We’ve already, flippantly, tossed around the word “toxin” and “toxic” and even called you a “toxic waste-dump.” Part of CDR, the first step to establishing life-long and long-life health, is the “D” for “Detox” short for “Detoxification”—the removal of the toxic substances from your body. So what are toxins?
Toxins are substances that inhibit or harm normal, healthy operation of your body.
A note: just because science hasn’t discovered that a substance is harmful, doesn’t mean that it’s not. At one time we didn’t know that the pesticide DDT was harmful—and not knowing didn’t make it harmless3. However, for now, we feel that biological and medical science has progressed sufficiently far to have fairly well classified most of the substances that are poisonous to human health. This includes broad groupings of chemical compounds, such as pesticides in general. If we can eliminate those from our bodies, and our future foods, we’ll be far better off.
Then we can work on avoiding the introduction of any new and unnecessary substances into our diet.
The following is a list of the toxins and toxic substances which are present in our environment. This list is not all-inclusive, but is meant to give you an idea of how pervasive the assault on our health really is. The shame is that much of the attack on our wellbeing is the product of economic greed and can be easily avoided with just a small hit to the profits of major corporations—but that’s the subject of a different book.
Common toxins and toxic substances:
1. Heavy metals: mercury, cadmium, arsenic, lead, iron and aluminum4
a. A more extensive list would include antimony, bismuth, cerium, chromium, cobalt, copper, gallium, gold, manganese, nickel, platinum, silver, tellurium, thallium, tin, uranium, vanadium, and zinc.
b. A few of these are necessary in trace amounts, such as manganese and zinc, but can quickly become toxic if present in excess… and, yes, even iron can be toxic in large amounts or in its improper form.
2. Chemicals: pesticides, preservatives, hormones, antibiotics, metabolic analogs such as artificial sweeteners, food dyes, and even additives to our drinking water mandated by our government such as chlorine and fluoride.
3. Biologicals: yeast, viruses, parasites, non-native bacteria.
4. Common foods and food additives that cause toxic reactions including allergies
The Concept of Toxic “Load”
Paracelsus (Born Phillip von Hohenheim in Switzerland, 1493-1541) is considered the father of modern toxicology5. He stated, "All substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison…." This has been shortened, in modern times to “The dose makes the poison.”
While one might be quick to question this observation, Wikipedia relates in a footnote to their article on Paracelsus,
“January 26, 2007: Dr. Adrian Cohen was saddened, but not surprised, to hear about the 28-year-old woman who died earlier this month after drinking nearly two gallons of water to try to win a radio station contest. (Wash Times).”
Even water, when consumed in excess, can overwhelm the body’s ability to process it.
The flip-side of this, of course, is that some substances are always toxic, even in very small quantities. The acceptable amount of mercury present in the body is zero, period. The acceptable amount of lead in your blood is zero, period.
Yet, the United States government places the “acceptable” level of lead in your blood at 10 micrograms per deciliter: bear with us…
…that’s 10 billionths of a gram, a gram is 1/28th of an ounce—per 1/10th of a liter, about 3-1/3rd ounce—which calculates out to about three-one-hundred-millionths of an ounce of lead per ounce of blood—that’s a very small amount indeed…
…but, just to continue a very long sentence… dramatic decreases in IQ—a measure of intelligence—in five year old children is associated with an increase of lead from 1 to 10 micrograms per deciliter, a range entirely within the “acceptable” limits permitted by big brother6. A much longer sentence is the lifetime incarceration of the intellectual potential of
those children exposed to lead in their infancy. The same effect has been reported in adult exposure to lead.
Can anyone argue that there is “acceptable” exposure to this substance? We think not.
Thank you for your patience. This is the last technical tirade to which you will be subjected, at least for a few chapters. The point has to be made. Here we’ve discussed just one of the offending heavy metals, but there are many, as we’ve listed above, along with the other toxins and toxic substances. Hundreds of studies all demonstrate the toxicity of substances that have governmental “acceptable” limits.
