Lean Beef and Fish?

by Michael

What about lean beef and fish?

Answer: When you work through your personal detox planner, you'll see that we provide a "detox ladder" that lists a relative order of toxicity in foods and substances.

Lean organic beef (without hormones, antibiotics and pesticide residue from feed) and high quality fish, free from mercury, can absolutely play an important part in a healthy diet and even be part of your detox plan. Especially if you are replacing lower quality meat selections. Someone who moves from bologni and other nitrate, chemical filled and processed meat would activate a detox/healing response by switching to healthier, less chemical selections.

However, if you are already eating a fairly clean diet that includes some healthy meat and fish, moving away from meat and fish entirely during your detox may be important to allow the body to cleanse more deeply, depending on your personal situation.

Animal proteins are highly overused in our modern diet and we require much less than the average intake. It is also very hard to find meat and fish that is truly non-toxic. Animal fats store and concentrate toxins and with an environment that is more and more laden with chemicals, this is hard to avoid. For example, some level of mercury is found in almost all fish today and very hard to escape. For more details, read our page about toxic food.

With a whole food plant based diet a healthy person can get all the nutrients needed without animal proteins. So again it's very individual depending on your body type, health condition, etc. And certainly to forgo meat for a short period will not cause harm in someone who is relatively healthy.

Some great plant based proteins that include all of the amino acids, forming a complete protein, are quinoa, spirulina, hemp, and many others. Use our list of detox foods and superfoods for some of the cleaniest and healthiest foods available.