Best Fruits for cleansing diet are apple and lemon. They help flush out the toxins in your body by improving digestion and preventing constipation. Fruits are used by almost everyone for cleansing. It is a common fact that fruits have the ability to detoxify and cleanse the body as they are milder than most foods that a person can take. In addition to providing the essential elements, fruits can also cleanse your stomach and intestines of harmful bacteria and germs. So, let us have a look at some of the best fruits for cleansing diet.
The Best Fruits & Vegetables for Cleansing
Fruit and vegetables tend to be high in fiber, vitamins and minerals — which means they can provide a sense of satiety while you take a break from eating your regular diet. If you tend to overeat or have a diet high in processed foods, a periodic switch to eating a selection of natural foods can help your digestive system return to optimal function and reduce your risk of nutritional illness.
Switch and Ditch
Liquid cleanses may have the celebrity “stamp of approval,” but most health experts are resolutely against them. Relying solely on juice or liquid will deprive your body of essential calories, protein and fats. While this can result in short-term weight loss, you’re doing your body more harm than good: You will get a better long-term result from switching to eating natural whole foods, or eliminating particular foods from your diet. You will also be more likely to make sustainable lifestyle changes from this type of change — you won’t feel as deprived or bored as you would with a juice cleanse, so the healthy changes are more likely to stick.
Cleansing Vegetables
There are a lot of vegetables that are beneficial for cleansing your digestive system. The most effective are the members of the cruciferous family — big, leafy greens. These include broccoli, spinach, kale, chard, bok choi, Brussel sprouts, cauliflower, horseradish, collards and watercress. These vegetables are all high in fiber, have high antioxidant properties, and plenty of essential vitamins and minerals. Other fibrous vegetables to include when cleansing are beets, onion, artichokes and asparagus.
Cleansing Fruits
Very brightly colored fruits tend to have high amounts of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. Try to include a wide variety when you are doing a cleanse, so that you get the full range of benefits. Tomatoes, watermelon, guava and oranges are full of beneficial lycopene and vitamin C. Berries — particularly blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and mulberries — are high in fiber and antioxidants, while bananas, apples, pears and avocados are high in fiber and micronutrients, and will help you feel full.
Cleanse With These 7 Healing Foods
Many people who live in a modern, urban setting could benefit from a cleanse, and the easiest way to detoxify is by eating a variety of healthy foods. Detoxing is said to offer incredible benefits including increased energy, younger looking skin, and better digestion, according to activebeat.
Toxins are everywhere, from the chemical additives and preservatives in processed food to pesticides, antibiotics, and heavy metals found in the water and air, according to the Food Revolution Network. Thankfully,your body was designed with a natural filtration system and eating healthy, detox foods will aid in eliminating toxins.
The liver, kidneys, gastrointestinal and lymphatic systems, plus the lungs, and skin all work hard to cleanse your body, but sometimes they need extra help. You can start assisting your body by watching what you put on your plate.
Here are seven power foods that were designed to aid in detoxification. They are all readily available in the market and are easy to incorporate into your daily diet. If you try to eat them each day, your body will thank you!
Zesty Lemons
Start your day by squeezing fresh lemon juice into water. Lemons may help flush out bad toxins, according to activebeat. Filled with vitamin C, they may help improve immunity and keep disease-forming free radicals at bay.
In fact, many cleansing diets recommend starting the day with lemon water, according to liversupport. Lemons release enzymes that help to convert toxins into a watery form for easier excretion and they help to thin and decongest bile, allowing your liver to work more efficiently.
Very Berry
Now that you have enjoyed your fresh lemon water, enjoy a breakfast of fresh berries. Any berry will do, be it blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, cherries, or cranberries, according to activebeat. They are all high in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. Berries assist in improving digestion, including regulating bowel movements, and they help make hair and skin brighter.
A study in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism suggested that eating blueberries daily resulted in an increase in natural killer cell counts and anti-inflammatory cytokines, as well as a reduction in oxidative stress. This is great detox news.
Sprinkle Some Flax
Top your berries with some freshly ground flaxseeds. According to activebeat, these fiber-rich seeds may attach to toxins and help to flush them out. They also coat the sides of the intestine with healthy omega-3 fatty oils.
Sprinkle flax on your overnight oats or yogurt. Or add a teaspoon to your berry smoothie, sip, and cleanse!
Steamed Artichokes Cleanse Fat
Here is a healthy option for a cleansing side dish. After the holidays, your body may still be trying to recover from too many high-fat meals. If so, simply steam some globe artichokes. The leaves of artichokes help your body in digesting fat, according to activebeat. Artichokes are also a great source of fiber and antioxidants which could help activate liver function.
Everything Green
Add greens to your smoothie, and make sure you also eat them at lunch and dinner. Cruciferous veggies such as bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower, cress, and cabbage are powerful cleansers, according to Food Revolution Network. Broccoli may help to protect against the toxins from air pollution, while broccoli sprouts contain enzymes that could fend off chemicals which cause cancer.
In fact, a study in Evidence Based Complementary Alternative Medicine shows that green leaves can help improve liver health.