YOU—You whose eyes are reading these pages—have to take responsibility for your health. YOU have to avoid the ingestion of toxins. After all, YOU have complete control. Not to exercise that control is analogous to not using your seat belt in your car. You may get along for a while, but it will catch up to you when you least expect it. Remember Charlie?
Now that’s the good news. Are you ready for the bad news? The effect of ALL the toxins you take in is cumulative. They add up.
Your body can “handle” and eliminate a certain amount of exposure to foreign substances. That’s the job of your immune system, liver and excretory functions. “Handling,” however, does not mean that toxins have no effect on you. When you have an “off” day—irritable, fatigued, difficulty thinking or concentrating, sensitivity to sound, like your spouse’s voice—you’re probably suffering from the cumulative effects of toxicity, even if you’ve not pushed yourself into a diagnosable disease state.
Imagine a bucket with a spout at the bottom. You can keep pouring sludge into the top, as long as the spout is open and sludge can flow out at the same or greater rate as you pour it in.
If sludge is added too quickly, the bucket will start to fill up and eventually overflow. This is our metaphor for disease, dysfunction and, ultimately, death.
As long as your body can deal with the cumulative levels of all the toxins and toxic substances in your body, you are within your “load” limit. This does not mean you’re healthy, but you can get by. But for how long? As soon as the amount of toxins exceeds your load limit, you “suddenly” get sick7.
One more visit to the bucket. The sludge itself will start to plug up the spout, slowing the rate at which the bucket—your body—can eliminate the sludge—toxins. Less metaphorically, the toxins you ingest can severely damage your immune system and lower the ability of your body to deal with the offending substances, lowering your load limit. The net effect is that your health goes into a downward spiral.
Few practitioners of traditional—allopathic—medicine will advise you to take a strong look at the package labels on the food you’re eating, avoid food dyes, eat organic food, advise that you drink chlorine-free water, or tell you to make any major dietary changes outside of “cutting down” on alcohol, tobacco, fat and cholesterol. But the medical community is another subject for yet another time8.
Why Now?
In recent years, there has been an explosion of cases of diabetes, ADD, ADHD, coronary disease, breast, colon, prostate and lung cancer, childhood asthma, and on and on and on.
Concurrent with this tsunami of disease is the bastardization of our food supply. More and more chemicals are being fed to us that were not part of our diet fifty years ago.
Here’s something to think about: our [the authors] mothers, now in their eighties, never had PMS—and didn’t know anyone who had PMS—when they were young women. Were they of healthier “stock,” or was it that in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, they were not as chemically “battered” as women (and men) are today?
Certainly there were offenses previously; Upton Sinclair details abuses at the beginning of the twentieth century in his classic The Jungle. But we had a few good decades with the advent of the Food and Drug Administration and benevolent regulation. This was before the bloodless coupe that put governmental control of our food supply into the hands of multi-national agribusiness. In 2001—the beginning of the 21st century—the new administration in Washington, doubled acceptable arsenic levels in our drinking water from those instituted by the previous occupant of the White House.
In China, cows are being fed so much antibiotic that their milk cannot be used to produce yogurt—the bacterial cultures won’t grow in it—and yet, for the sake of corporate profit , China is supplying increasing amounts of our food, as opposed to our feeding ourselves. Wasn’t the United States the “Food Basket” of the world at one time?
As of this writing, September 2007, dozens of food products from China, in the pet and human food chain, have been found to be tainted by poisons—the no-acceptable-limit kind of poisons. At this moment, while poultry cannot be imported from China for fear of bringing Bird Flu to this country, our current President shook hands with the President of China, all but sealing a deal that would allow American chickens to be shipped to China, processed there, and returned to the United States for sale in our supermarkets. Oh, there’s more—from the “add insult to
injury” department—this same administration is pressing to have “country of origin” labeling laws relaxed so that you’ll never know that your dinner had more frequent-flyer miles than you do.
