The DETOX DECEPTION

Whether it’s a freshly pressed celery juice promising diuretic-induced muscle definition or a cayenne pepper and cider cocktail guaranteeing liver rejuvenation, it is tough not to be persuaded by the detox industry. The concept that you can wash away your lifestyle sins with a short-term "detox” is the perfect remedy to our indulgent processed food and alcohol-driven social lives. “Detoxing”, the idea that you can spend a focused few weeks flushing your system of impurities and toxins, leaving it squeaky clean and renewed, is largely a good old marketing scam. It’s a pseudo-medical notion designed to sell you things. And as a population we’re falling for it, hook, line, and shiny sinker.

Inexplicably, the shelves of health food stores and chemists are stacked with products displaying the word “detox”. You can buy detoxifying tablets, drinks, tea bags, face masks, bath salts, shampoos, hair brushes and ready-made foods. Yoga, luxury holidays and spa days all promise to detoxify. Seven-day diets and 24-hour juice cleanses support the detox process while specially designed massages aim to move toxins through the body and foot pads pledge to draw out impurities as we sleep. For those unsure of which particular detox regime boasts 487 detox pills and potions for purchase and the industry is growing by around 15% per year. Our collective guilt is making people rich.