What Is Detoxification ("Detox")?
After a period of time, the body builds up toxins and natural waste products from chemicals, pollution and indulging in foods that are harder for the body to handle. A process of cleansing the internal system, or "detoxifying," helps rid the body of harmful chemicals that may be contributing to fatigue, illness, pain, and poor digestion. When you remove toxin-laden foods from your diet, the body's resources are freed up to remove toxins that have been building up in the body, often for many years. During detoxification, the body eliminates these built-up toxins the same way it always does, through your eliminative organs: the skin, bowel, urinary tract, etc.
Shifting to a vegan and/or Raw diet therefore is often initially accompanied by cold or allergy-like symptoms, particularly the production of phlegm. This is temporary and also can be quite a satisfying experience once you realize that the mucus your body is expelling is literally garbage that you've been carrying around in your tissue for a long time. And once it's out, it's out, leaving your detoxified body in a much healthier, cleaner, efficient state.
Fasting, in its various forms (no food, water-only, fruit-juice-only, green-juice-only, etc.) often produces the most dramatic detoxification effects, as the body is finally able to cleanse its digestive tract from years of toxin and mucous build-up. The effects range from bad breath, to a pasty, white coating of the tongue, to scary-looking things in your bowel movement. Nasty, to be sure, but that's precisely why we want to get this gunk out of our systems. When the detox symptoms disappear, it means the body is clean.
Back: Raw Food FAQ
The above is one of the more frequently asked questions that come up when I give classes and talks about Raw food. For a very comprehensive introduction to Raw Food lifestyle and expert tips and advice on making it work for you, see my ebook:
Kristen's Raw: The EASY Way to Get Started & SUCCEED with Raw Food