If you’ve been feeling sluggish and experiencing aches, been having skin or digestive issues, then it may be time to get a detox. Here are some foods that remove toxins. They are easy to add to your diet to help with the detox process.
1. Artichokes
Artichokes contain prebiotic inulin. As a prebiotic, Inulin helps promote the growth of healthy bacteria in the gut. Found in other foods like jicama, chicory, and onions, it helps with digestive health.
Inulin also contributes to decreasing the levels of ghrelin which is a hormone that promotes hunger. This helps keep us from having cravings that ultimately lead to looking for more food.
Adding artichokes to your diet also helps build overall health as it assists the body absorbs nutrients from food including minerals like iron, magnesium, and calcium.
2. Beets
Beets contain a pigment called betalain. This is what gives beets their distinct red color.
It is also what turns urine and stool red. So if you eat beets don’t be alarmed when this happens.
Betalin has been found to have a detoxifying effect. It hooks onto toxins whereby it neutralizes their negative effects on the body and turns them into water-soluble substances making it easy to excrete them through urine.
Plus, beets are loaded with vitamins and minerals. They contain high amounts of vitamin C, with one cup making up 8% of our daily needs. They are also excellent sources of folate, potassium, copper, manganese, and fiber, where 1 cup is enough to give us over 10% of our daily RDA.
3. Cranberries
Better known for their ability to help prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs), and their anti-cancer fighting abilities, cranberries also offer detoxifying qualities.
Cranberries are a rich source of vitamin C. One cup of whole cranberries gives us 22% of our daily allowance. Vitamin C increases the production of an antioxidant called glutathione.
The vitamin C in cranberries also provides a protective quality. Together with the antioxidants, they protect our body’s cleansing organs, the kidney, and liver from free radicals.
4. Flaxseed
Loaded with fiber, this is low sodium, low cholesterol food that’s easily added to make any diet healthier. The seeds contain high amounts of plant-based omega-3 fats that have been shown to be beneficial for fighting cancer and lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Flaxseeds actually contain more antioxidants compared to polyphenol-rich fruits and vegetables like blueberries and olives.
The fiber content in flaxseed helps maintain a healthier digestive tract as well as allows our body to absorb more nutrients from food. This same component stimulate enzymes responsible for detoxifying the body to help remove toxins from the body
5. Grapefruit
Grapefruit is one of those fruits the offers numerous health benefits. This tangy-tasting fruit has been shown to promote weight loss, help fend off the risk of diabetes, aid in fighting cancer, and lower cholesterol levels.
The fruit also contains lycopene, which is where it gets its red and pink color. This phytonutrient plays a big role in fighting free radicals so they don’t damage our cells. They are most well known for being present in tomatoes which also get their cancer-fighting abilities from lycopene.
Grapefruits also contain fiber which slows down digestion and helps keep us full for longer periods of time. This aids in weight loss as it keeps you from craving food and being hungry all the time.
Finally, grapefruit contains 52% of our daily vitamin C needs. This aids in boosting immune health as well as the stages of liver detoxification.
6. Kale
Kale contains compounds that play a role in both stages of detoxification. These compounds help in separating the toxins that can cause our body harm in order to get rid of them.
Kale also contains sulfur compounds. The sulfur helps in the 2nd stage of detoxification by carrying the converted toxin compounds out of the body.
If not just for its detoxifying abilities, adding kale to your diet also offers a lot of health benefits as it is very rich in vitamin K, A, C, B6, and E. It also has good amounts of omega-3 fats, iron, magnesium, copper, calcium, and manganese.
7. Lemons
Similar to other citrus fruits like oranges, lemons are high in their vitamin C content. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture database, one lemon contains 74% of our vitamin C daily requirements.
This makes it a potent contributor to liver detoxification as it stimulates the body to boost its glutathione production. The glutathione helps the liver separate toxins from nutrients and assist in carrying them out of our systems as waste.
The great thing about lemon is it is very easy to add to our diets. You can squeeze a lemon over fish or during cooking to add flavor to your meals. Or, you can also have them straight with water in the mornings. Adding a slice of lemon to water offers considerable health benefits.
8. Yogurt
Having a healthy digestive system allows us to be toxin-free and the probiotics contained in yogurt help us with that.
Probiotics are live cultures that stay in our digestive tract to balance out the harmful bacteria that can cause intestinal illnesses. These good bacteria help also boost our immune system so we don’t get sick as much and if we do lessens the sickness’ severity and duration.
Aside from helping keep our gut healthy, a cup of yogurt is also a great way to get extra protein in our bodies. These refreshing snacks offer 17 grams of protein in each 170-gram container. They also offer 18% of our daily calcium RDA and 21% of our vitamin B12 needs.