Juicing, detoxifying the body, adding antioxidants and your health. Some facts courtesy of the NY Times. - Charschan Chiropractic in North Brunswick, NJ and Scotch Plains, NJ

Juicing, detoxifying the body, adding antioxidants and your health. Some facts courtesy of the NY Times.

Detox regimens are a hot item in most health food stores. After all, who wants toxins in their bodies.

The liver is a fantastic organ that helps us deal with the toxins caused by medications, alcohol and many other things we take into our bodies.

While we all want to live longer and healthier lives, the idea of removing toxins has become a popular idea, and one of the ways people have adopted, along with marketers is the idea of power juicing our way to better health.

There are a number of ways to get the nutrients, anti oxidants and health benefits from food. One is by taking in many types of vegetables, especially the green leafy ones in salads and chewing them thoroughly. Another one is by juicing, either by a standard juicer that uses a centrifuge to remove the liquid and many of the nutrients from greens, fruits and put them in juice form. Masticating juicers remove even more goodness from these foods since the juicer chews the material, freeing even more juice and pulp. Finally, there is the Vita Mix which can grind up whole vegetables and make a thick milk shake with all the goodness you wanted.

If you do not want to have the juicer or the mess, there are a number of businesses that now have juice bars that will serve different combinations of foods and juice them for you. One that comes to mind is owned by one of our patients. You can check out Fresh Press Juice Co here. They have many great tasting juices with proven recipes you are not likely to think of on your own.

While this nutrition is great for us, and for our bodies, does it really detoxify us too? Not according to a recent NY Times article. Check it out here

Fancy Juice Doesn”™t Cleanse the Body of Toxins

By SABRINA TAVERNISEAPRIL 20, 2016

Misconception: Juice cleansing can remove toxins from your system.

Actually: To say that drinking juice detoxifies the body isn”™t quite the same as claiming leeches suck out poisons, but it”™s fairly close.

The practice of cleansing has become as ubiquitous as the use of hand sanitizer. Celebrities do it. Spas offer it. Fancy food stores sell pricey bottles of juice to accomplish it, and a $700 juicer will soon facilitate the process for those who are not satisfied with the current D.I.Y. options. But what is it that everybody is trying to remove from their bodies? Is there any science behind it?

“œPeople are interested in this so-called detoxification, but when I ask them what they are trying to get rid of, they aren”™t really sure,” said Dr. James H. Grendell, the chief of the division of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. “œI”™ve yet to find someone who has specified a toxin they were hoping to be spared.”

Toxins exist. Doctors typically define them as something that enters the body that has a damaging effect on its own “” like pesticides, lead or antifreeze “” or in large quantities, like alcohol or medications such as acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol.