrol, benzene etc) and plastics.

If you heat food in a microwave oven in plastic containers or wrap or drink water from plastic bottles you are ingesting more plastic. Some of these chemicals are called endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and they are a hot topic in environmental health research. They have been implicated in the rising incidence of cancer and unexplained infertility.

Researchers think that EDCs act to disrupt our endocrine (hormonal) system leading to disordered metabolism and obesity. Many of these EDCs are fat soluble and get stored in the fatty parts of our body such as fat tissue and hormone glands. If you have a fatty liver the toxic chemicals are stored in the liver and reduce your liver health.

Smoking cigarettes floods your body with hundreds of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals that increase the workload of your liver and immune system, so this is something we should all avoid. Consult your doctor for modern methods to quit smoking as they are very effective. Clinical hypnotherapy is a proven way to quit smoking. If you find it impossible to quit nicotine, the use of electronic cigarettes is much safer than smoking regular cigarettes.

So what can we do to reduce our body’s chemical load?

The liver is the only organ that can breakdown (metabolize) fat soluble toxins and turn them into water soluble forms. Once they are water soluble they can be eliminated via the watery fluids of the body such as the bile, sweat, saliva and urine. If your liver does not break them down they will stay in the fatty parts of your body, which is not a good situation for your immune system or your metabolism. Toxic chemical overload can lead to weight gain and this is why a 1 to 2 week detox can promote weight loss as well as better energy levels.

Dr Sandra Cabot’s 1 – 2 week liver detoxification program

Here are the principles of the program –

Drink 10 glasses of water daily – drink it throughout the day Start the day with a glass of water containing the juice of a freshly squeezed lemon or lime

Eat only the following during your 1 to 2 week detox –

Fruits and vegetables – the fruits and vegetables can be raw and cooked.  You may have any vegetable you want including starchy vegetables such as sweet potato, carrot, parsnips and turnips etc.  If you make a vegetable soup, you may use vegetable stock, Herbamare or miso to flavour it. To cook the vegetables, you may use the following methods – steam them, roast them or stir fry them with olive oil. You can spread the vegetables with a thin layer of olive oil or coconut oil before you roast them in the oven. Do not use a microwave oven to cook your vegetables or fruits, as this is irradiating your food and will damage the cell structures in the vegetables and fruits. You can stew the fruits in their own juice and water with a tiny amount of honey or stevia. Cinnamon sticks add a nice flavour to stewed fruits. If you can afford it, purchase organic fruits and vegetables.

Salad dressing ingredients – you may use cold pressed olive oil or macadamia oil, coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, mustard, fresh lemon or lime and fresh or dried herbs. Mix ingredients in a jar and shake or whisk with a fork or blend in a blender

Raw nuts and seeds – you can choose any seeds (pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, chia seeds, ground flaxseeds) and any raw nuts

Tahini and hummus are allowed and make a nice dip with avocado and lemon

Milks – only coconut or almond milk is allowed

Drink 8 ounces to 10 ounces (250 to 300mls) of raw juice daily – best ingredients to juice are parsley, basil, mint, carrot, cabbage, beet, green apple, lemon, orange and ginger. You can also add a cruciferous vegetable to the juice such as kale, broccoli, Brussels sprouts or cauliflower.

Take a powerful liver tonic such as Livatone Shots, containing the herb Milk Thistle, and the amino acid Taurine and Selenium to support the detoxification process in your liver. You may want to do this detox diet several times during a year to keep your total body toxin load at acceptable levels.