One more issue: the food we eat is not as nutritious as it used to be. Here’s an example: Broccoli is a cruciferous vegetable; it’s supposed to contain lots of calcium. However, broccoli grown in calcium-depleted soil doesn’t have lots of calcium, but it still looks and tastes like broccoli. The same is true of any presumably mineral-rich vegetable or fruit. All minerals in plants come from the soil in which they’re grown. Mineral rich soil produces mineral-laden food, while veggies grown in soil that is poor in minerals still tastes bad to your kids, but isn’t worth the fight to get them to eat it.
The optimum Cleanse, Detox & Rebuild (CDR) protocol lasts only twenty-three days. It is usually required not more than once a year, but many of you have treated your bodies as toxic waste-dumps for so long that you will be well advised to work through the full program twice, six months apart, in the first year.
Before you begin any health regimen, you must be tenacious about becoming healthy. This may sound extremely simplistic, but it’s fundamental to all that follows. If you’re not prepared to devote the time to change your life for the better, then don’t begin. That is, don’t begin now. Yes—you can find the right time. Here are some things to consider.
Do not begin your program-to-health by indulging in gluttony and over indulgence. Don’t do it in October in anticipation of Thanksgiving through New Year’s binging. Remember Peace on Earth usually gives you a bigger Piece on your Thighs. Also, do not begin a month before you take that cruise-of-a-lifetime.
The best time to begin a health regimen, for most people, is early in the year as there are few eating or drinking feasts until Easter/Passover in the spring.
Though February and March programs to health may cause you to have to pass on the chocolate on Valentine’s Day and go sober on St. Patrick’s, that’s part of the “tenacity” to which we refer. Sports “Fans”—short for Fanatics—have the added pressure asserted by the year-round parties precipitated by Sunday afternoon regular season games. Playoff games and Finals/Series/Bowls up the ante even further1.
The good news is that once the initial CDR is over, you will have so benefited by your change of habits that you will no longer reflexively make visits to the refrigerator out of boredom. You will eat less and eat healthier.
Further, you will be allowed to eat, drink and be merry, transgress on occasion, and even pig-out when circumstances absolutely demand it. It won’t ruin everything, as long as the binges are spread far enough apart and interspersed with healthy food choices.
At the end of the CDR you will feel so much better than you do now, that you will not want to “ruin” it with marathon eating and drinking, even though your friends, associates and perhaps even your family, will do all in their power to push you back to where you were. On the one hand they will congratulate you on how great you look, praise your loss of weight, marvel at the tone and texture of your skin and hair, and envy your general ambiance of health—on the other hand, they will hand you a beer and a knockwurst. You will learn to hate everyone you know. Prepare yourself for that.
One last admonition: Do not hyper-binge the night before you start. If anything, try to calm down your eating for several days in anticipation of the beginning of your healthy lifestyle implementation. This will make the first few days of your Cleanse less challenging.
Step #0 – Finding the Time
• Get a calendar, preferably one that indicates your particular ethnic and religious celebrations.
• Draw a large “X” over each day on which some non-healthy eating and/or drinking may be expected.
• Find a block of four weeks with no marked-out days. This is your target CDR period, and will allow for the twenty-three day protocol plus a few extra days to calm-down before going on the formal program.
• You may start on any day of the week; it does not have to begin on Monday; that’s entirely up to you.
• Remember: don’t select a time period that ends the day before Thanksgiving or any other festive (derived from the word “feast”) day.
Have you ever seen a teenager in the mall or on the street with a Mohawk hairstyle died purple and green? Do you have a teenager with a Mohawk hairstyle died purple and green? When confronted with this sight, many people, of the middle-class-American demographic, go immediately into judgment mode. What’s he trying to prove? Who does he think he’s impressing? Fact is, if you embrace the values codified in the Constitution of the United States, as we do—regardless of how ridiculous the hairstyle really is—you have to accept that each person in this country, and many others around the world, are guaranteed their freedom to select their preference of fashion in hairstyle and clothing. The kind of car you drive, the home in which you live, including its furnishings, the music, books and TV shows you enjoy, are all a matter of choice. (We’re looking at the generality, not physically harmful exceptions.)
