Simply incorporating a good apple—that is to say, 100 percent organic, nonirradiated, etc.—into your daily diet should constitute an extremely pleasurable experience.

Given what we are exposed to through food, air, and water, detoxification has become a modern-day necessity. Without the daily activation of ancient, effective physiological pathways designed to remove naturally occurring environmental toxins or manmade chemical toxicants, we are bound to get sick.

So what are some simple, effective ways to rid our body of its daily toxic burden?

1) Pop a Probiotic

Of course, you don’t have to “pop a pill” to get a probiotic. In fact, it is preferred you ingest either a probotically cultured food (e.g. kombucha, yogurt [preferably plant-based], cultured veggies, etc.) or eat more raw fruits and vegetables grown in truly healthy soil, as the Earth’s microbiome is where “good bacteria” come from.

How will getting probiotics help? Fascinating research indicates that probiotics actually help us break down foods (e.g. gluten, casein) and chemicals (pesticides, Bisphenol A [BPA]) which can harm our bodies and which our own detoxification pathways do not handle effectively. It’s kind of a wonder that germs can help save us from ourselves in this way!

2) Break a Sweat

Sadly, sweating has become synonymous with something gross that should be blocked with antiperspirants/deodorants—which ironically only further exacerbates the problem of body odor, as these keep one of your primary channels of detoxification from doing its job.

The reality is that we are meant to move our bodies, the result of which is the release of profoundly uplifting and regenerative hormonal and neurochemical secretions. And this is just the obvious “reward” we receive by pushing ourselves through the discomfort of sustained, intense bodily exertion to the point where we are profusely sweating.

Deeper benefits include the activation of the lymphatic system, which, while it is a part of the circulatory system, lacks a pump (like the heart) to push the lymphatic fluid through. This means the lymphatic system requires the activation of our entire skeletal musculature via exercise.

While one does not necessarily need to break a sweat to move the lymph (walking will suffice), you can “free two birds with one hand” by eliminating various heavy metals and chemicals via profuse sweating if you bring your physical activity toward that threshold, which incidentally overlaps with that sweet spot that activates feel-good secretions.

3) Don’t Break the Fast

In wealthier countries, where we suffer from the Orwellian paradox of being incredibly overnourished and simultaneously dying of nutritional deficiencies, one of the best ways to optimize your detoxification systems is to stop eating before sundown (which, I believe, is hard-wired into our bodily design) and skip your breakfast entirely. In other words, skip breakfast and continue through your day until you are truly hungry (not craving nutritionally dead gunk, or confusing the putrefaction-associated acidity of last night’s poorly digested or poorly food-combined dinner with an actual need to eat more), wherein you’re eating something wholesome, organic, and preferably living to get your fill.

If you eliminate and/or minimize the consumption of nutritionally vapid foods such as processed grain products and beans (soybean, peanut, and other “vegetable oils”) and have a salad, eat an apple, or consume some organic nuts, etc., then focus on eating one really good meal later in the day, you will be surprised by how little you will be hungry. Much of that craving is a byproduct of chronically elevated insulin, which is largely caused by overconsumption of processed, grain-based foods, and/or simple carbohydrates way beyond what you need to replenish your glycogen stores.

This doesn’t have to be painful. If you wake in the morning, have your cup of coffee or tea (if you imbibe), and feel that hunger and low energy driving you toward French toast, or whatever you would normally eat, try taking a couple of tablespoons of coconut oil. This will provide you (and your grumpy morning brain) with a near-immediate source of fuel. Sixty-six percent of coconut oil is medium-chain triglycerides that your body can use for energy very quickly, and that your liver breaks down into ketone bodies for your brain. Ketone bodies are the brain’s only other source of energy beyond glucose.

Of course, this is not going to work for everyone, but it certainly may fit better into a busy lifestyle than the “heroic fast” concept of just not eating anything at all—which has its place, especially for the very sick under professional guidance, or those on a spiritual mission. Heroic fasting does not suit those with kids, several jobs, and who just want a way to jumpstart the internal house-cleansing, metabolism-boosting process.

4) Spice Up Your Life! 