Go for Garlic
Garlic has been used as a natural detox for thousands of years, according to Food.News. As opposed to flushing out toxins, garlic helps produce the antioxidant glutathione, which is needed for detoxification.
Glutathione may help to remove environmental toxins and heavy metals from your body. It also could offer your liver protection from oxidative stress that is caused by free radicals. The mineral selenium, also found in garlic, further helps to protect your liver from toxins.
Remember that as you age, your ability to make glutathione decreases, so be sure to eat garlic. In order to release the compounds, it is best to crush it or chop it, then eat it raw!
An Apple a Day
When you feel like a snack, choose an organic apple. Apples are filled with fiber, phytochemicals and a special flavonoid called Phlorizidin or phlorizin, according to liversupport. This flavonoid stimulates bile which then helps to eliminate toxins. In addition, the pectin in apples may also cleanse your blood from metals and food additives.
Raw Fruit Detox (7-Day Fruit Cleansing)
In an effort to become the craziest vegan blogger around, I am embarking on a 7-Day Raw Fruit cleansing detox. Well… that’s only partially true. I am actually looking to cleanse my body like I never have before, ridding it of all toxins and any other harmful substances. Of course, I’m not the first person to try a fruit diet for a few days. Believe it or not, there are people who eat all fruit, all the time; we call them fruitarians.
For centuries, various cultures have experimented with the process of detoxifying the body with an entirely fruit-based diet, often referring to the process as a fruit fast. Individuals who have completed such fasting claim to have increased energy, weight loss, and better health overall. Some even believe that they have reduced their risk of certain diseases.
But how bad could my body be? I eat nothing but whole plant-based foods. I exercise a minimum of three hours a week. I don’t need to lose weight or increase my energy. Believe it or not, toxins are all around us. They make their way into our drinking water and the air we breathe.
And if you aren’t buying organic foods, you may have residue from pesticides built up within your body. The antioxidants, phytonutrients, enzymes, and fiber from fresh organic fruit help to drive out these impurities, stopping the formation of free radical cells. So you see, even I, could use a fruit detox every once in a while.
I came up with some rules that I knew I could follow and would be beneficial to this process. If this were going to be a healing process, I would have to take it seriously and lay down some ground rules.
Fruit Detox Rules:
1. No Coffee (not even decaf)
2. No Veggies (just fruit)
3. No added sugar to anything
4. No cooking (keep it raw)
5. I will eat at least one meal a day of whole fruit (the other two can be smoothies or juices)
6. I will track every piece of fruit I eat over the next week, accounting for my nutritional intake. I will also weigh myself each morning.
I will add to this list if I find it necessary during my raw fruit cleansing journey, but I think that this is a good start. With that said, it’s day one and time for me to get blending. I’m actually really excited to be doing this. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to see (and feel) my body going through such a therapeutic change. I look forward to sharing my experience with all of you. I hope that you will check back each day to see my progress. And if you like fruit recipes, you can expect many of them in the upcoming days.
As I mentioned above, I’ll be tracking every piece of fruit that goes into my mouth. Not only do I want to track the nutritional content of everything I’ve eaten, but also how much it cost. We’ll see just how expensive it is to eat a diet rich in exotic fruits. Stay tuned, this should make for a fun and interesting week!
I must give a shout-out to Emily from ThisRawsomeVeganLife for inspiring me to give this cleansing a try. She recently went on a 10 day juice fast and enjoyed every bit of it. I figure if it’s good for her (a healthy raw vegan), it’s gotta be good for me. If you haven’t met Emily, you should drop by her blog today. She will show you how fun, healthy, and rejuvenating a vegan diet can be, naturally cleansing the body from the inside out by eating raw plant-based foods (many of them deserts). Not to mention, her photography is absolutely stunning!
The Fruit Flush Diet
With this detox diet, you’ll only eat fruits and vegetables and drink lots of water for three days. You’ll lose weight, but the diet’s bad points seem to outweigh its one good one.
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The Fruit Flush diet is a three-day detox diet designed by nutritionist Jay Robb to cleanse your system and help you lose weight. This detox diet plan claims to help you lose up to nine pounds in just three days, conquer food addiction, and jump-start your diet and exercise program.
The Fruit Flush Diet: Basics
The Fruit Flush diet is a severe three-day detox session during which you will:
- Drink at least 12 glasses of bottled or filtered water each day
- Avoid non-water beverages, including coffee and tea
- Eat any type of fresh fruits (no frozen, dried, or canned fruits), preferably organic
- Have salad in the evening — all non-starchy, preferably organic, vegetables
- Avoid exercising
- Consume supplemental protein drinks
The Fruit Flush Diet: Pros
The main strength of the Fruit Flush diet is that it encourages you to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, which are an essential part of a healthful diet.
“Fruit is one of the healthiest foods in the world,” says dietitian Katherine Tallmadge, RD, national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association and author of Diet Simple: 192 Mental Tricks, Substitutions, Habits and Inspirations. “The more fruits and vegetables people eat, the healthier they are, and usually the thinner they are,” she says.
