The better you eat, the better you will feel

So today, actually 2-days ago now, Vani Hari (Orac's take on Hamblin's screed) re-highlighted this article/recipe for what she calls a "detox" salad based on the ingredient cilantro and the added fiber of lentils. (Eat a bowl of lentils, sprouted or even curried and see what happens.)   I'm not going to get into the alleged science of cilantro, sadly it is above my pay grade, but the notion of "detoxing" the Food Babe way is pure bunkem; well, any form of "detoxing" is.  (This is the primary study that is used to support this notion of "detox" but yet I can find no other studies that show that cilantro can cause heavy metals to be excreted as her claim.)

Like any food recommendation (eg. the alkaline diet), there is nothing with this salad, or in general, Hari's over-all diet recommendation(s) that is dangerous per se unless you go to extremes.  There is nothing wrong with wanting to eat well or do away with certain foods one deems bad. But it becomes serious when one becomes so rigid with their food they jeopardize their financial well-being, health, and relationships with other people.

That is what Hari preaches, superior health by restricting entire food groups without a medical reason or even a valid scientific explanation.  Hell, Hari can't even offer a valid reason as she has no training or related experience in any scientific field.  Hari, I think, is a symptom of a larger problem, it just seems like nothing is ever "pure" enough.  And this moralizing of food has deep roots, starting with a bite from that fruit in Eden. Through that simple act, we think of foods as “good” or “bad,” “sinful” or “natural.”

1]  "Detox", as used by Hari and others of her ilk, is a marketing term (see also). A cleansing and purification ritual minus some of the religious bullshit.  Think MMS, remember Jim Humble of G2C fame is a former Scientologist, instead of purging Thetans, he is purging unwanted "toxins".  The same holds true for "detox" products.  As SBP notes, "So use the word 'toxin', not sin, and call the ritual a 'detox' – and suddenly you’ve given your treatment a veneer of what sounds scientific."  [As suggested to me, Alan Levinovitz in his book The Gluten Lie: And Other Myths About What You Eat, "argues that many claims about the right way to eat are more religious in nature than scientific, even if the language used to promote a particular claim has evolved."]

To an author like Levinovitz, who has spent countless hours working to understand the meaning and significance behind the religious narratives passed down over time, dietary claims demonstrate an uncanny similarity. He even compares them to how flood myths have recurred in a variety of cultures. He attempts to understand them in a historical context, ultimately raising serious concerns about their veracity. He wonders if our acceptance of many of them are akin to reading flood myths like a weather report rather than as a metaphor for cleansing and divine punishment.

2]  In Hari's case heavy metal toxicity has specific symptoms, not that feeling you get after eating too much.  In the case of drugs or alcohol, it can be an emergency medical situation.  What Hari is touting has no basis in reality.

What’s popularly called a “detox” today has nothing to do with actual medical detoxification. In the setting of real medicine, detoxification means treatments for dangerous levels of drugs, alcohol, or poisons, like heavy metals. Real detoxification is a treatment for a medical emergency, when a poisoning may be life-threatening. Real detoxification isn’t something you contemplate based on a menu. You don’t order real detoxification treatments at juice bar, and it’s not delivered in smoothie format.

Fake detox, the kind you find in magazines, and sold in pharmacies, juice bars, and health food stores, is make-believe medicine. The use of the term “toxin” in this context is meaningless. There are no toxins named, because there’s no evidence that these treatments do anything at all, but it sounds just scientific enough to be plausible.

3]  "'Detox' is based on an outdated notion of 'autointoxication.' Clean out the bowels, went the theory, and you could cure any illness"; by today's woo standards the more active "treatment" goes by the name colonic hydrotherapy. "Science discarded autointoxication in the early 1900’s as we gained a better understanding of anatomy, physiology, and the true cause of disease." Yet the term persists today as the woo-meisters ignore science to make the all-mighty buck.

As noted above, "detox diets" or foods, such as Hari's salad, are for the most part harmless as one is basically increasing fiber intake; although the consumption of some commercial products have had serious consequences. 

"The complementary medicine market is very popular in the UK and the concept of the new-year 'detox' with all-natural products is appealing to those less concerned with evidence-based medicine and more with complementary medicine," say the medics in their write-up.

"Excessive water intake as a way of 'purifying and cleansing' the body is also a popular regime with the belief that harmful waste products can thus be washed from the body."

However, they warn that "despite marketing suggesting otherwise, all-natural products are not without side-effects".

As Wiki notes, "[i]In cases where a person suffers from a disease, belief in the efficacy of a detox diet can result in delay or failure to seek effective treatment."  Therein lays the problem, taken to the extreme of the Gerson plan for example, it does kill - just ask Jess Ainscough (aka the Wellness Warrior).

