Ok, so maybe you’re not going to drop dead right here in front of me if you’re toxic at all, otherwise we’d all be goners.  But not handling toxins in the body over a long period of time leads to decreased immune function, organ malfunction, joint destruction, and a host of other sickness.  So what do we do?? Let’s talk about it….

You don’t have to build yourself a bubble world to live in to help protect yourself from all the toxins around you, there are some practical steps you can take to help reduce your toxic burden.

1. Drink more water!! Water is one of the body’s ways of flushing toxins out of your system.  The lymph nodes become congested and have a hard time carrying harmful products out of the body when you are dehydrated.  See my post on Water to see what types of water are the best and how to figure up how much water you really need in a day.

2. Stay away from fast food.  The fast food industry has made it a business creating toxic people.  In order to make a cheap, easily re-created, storable food product, they have to fill their food with preservatives and additives so that it can sit on a shelf for months before use and it is still ok.  Our bodies are not created to eat this garbage.  If you have to eat out, eat the least processed food you possibly can to help keep from overburdening your liver and kidneys with all the chemicals.  If you still don’t believe me and think that the fast food industry is just as healthy as your home-cooked meal, you need to pick up and read “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schloesser.  He is an investigative journalist that exposes the truth behind how the fast food industry creates and produces their food.  Disgusting is the word I would use for it.

3. Get rid of the carpet in your house. Carpet in your house is like a sponge and that sponge continually picks up anything you’ve stepped in all day long.  Then you come home and walk all over the carpet and then roll around on it with the kids and lay on it to watch TV.  GROSS!!! We took out all the carpet in our house and went to hardwood and we’ve been really happy we did.  If this isn’t an option for you, then buy a good quality air purifier to help reduce the amount of pollutants floating around in the air of your home and have the carpets routinely cleaned.

4. Learn to read a label. I will give most people the benefit of the doubt and say that many times the reason they eat some of the junk they do and feed this same junk to their kids is that they honestly don’t know the difference and don’t see anything wrong with it because they can’t understand the label to even see harmful ingredients.  This is no accident though.  Companies have been changing the names of certain chemical compounds on the label so that it is harder for average consumers to find them in the food they are eating.  Take Splenda for example.  Most of the time I’ll have patients come into the office with a drink like Fuze thinking it is really a healthy alternative to cokes and other drinks but upon investigation on the back of the bottle I show them there is Splenda in it.  Surprised they look again and say “No there isn’t! I don’t see Splenda on there anywhere.”  So I show them that in Fuze, they change “Splenda” to it’s chemical name “Sucralose” so that you don’t really even think anything about it.  Sucrose and Sucralose sound so close to each other, but one (sucrose) is normal everyday sugar, and sucralose is Splenda, a chlorinated sugar molecule.  MSG is another compound they frequently change the name on.  ”Artificial Flavors”, “Autolyzed Yeast Extract”, “Glutamic Acid”; the list of alternate names goes on and on.  Check out some of them here. The point is that you need to know what you’re eating to even try and prevent some of the toxins from getting into your family’s diet.

5. Buy Organic! It really is a much better option.  In my post, “Organic: Is it really worth the money??” I talk about the labels of organic foods and what they mean and why buying organic is absolutely worth the extra money.  Buying inorganic (regular) produce at the supermarket ensures that you and your family will consume many different types of pesticides and herbicides used by farmers.  Take coffee for example.  Did you know that coffee is one of the most sprayed crops that are harvested?? More chemicals go into coffee than almost any other crop.  Go to this site to see some of the many pesticides used on regular coffee.  So just changing this alone will help to reduce your toxic load dramatically.

6.  Buy an air filter.  Many people don’t realize that the air in their home is a major source of toxins and particles that you breathe in on a regular basis and never even know it.  So buying a good air filter is a good idea.  Another really good idea is getting your air-conditioning ducts inspected and cleaned a few times a year to prevent dirt and mold and other particle build-up from occurring in the very pipes that are transporting the air you will breathe.  There are many good air filters out there, I won’t go into them here, but really be careful with the filters using ozonation to reduce particulate in the air.  Many people have a hard time with it and it gives them pretty serious headaches so go easy on that.

7. Get a filter for your shower head. Many of our patients filter their drinking water or drink R.O. or some other highly filtered water already, but they forget that showering in tap water is essentially the same as drinking it.  Think about it, you’re standing in a really hot shower, opening up every pore in your body and running toxic water over your body!! Doesn’t really make sense to filter the water you drink and then shower in the exact same stuff.

8. Check the ingredients on your make-up. Did you know the FDA doesn’t regulate the production of cosmetics at all?!?  There are so many toxic chemicals and products in your cosmetics that it’s despicable.  I will cover this in another post to give you recommendations, but suffice to say, there are better options.

9.  Don’t drink commercial beer. Sounds funny I know, but if you’re going to drink beer (some guys/girls are going to do it regardless) pick a beer from Germany that is under the “beer law” there and is only made with 4 ingredients: 1. Barley, 2. Hops, 3. Yeast, 4. Water.  Many beer manufacturers add artificial sweeteners and other toxic elements to their beer to make it more addictive and more pleasing to the palate.  Stay away from these!!

10.  STOP Microwaving your food!! This is the worst thing you could do to your food.  It denatures all the enzymes and useful proteins and createschanges to the foods that are carcinogenic. Microwaves were outlawed in Russia years ago…scary huh?? One of the most nuclear countries on the planet outlawed them, but you and I can buy them at any store around!!  Go here for a great post on microwave ovens and the negative effects that have been proven to happen because of their use.

So there are 10 practical steps and tips you can use with your family to drastically reduce your toxic burden.  Now it is ridiculous to think you won’t get any toxins at all if you do all of these things because that’s just not realistic.  So one of the best things to do with your family several times a year is to go on a detoxification cleanse.  I will cover one that we use and like in a later post so keep checking the site!!

Dr. JB

Tags: detoxification, microwaves, organic, toxins, water