Top 7 Formulas for Detoxification Support
Top 7 Formulas for Detoxification Support   In a perfect world, your balanced whole foods diet would naturally provide every nutrient the body needs for optimal detoxification. The reality, however, isn’t always so simple.  Between long hours at work, family and social obligations, financial pressures, toxins in highly processed foods and other daily stressors of our fast-paced lifestyle, sometimes the body needs additional detox support.  Adding nutritional supplements in the form of vitamin supplements and functional foods can help fill in the nutritional gaps and support your body’s natural detoxification process.  In this article, we discuss what nutrients are especially important to support detoxification along with a whole foods detox diet.   Why Do We Need to Detox? When most people think of stress, they think of emotional stressors, such as relationship struggles.  While this is certainly one influential form of stress, it’s important to remember that toxins in foods, soil degradation and other chemical exposures are also huge stressors on the body.  Even the best personalized nutrition and health plans need supplemental help every now and then. This is because modern-day agricultural practices deplete the nutrients in soil, meaning that many foods are not as nutrient rich as they used to be.   Think of a comprehensive detox program as pressing the reset button for your mind, body and spirit, and a way to regain your energy, vitality and vigor. Nutrients That Help Promote Detoxification Before getting into the specific nutrients and formulas that are foundational for detox support, let’s consider the important differences between some of the products you often see on the shelves.  You may have heard the term “food as medicine,†and for good reason. Whole foods come not only with macronutrients (protein, carbohydrate and fat), but also with a plethora of micronutrients and compounds in the form of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, enzymes, trace minerals and more.  Each of these elements work together synergistically to enable your body to function as it should. Nutrients that form part of this complex web can’t simply be extracted and isolated from the whole and expected to do the same job.  However, many meal replacement and detox formulas try to do just that.  If you go to a local grocery or health food store and browse the nutraceutical section, you’ll notice that many meal replacements, shakes, powders and supplement formulas are purely macronutrient-based.  This means that they provide just protein, fat or carbohydrates in specific quantities, but without the micronutrients that come along with these macros in real foods.  It might be helpful to think of food like a car. Each part works together to make it to run. You can’t separate the engine and the wheels and call one of those components a car.  Each part depends on the others to serve its purpose, and in some cases can even be deemed useless when alone. The same rule applies to food. Nature never creates nutrients in an isolated form, nor does a well-designed nutraceutical.  Keep in mind that it’s not only about what we eat, but what we absorb.  Studies show that whey protein shakes that are consumed with digestive enzymes cause significantly better amino acid absorption than the same whey shake taken alone. This includes a 30% to 127% jump in amino acid levels after a four-hour period!  Key food components, like enzymes, fiber, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients, are essential for slowing transit time and maximizing what you absorb from the foods you eat. The same goes for functional foods and supplements.   Functional foods and whole-foods supplements are formulated to provide higher amounts of these micronutrients and plant compounds, such as those that support detoxification.  Top 7 Formulas Detoxification Support  Life is stressful enough. Choosing a detox program shouldn’t be.  At Solaris Whole Health, we have found incredible success with the following functional foods and dietary nutritional supplements along with a simple food plan.  Functional Food Powder: SOLFUEL Clear® Not all functional foods are created equal. This is why so much thought and research went into the creation of SOLFUEL Clear®.  This functional food powder is meant to support healthy detoxification with key macro and micronutrients. SOLFUEL Clear® provides 18 grams of highly digestible pea protein to ensure you maintain muscle mass during your detox.  It also combines a full multivitamin/mineral for detoxification enzyme support, high levels of antioxidants for safe detox, fiber for increased intestinal cleansing, and a comprehensive array of herbs to promote optimal liver function.  Several of the key nutrients and herbs included in this functional food are:  B vitamins Vitamin C Vitamin E Zinc Selenium Branched chain amino acids  Dandelion and green tea extracts  A unique blend of vegetables and fruits Many more! A high-quality functional food powder can be thought of as food in a concentrated form, making it easy to take and providing the same synergistic benefits of whole foods.  Phase II Support: SolClear LP2®  As we’ve discussed in this article, a comprehensive detox program should provide additional support for phase II detox pathways.  If you focus on stimulating phase I pathways without enough attention on phase II, you end up with a dangerous combination of too many free radicals and no way to neutralize them.  To avoid this, the SOLFUEL Clear  Cleansing System® includes SolClear LP2®, which ensures proper phase two detoxification.  This nutritional support helps to conjugate toxins and prepare them for safe elimination from the body. You will feel better and be less likely to experience detox side effects.   Digestive Enzyme: SolGI ProZyme®  Another important component of a well-rounded detox program is digestive enzyme support. This is especially true for protein digestion, as illustrated in the whey protein example above.  The foods (and functional foods) that you eat are only effective if they are digested well. Proper digestion is necessary for nutrient breakdown and absorption.  Protein digestion is initiated in the stomach. Liquid meals pass through the stomach more quickly than solid meals. Less time in the stomach naturally means less time for digestion.  Paired with the fact that many people already have impaired protein digestion, an enzyme especially designed for protein digestion and absorption is important.  Elimination: Magnesium  Studies show that almost 20% of people in the United States are constipated. As discussed here, regular bowel movements are essential for proper detox.  If you’re not going to the bathroom every day, the body isn’t able to rid itself of toxins, and this can set the stage for toxins to get reabsorbed.  To avoid this, additional magnesium support can be extremely beneficial and safe.  Magnesium is a mineral that plays a role in over 600 biochemical reactions in the body, and every cell in the body needs