Let’s review a bit about just what the Gerson therapy is. It’s a so-called “nutritional” therapy for cancer that involves large quantities of fruit and vegetable juices, raw liver, and “detoxification” with frequent coffee enemas. Indeed, the Gerson protocol was a precursor to the more commonly discussed and now more famous Gonzalez protocol (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Grafted onto the therapy by his daughter Charlotte since Max Gerson’s death are other forms of woo, such as liver extract injections, ozone enemas, “live cell therapy,” thyroid tablets, castor oil enemas, clay packs, laetrile, and “vaccines” made from influenza virus and killed Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. Gerson’s “evidence” in the form of his case series was examined by the National Cancer Institute back in the 1950s,,,

4]  Unless you are having a body systems failure (skin, kidneys, lymphatic system, gastrointestinal system, and liver), we humans have a pretty sophisticated internal detoxification system.  You're going to need more than a "cilantro salad" to fix what may ail ya.  In other words, if you think your kidneys or liver aren't pulling their weight, you don't need a detox salad, you need to see a doctor.

http://www.statsguy.co.uk/detox-its-all-a-con/

5]  When it comes to simple dietary changes, there’s little evidence of harm. Eating more quinoa and kale (maybe spinach instead), and less processed and refined foods is reasonable dietary advice for everyone. But, according to Klein and Kiat,

To the best of our knowledge, no rigorous clinical investigations of detox diets have been conducted. The handful of studies that have been published suffer from significant methodological limitations including small sample sizes, sampling bias, lack of control groups, reliance on self-report and qualitative rather than quantitative measurements.

,,,
At present, there is no compelling evidence to support the use of detox diets for weight management
or toxin elimination (97,98). Considering the financial costs to consumers, unsubstantiated claims and potential health risks of detox products, they should be discouraged by health professionals and subject to independent regulatory review and monitoring. It is hoped that this review will encourage systematic evaluations of commercial detox diets, so that an evidence base can be established to inform future legislation.

Perhaps an important question to ask is why are detox diets so appealing? The seductive power of detox diets presumably lies in their promise of purification and redemption, which are ideals that are deep-rooted in human psychology. These diets, of course, are highly reminiscent of the religious fasts that have been popular throughout human history. It would be useful for future studies to examine the psychological aspects of detox diets and investigate why people are drawn to extreme diets that have no proven benefits. Unfortunately, equating food with sin, guilt and contamination is likely to set up an unhealthy relationship with nutrition. There is no doubt that sustained healthy habits are of greater longterm value than the quick fixes offered by commercial detox diets.

6]  If you want to cleanse your wallet, "detox" is the way to go.  While Hari's recipe wont do jack-shit and only cost you the price of the ingredients, alternative medicine’s idea of "detox" could kill you.  It definitely will cost you money.  As Brian Dunning points out,

Anyone interested in detoxifying their body might think about paying a little more attention to their body and less attention to the people trying to get their money. The body already has nature's most effective detoxification system. It's called the liver. The liver changes the chemical structure of foreign compounds so they can be filtered out of the blood by the kidneys, which then excrete them in the urine. I am left wondering why the alternative practitioners never mention this option to their customers. It's all-natural and proven effective. Is it ironic that the only people who will help you manage this all-natural option are the medical doctors? Certainly your naturopath won't. He wants to sell you some klunky half-legal hardware.

Why is it that so many people are more comfortable self-medicating for conditions that exist only in advertisements, than they are simply taking their doctor's advice? It's because doctors are burdened with the need to actually practice medicine. They won't hide bad news from you or make up easy answers to please you. But that's what people want: The easy answers promised by advertisements and alternative practitioners. They want the fantasy of being in complete personal control of what goes on inside their bodies. A doctor won't lie to you and say that a handful of herbal detoxification pills will cure anything that's wrong with you; but since that's the solution many people want, there's always someone willing to sell it.

So yet again, what Hari has endorsed is a notion with no basis in science. She's relying on fear and uses "chemicals" as a dirty word, ignoring the fact that everything (including water) is a chemical.  To Hari and her ilk, including her "Food Babe Army", the toxins remain unspecified and they appropriate the legitimate medical concept of detoxification in their purification ritual.  Any diet or dietary restriction that causes a person to be unable to celebrate and socialize with food comfortably is going too far.  Don’t make food the most important focus of your life.



One final thought,  What exactly is she eating that she constantly needs detoxing from? If she does as she preaches, she shouldn't need a detox. Unless she cheats. And whose fault is that,,,hmmm?