Brett Elliott is a medical herbalist with over twenty years of clinical experience, and he has written Cleansed and Cured to show how detoxing works to heal your body. There are some scary statistics to open the book: a quarter of the world’s adults have metabolic disease (over 2 billion people). By metabolic disease the author describes it as a disorder of energy utilisation and storage: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and high cholesterol levels. While not suffering from any of this list, I found this was still an interesting book to read, full of tips for living a healthy lifestyle.
Brett explains why ‘detox’ diets work, supported with realistic and practical advice from his years of work in the field, and supported by many scientific references. It turns out the primary substances of concern are pollution, pharmaceuticals, processed food, household parasites and chemicals, emotional stress, and metabolic toxins, as in too much acid in the body. Thankfully most of the book is about solutions, and he has fabulous recipes, along with why various foods and herbs will make a difference. He suggests an annual detoxification programme, like you would a regular motor vehicle service. Sounds like a sensible idea to me, and this is just the book to accompany this endeavour! And looking through the book, I’m even keener as there are so many good detox foods that are my favourites, including avocado, beetroot, garlic, leeks, lemon and pumpkin. The recipes look delicious, so I can’t wait to try them out.
Reviewer: Iain McKenzie
Bateman, RRP 34.99