Our last Power of Plants Series talked about detoxifying herbs that will help you restore your body from a sluggish, toxic state. You can read that here. In this post, we're sharing our best tips for eating on a cleanse including our favourite detoxifying smoothie recipe with matcha. You can fit these changes easily into your lifestyle and they aren't disruptive to your normal routine.
Go Green!
Make mindful changes to your eating and drinking habits:
The colour that corresponds with Spring is Green. We see this in western medicine as well as eastern medicine. Green algaes and vegetables are exceptional at stimulating the liver as well as the bowel. Why is that important? For optimal cleansing, the liver needs to be stimulated to release toxins to the bowel.
Keep in mind that if the bowel is unable to eliminate the waste daily, the toxin removed from the liver is reabsorbed instead of eliminated. For example, the bowel needs 4 litres of water to function properly. If other organs are in need of water, the body will re-absorb water from the bowel, thereby re-absorbing toxins that the liver has tried to eliminate. Are you drinking enough water?
Some helpful tips:
- Aim for at least 4 litres of water a day. If that sounds like a lot and you’re not a big water fan, try cold brewing herbal tea. Every cup of herbal tea counts as a cup of water! Try mint or lemon based herbal teas and fruit teas.
- Here’s how: Grab a big mason jar or jug. Add 1.5 – 2 teaspoons of tea for every 1 cup of room temperature filtered water. Put it in the fridge for atleast 4 hours to “cold-steep”. Strain off the tea and serve. Try to get in the habit of doing this before bed and you’ll have a jug of iced to for the next 1-3 days.
- Replace coffee with matcha for a stable energy source with a ton of health benefits.
- Eliminate sugar, dairy and gluten. These are the 3 major things that most practitioners will advise their patients to eliminate when experiencing digestive issues.
- Try to limit meat to one meal a day to increase the use of more vegetables and meat-free protein options. Find tips for eating meat-free here.
- Eat more veggies! We talk about why here - gotta get those phytonutrients.
- Whilst increasing the volume of vegetables in the diet, a common complaint is the raw fibre of the vegetables can be irritating to one’s digestive system. Cooking the vegetables by blanching, steaming or roasting allows for the body to digest with more ease. Try to keep the ratio of cooked:raw at 70:30 when starting out, increasing that ratio slowly each week. For people who have a problem with low energy and digestive complaints, the recommended ratio is 60:40 (cooked: raw)
- The liver and gall bladder control tendons and sinew in the body. If you are constantly feeling tight and sore, your body is talking to you! Stretch, walk, jog… whatever it is, move the body at least 3-4x a week.
Detox Smoothie Recipe
We are in love with this smoothie for it’s amazing cleansing properties.
Detox Smoothie Recipe With Matcha
1/8 of papaya skinned/ with seeds
Juice of ½ a lemon
1 tsp coconut manna
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp Activate Matcha
1 – 2 tsp greens powder (optional if using Activate Matcha)
1 cup filtered water or coconut water (or you can use the cold-brew tea you made!)
Handful of a combination of spinach/parsley/cilantro/lettuce
1/2 apple
1/4 avocado
Blend it up!
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Big thanks to Vivien Hsiung (R.Ac) for co-authoring this blog post with us. Vivien is a Registered Acupuncturist and lent us her knowledge in Chinese Medicine to create not just this blog post, but the Renew Cleasing Kit as well.