Basic culinary spices can work wonders to stimulate bodily detoxification. A recent study, which we highlighted in the article, “Garlic Beats Drug in Safely Detoxifying Lead from the Body,” illustrates how you can use your food as medicine. If you LOVE garlic, great. You are already a step ahead of those who only tolerate it. In the former case, you might want to ratchet up your romance a bit. In the latter case, don’t ignore its potential application in foods you are already enjoying. The point is that we have plenty of help all around us, in our kitchen cupboards, on our spice racks, etc. And do you know what’s cool? There is a huge list of spices, foods, and nutrients—over 75, last time we counted—that we have indexed on GreenMedInfo.com that can stimulate detoxification pathways in the body.

5) An Apple a Day Isn’t Going Away

One of the most amazing nutritional stories of our time is what happened to tens of thousands of so-called “Chernobyl Children” after the meltdown of that reactor. In our article, “Why Apple Is One of the World’s Most Healing Superfoods,” we discuss the radioisotope-detoxifying properties of this incredible healing agent:

“Post-Chernobyl, for instance, apple pectin was used to reduce Cesium-137 levels in exposed children, in some cases by over 60 percent.[x] From 1996 to 2007, a total of more than 160,000 “Chernobyl” children received pectin food additives. As a result, levels of Cs-137 in children’s organs decreased after each course of pectin additives by an average of 30–40 percent.[xi] Significant reductions were noted in as short a time period as 16 days.[xii] Apple pectin has even been found to prevent the most deadly, and entirely manmade radioisotope, Plutonium-239, from absorbing in the gastrointestinal tract of animals fed it.[xiii]“

The great thing about an apple, of course, is that it’s a whole food. Rather than take mega-doses of apple pectin (assuming you don’t live in Fukushima or were exposed to its fallout in some way; otherwise, please do!), simply incorporating a good apple—that is to say, 100 percent organic, nonirradiated, etc.—into your daily diet should constitute a pleasurable experience (especially if you incorporate this healthy snack as the “break” in our no break-the-fast strategy). We can be nourished, pleasured, and detoxified all in one act; and this is indeed the way nature designed things, in its inexhaustible wisdom.

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, please avoid getting poisoned in the first place. Easier said than done, I understand. But here are some important things to remember to make sure you aren’t unintentionally throwing yourself on a chemical grenade every day.

Unless you need your receipts, don’t take them.

Next to canned food (with that darn alphabet soup of bisphenols in its can liners—yeah, it’s not just BPA, but BPS and others the industry is now using), receipts are the primary route of exposure to this profoundly damaging class of gender-bending, heart-damaging, brain-damaging petrochemicals. Avoid touching thermal printer receipts—especially if you use lotion, which only accelerates the skin’s absorbance of these chemicals.

Stop slathering petrochemicals on your body.

If you are putting it on your skin, it’s likely worse than eating it. How’s that? Unlike what you put into your mouth, where your liver determines whether it will be allowed into your bloodstream, your skin has no such guardian to keep poisons out. If something you are using as a body care product has an ingredient that requires a degree in chemistry to understand, ditch it (that is, recycle it), or don’t buy it. If you can’t eat an ingredient, don’t put it on your body. Even better, try using coconut oil or related food-cosmetic medicines, with thousands of years of prior use backing up their effectiveness and safety.

Don’t drink the water.

If you get your water through a municipal system, and it hasn’t been effectively purified (ideally, distilled with minerals reintroduced), you shouldn’t drink it. Also keep in mind that you can get pristine water from Iceland or Fiji (or wherever marketers like to take our imagination), but if it’s been sitting in plastic for a year, it’s not as good as it would seem due to the widespread contamination of plastic bottles with microplastics. The problem with municipal drinking water isn’t just the fluoride residues, but with the 600-plus disinfectant byproducts it carries, all of which are known to be toxic to the body, damage DNA, and probably contribute to cancer. It still boggles my imagination that anyone would willfully expose themselves to this, even in its secondary iteration as cooking water, i.e. using it to make pasta. Water composes the majority of our bodies. Learn to savor “biological water,”—that is, water that comes from pure food, e.g. watermelon. This water is “structured” by the universe itself, and is unparalleled in what it can do for your body.

So we’ve covered some problems and solutions; certainly, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Just take it all with a grain of sea salt, and take what works for you and leave the rest.