Book Review: Juicing, Fasting & Detoxing for Life

I thought it would be a good idea to catch up with my book reviews again, since I go through books quite fast haha! I read this book about 2 weeks ago and devoured it, loved it. Trust me, I am not one to fall for pseudo-science hippie books that are written like a marketing campaign. Although I am very much interested in holistic medicine and natural healing, I do tend to look for scientific background paired with experience. This book really fits the bill. I compared this book to a whole slew of other books in the same category:

While most others were dismissable after respectively flipping through 5 pages or reading for 10 minutes, this one hold my attention and really stood out in terms of credibility, resources, writing-style, depth, and, personal experience from the author. This book really opened my eyes in a lot of ways. It is super comprehensive and goes into depth for every subject it touches. May I present to you: Juicing, Fasting & Detoxing for Life!

Juicing, Fasting & Detoxing for Life (Cherie Calbom)  starts with the personal health crisis the author struggled with for years and how she overcame these by, as you may have guessed, juicing, fasting & detoxing. What I appreciate is that she gives an honest story, she doesn’t make it sound like a magic pill for all ailments. She also notes that it took months for her to get healthy on these strategies, not two weeks.

What I took away most from this book is the vast majority of toxins and pollutons we each are exposed to on a daily basis, often from unexpected (at least to me) sources. From dry cleaning to wearing your shoes inside the house and from over-the-counter medicine to having a carpeted floor where toxins are able to accumulate. The author even included a thorough check-list (not a Cosmo style 10 question quiz) to guesstimate the amount of toxins are currently residing in your body and the possible symptoms that may derive from that.

Juicing, Fasting & Detoxing for Life starts with an introduction to toxins, a test and a short intro to how juicing & detoxing programs can help you achieve vibrant health. It then descibes per chapter the importance & benefits of cleansing (as juicing, fasting or detoxing) and how to do it. Later in the book there are several programs outlined for each of the methods she described. All programs rely on whole foods, juices and a herbal or fiber supplement now and again, so no advertisement of expensive bogus pills.

A lot of subjects are touched upon in this book: the acid-alkaline balance, a comprehensive overview of our organs of elimination (colon, kidneys, lungs, skin, etc) and how it impacts our health and well-being, also mentally, if their function is impaired. Cherie Calbom really has a knack for describing how our organs work synergetically on the inside, how the body is a beautifully efficient and complicated machine. She also stressed the fact that yes, our bodies are designed for detoxifying  without external help from us but people often make the mistake to think all the thousands of new, chemically enginereed toxins don’t overtax our bodies. That our bodies can deal with an endless supply of toxins and stressors day after day. If this was the case, we as a society wouldn’t be suffering from a huge health epidemic. The book doesn’t cover external toxins only. It also descibes how stress is a real threat to health by causing an acidic environment in your body.

I love the resource section of the book, it’s endless and includes highly credited books and research papers!

All in all a great, dare I say must?- read that’ll guarantee to shock you from time to time and gets you on your way to aid your body in digestion and detoxification, whether that be small changes or big gestures.

Love,

Sabine