Detox Q & A: Is Cleansing Order Really Important?

Question: I've heard you have to do cleanses in a certain order or they don't work. Is this true?

Answer: I questioned this too when I first heard about it. It kind of sounded silly to worry about cleansing in a specific order. After all, if in the end we're cleansing all our organs of toxins, does it really matter which one we do first?

Well, the truth is that it does. Here's the order in which cleanses should generally be done:

1. Colon
2. Kidneys
3. Liver

The colon and kidneys need to be cleanses before attempting other cleanses because these systems are the ones that remove toxic waste from the body. So, you don't really want to release a flood of toxins into a system that's not capable of properly discarding them. By improving the health of your colon and kidneys, you're getting the body in shape for not only removing toxins through cleansing, but also tackling the daily toxin load as well.

How do you cleanse these organs?

There's not enough room in this post for thoroughly discussing all of the cleanses above, but I can give a brief overview plus point you to some great resources.

1. Colon Cleansing

You don't have to take harsh laxatives and spend hours on the commode to do this. The main point is to get the digestive system rolling and functioning efficiently. A sluggish bowel allows toxins to sit around and wreak havoc. For many people, eating a clean, real food diet that includes probiotic foods may be enough to keep thing running smoothly down there. Others may need some supplemental help like digestive bitters (read my post about those here), probiotic supplements like Bio-kult or magnesium citrate powder to restore gut health and regularity. Enemas or colonics might be highly beneficial if your bowel's in pretty bad shape.

2. Kidney Cleansing

Eating a clean diet should also help with this one a lot, but you can also supplement with herbs to cleanse the kidneys and help dissolve away stones. Beneficial herbs for kidney health include:

- Hydrangea Root
- Marshmallow Root
- Uva Ursi
- Horsetail
- Parsley
- Ginger Root

I've also heard that eating a monofood diet of watermelons for several days can help flush out kidney stones. I can't vouch for this personally, but there's some interesting anecdotal accounts out there about doing a cleansing watermelon diet. Heck, I love watermelon so I might have to try this myself for fun!

The Liver and Gallbladder Miracle Cleanse: An All-Natural, At-Home Flush to Purify and Rejuvenate Your Body3. Liver Cleansing

Raine Saunders from The Agriculture Society blog did a great post about this here. Her post is really thorough and I highly recommend checking it out if you want to know more about this. The liver/gallbladder flush typically results in the elimination of numerous gallstones through the bowels (see why you need good colon health, first?). This helps the liver function far more effectively.

Of course, no one should be considering doing cleanses if they aren't committed to living a healthy lifestyle in the first place. You can do all the cleanses you want, but if you're constantly exposing yourself to a boatload of toxins the benefits are going to be minimal. So make some healthy lifestyle changes in addition to cleansing and you've got a winning formula.

The book I'm reading this month really covers these cleanses in great detail (plus many other ways to detox). I've gotten a ton a ideas from this book that I feel are going to be easy to implement in my life--which is great, because if you can't stick with it, what's the point? If you're interested in learning more about detoxification I think this is a good resource to have around: The Detox Book by Bruce Fife, N.D.

This post is part of Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade!

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