The Fruit Flush Diet: Cons
Tallmadge adds, however, that there is no science to back up doing a detox diet like the Fruit Flush diet and that, rather than doing a one-time detox diet, people should permanently increase the amount of fiber in their diets.
“Having a diet that is high in fiber-rich foods keeps you regular to eliminate potential toxins more quickly and regularly,” Tallmadge says, adding that if you eat a healthful diet rich in fiber, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, “you will be able to detoxify your system 100 percent of the time.”
“Your liver and your body naturally [detoxify you], and there is no evidence that shows that ‘detoxing’ detoxifies you,” agrees fellow dietitian Elisa Zied, MS, RD, CDN, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association and author of Nutrition at Your Fingertips.
Other pitfalls of the Fruit Flush diet include:
- Nutrient deficiencies. Zied does like the fact that the Fruit Flush diet incorporates some protein, which many detox diets fail to do, but she says that the restrictions make it difficult for you to get all of the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients you body needs. “This whole plan is not about what you can eat and what you should eat, but what you can’t,” Zied says. “Where is the calcium? Where is the vitamin D? Where are the omega-3 fats? Where are the B vitamins?”
- Too few calories. According to Zied, you can count on feeling zapped of energy while you are on the diet. “If you don’t eat well, you’re not going to feel well,” Zied says.
- Temporary weight loss. Zied says that most of the weight you lose while doing the Fruit Flush diet is water weight, along with some lean muscle tissue and some body fat. “[The Fruit Flush diet] is a temporary solution. You can’t really eat and live this way,” Zied says, adding that you should always be wary of a diet plan that promises such a steep weight loss in just three days.
4 Detox Food Swaps to Make During Pregnancy
Read up on ways to protect your baby and yourself from harmful, over-processed foods and make your prenatal diet as safe and natural as possible.
Even if you typically eat a fairly healthful diet, pregnancy requires some adjustments. You need extra nutrients to keep up with the demands of your changing body and growing baby, and you should avoid certain foods altogether. This doesn’t mean you must follow a stringent regimen — or deny yourself — but it does mean giving a little extra thought to your food choices.
By this, we mean eating foods that are minimally processed and contain few or no additives, preservatives, pesticides, hormones or other chemicals.
“When you eat unadulterated foods, you’re getting 100 percent of the food’s nutrition — nothing has been taken out and nothing is put in,” says Dawn Jackson Blatner, R.D., L.D., a national media spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association in Chicago.
These six guidelines, adapted from The Whole Pregnancy Handbook by Joel M. Evans, M.D., and Robin Aronson, will help you clean up your eating habits.
1. Choose brown rice and whole-grain pastas and breads instead of white.
When a whole grain is processed, it’s stripped of fiber and precious phytochemicals that boost immunity and help prevent disease. Whole grains are the good carbs, especially for pregnant women. The fiber they provide sustains your energy longer than refined grains do and helps prevent constipation, a common problem during pregnancy.
2. Opt for organic fruit and vegetables when you can.
“Organic produce is often more expensive,” admits Ted Schettler, M.D., M.P.H., science director of the Science and Environmental Health Network and co-author of In Harm’s Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development (Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, 2000). “On the other hand, several studies show that if you eat organics, you have lower levels of pesticides in your blood.”
Because of a unique developmental window of vulnerability, fetal and childhood exposure to many chemical contaminants is more dangerous than exposure later in life, Schettler says. “Avoiding neurotoxic pesticides is obviously a good thing for a growing brain, whether it’s a fetus or a child,” he adds. If you can’t find or afford organic foods, make sure you wash your produce well.
Equally essential is filling your grocery cart with produce in every color of the rainbow. Fruit and vegetables contain important nutrients for proper fetal development, such as calcium, fiber and iron, to name a few; each color offers different nutrients and protective properties. The deeper the color, the more nutrients you get.
For example, sweet potatoes and yellow peaches provide more carotenoids–a class of phytochemical that’s vital for fetal development–than white peaches or potatoes. Deep green romaine lettuce has more vitamin C and folate (which protects against neural-tube defects such as spina bifida) than iceberg lettuce, its paler cousin.
3. Limit foods that are high in salt.
Salt intake and water retention go hand-in-hand, especially when you’re pregnant. For some women, high sodium intake may lead to potential pregnancy complications, such as high blood pressure.
High-salt foods are, by and large, those that are highly processed: canned soups, frozen dinners and boxed grain dishes. Processed foods are generally higher in the ingredients you don’t want more of — fat, sugar, salt and calories — and lower in important nutrients and vitamins.
4. Avoid foods made with chemical additives.
Although most chemical food additives (such as artificial colors, flavors and refined sugars) are believed to be safe for a developing fetus, why take the chance? Foods made with chemicals are typically not your most nutritious or wholesome choices.
Artificial sweeteners, for instance, are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but some nutrition experts advise pregnant women to stay away from them. They believe not only are chemical additives unsafe for the fetus once they cross the placenta, but they also can cause stomach problems, migraines and insomnia in adults (pregnant or not).
Basic rule of thumb: The more unpronounceable additives you find in a food’s ingredient list, the less nutritious it is — for both of you.