If you’re reading this book, then, unless you’re reading for the benefit of someone else (yeah, right, you’ve got a “friend” that needs to lose weight), we’re going to assume that you have made one additional choice in your life: the choice not to be healthy.Killing yourself instantaneously with a bullet in the head is illegal. If you try and fail you can be arrested when you get out of the hospital. However, there is no law against killing yourself slowly over the course of years—by digging your own grave with a fork! As a matter of demonstrable fact, big business in concert with government has encouraged poor eating habits for more than half a century. Government agencies have played around with the food “pyramid” more than a bipolar pharaoh.
Health, hygiene, and peaceable social interaction with others are not optional lifestyle choices. These are the fundamentals of participating productively in civilized society.
Which brings us to the question: What is Health? Health is not just the absence of disease. It’s very hard to prove a negative. How do you demonstrate that something isn’t there? Perhaps it’s there, but we can’t see it, or feel it, or perceive it.
Have you ever heard someone say, “Hey, did you hear about Charlie? He was in perfect health. He’d never been to a doctor in his life. He suddenly got cancer and died.”
Suddenly? Suddenly got cancer? Did someone send him an infected email or did he pick it up from a toilet seat? No! Charlie’s cancer was the product of years of self-inflicted personal abuse or neglect, lifestyle choices, and failure to monitor his own bodily functions (also to be treated in a later chapter). Don’t let the tone of this paragraph infer that we feel Charlie deserved to get sick and die. Certainly, that’s not our intent.
But there’s an important lesson that few people learn from the news of Charlie’s demise. How many people will ask, “What was it about Charlie’s body that made it turn on itself and devour his organs from the inside out?” That’s what cancer is. Cells in the body begin to grow out of control, consume all available nutrients, and invade and crowd out organs, ultimately destroying the body’s ability to maintain vital functions. Further, Charlie’s immune system—
which protects the body from the spread of these rogue cells when they occur and as they do naturally in all of us—failed.
Did Charlie have any warning signs? Why didn’t his immune system protect him?
Well there were times Charlie felt a little down. He had some bad days when he just didn’t have the get-up-and-go…but that happens to everyone from time to time. He was as healthy as a horse!
Horses get sick and die, too. And, Yes, it seems that “that” happens to everyone from time to time, but it’s not suppose to. That’s called dis-ease, the frequency and intensity of which probably increased over time until Charlie had to make his very first trip to the doctor and suddenly had cancer.
A depressed or inefficient immune system is also a disease state that has no symptoms until it lets a cancer cell grow, or a virus or bacterium multiple and attach to—or attack—the healthy cells of the body.
We can never say we are healthy for sure, because the apparent absence of disease is not proof of health. However, there are things we can do to increase our chances of being as healthy inside as we feel on the outside, assuming we feel healthy on the outside. This book provides guidance; the advice given here is a safety belt for your wellbeing. The step-by-step guidelines in the following chapters describe a technology for keeping us truly healthy until we’re struck by a cosmic ray or our “number is up” or we’re called by an Almighty Being. Take your choice depending on your personal belief.
There is ample medical and scientific evidence that the human body has no built in time-to-die. If Galapagos tortoises can live to be two-hundred, why can’t we? Cells can renew themselves almost indefinitely, if maintained in a biological environment associated with perfect
health. Unfortunately, “perfect” health is elusive. Impurities, toxic substances and disease-inducing factors assault us each and every day. Our water, air and food supply are tainted, and our lifestyles are stressful. This makes extreme extension of our lives, for all practical purposes, impossible. But a healthy, productive and youthful life to One Hundred or More Years is well within our grasp.
