A funny thing happened the other day at Happy M Kitchen: as we were going about our business and preparing for the daily lunchtime rush, the door suddenly burst open and a lady stuck her head inside and said “There’s no such thing as detox!!” Then she closed the door and went on her way, leaving us to carry on with our lunch preparations presumably content in the knowledge that she had enlightened us from the burden of our previously ill-held voodoo beliefs. So with the usual excitement that builds up to a busy lunchtime service we did carry on with our work, but it felt a little sad, sad that our momentary visitor had not had the time or the wish to stop with us for a cup of tea and a chat about the thing we call detox, because it’s very interesting.

I think when a lot of people talk about detox they are imagining some great cleansing ritual or magic potion that flushes all the bad stuff out of our bodies and leaves us all shiny and new, like all the ridiculously daft things we’ve been subjecting ourselves to over the decades can just be washed away down a magic plug hole. Unfortunately our bodies don’t work like that, and this is where our lady caller delivered us an almost correct statement. “There is no such thing as MAGIC detox!!” would be a more accurate phrase.

But, but, but, we most definitely eliminate toxins and accumulated excess from our bodies, this is absolute fact, or we’d be super dead super quick, It’s just that we eliminate within the gradual, gentle cycles of our bodies metabolism and therefore it’s a process that is ongoing (it’s happening right now in fact) and you can’t really speed it up too much. However, if you stop putting the toxins and excess in (and that’s where we can help) I guess that’s gonna help lessen the bodies workload, right? Furthermore, if you adopt habits that are in tune with the body’s natural rhythms, things like good regular sleep, frequent exercise in nature, and structured daily mealtimes (again, we can help here too) then this will also strengthen your metabolism and lead to an overall more efficient and regular elimination of that which is not helpful to us.

Other methods like occasional fasting and juicing can also help our metabolism by giving our digestive system a break from the daily grind and allowing the system to catch up with itself. At this time of year especially it’s a great time to give ourselves a fresh start after the cold winter months, and with that in mind we’d like to share with you a couple of our really simple favourite things that you can do yourselves for that gentle push into spring freshness:

Really simple favourite thing number 1:

MISO SOUP

– have a bowl of this enzyme-rich natural probiotic daily to strengthen your gut and get more from the other food that you eat.. this really is magic 😉

1 onion, sliced in half moons
1 carrot, sliced in half moons
1 celery stick, finely sliced
1 strip of wakame, soaked then roughly chopped
2 tbsp of organic unpasteurised miso paste
1.5ltr spring water
2 tsp ginger juice
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
2 spring onions finely chopped

Bring the water to the boil in a soup pot, add the onion, carrot, and celery and cook for 5 minutes. Add the wakame and boil for another 3 minutes. Take some of the soup stock in a cup, and dissolve it with the miso. Remove the pan from heat then mix the miso liquid into the soup stock. Add ginger juice and sesame oil then serve garnished with spring onion.

Note, do not boil when re-heating.

Really simple favourite thing number 2:

FAT BUSTER TEA

– a cup of this simple vegetable drink twice a day helps to dissolve and eliminate hard solidified fat deposits existing in the intestines and deep inside the body can help to soften accumulated fats and make them easier to eliminate.

1 finely grated tablespoon of carrot
1 finely grated tablespoon of daikon or rattika radish.
2 cups of water
5-10 drops of tamari soy sauce or a pinch of sea salt

Boil for 3-5 minutes then drink the liquid and grated vegetables all at once.

So here’s to detox! The slow, steady, constant kind.. the kind that really works!!!!

//Jack

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