Let’s get real for a moment. Whether you’re contemplating a physical, emotional, or spiritual change in your life, there is no such thing as a quick fix. In the health and wellness world, those words are repeated again and again, yet we all find ourselves chasing fad diets, exercise trends, and miracle products in the hopes of cutting out the work and jettisoning ourselves to an overnight fix. Lasting transformations take work. That doesn’t mean that everything we’ll outline is hard; it just requires commitment—a little time, energy, careful thought, and practice. While there is more than one way to achieve health, happiness, and beauty, there is no getting around the fact that no magical shortcuts exist—but the effort, in our experience, is well worth it for lasting wellness that you can both see and feel. In the following pages, we’ll be highlighting the methods that have borne the most fruit for us, in part because they’re grounded in real food and real science. Besides general feelings of wellness, your hair, your skin, and your immune system will likely flourish, too.
Beauty may start on the inside, but the picture is more complicated than “you are what you eat.” While there are ways in which our bodies function very much like machines, what goes in is not always what comes out, and our health can become quite dependent on how efficiently we can support and supplement the body’s natural detox process. Sounds exhausting, but your body is detoxing all the time—that said, it’s possible to significantly ease the load by eating the right foods and limiting exposure to toxins where possible.
The body has an extraordinary and innate capacity to detox. It’s what a number of our organs, such as the liver and kidneys, do naturally—they get rid of the impurities in our system. And in a perfect world—or, one that more accurately represents the conditions in which humans evolved—we would just let these organs do their thing. Today, however, as you are likely already well aware, we are faced with an unprecedented number and volume of harmful chemicals that make it impossible for our bodies to keep up without some help. Our detox organs suffer from overload, leaving the toxins circulating in our system (and, thanks to an obesity problem in this country, clinging to our fat). This nonstop work also means our organs have no downtime to repair themselves. There are chemicals in food, makeup, plastic water bottles, hand soaps, laundry detergent, nonstick pans—even the mattresses we sleep on. These toxins have been linked to nearly every health issue imaginable, and they steal our glow one way or another—whether through inflamed skin or indigestion. Often without knowing it, we are ingesting, breathing, and absorbing these toxins through our skin (our largest organ) every day—at home, in the office, sitting in our cars, eating out.
As much as we are all for reducing our exposure to the big ones when we can (more on that throughout this book), toxins are too omnipresent to avoid completely. (In fact, babies are born with more than 200 toxic chemicals in their umbilical cords—see more here—so in a sense, one of the purest things around is born pre-polluted.) While there are plenty of people who believe that “detoxing” is a silly fad, there’s no doubt that giving your body a little bit of a helping hand can make a real difference. And the best way, of course, is to try to minimize the amount of detoxing it needs to do in the first place. Think of it as the ultimate efficiency play: The less energy we have to spend on getting rid of toxins that are bad for our insides (i.e., fatal to our organs) and our outsides (i.e., causing allergic skin reactions, drying out the scalp, and so on)—the better. It’s really the secret to a palpable glow.
As painful as it may be to put aside the french fries, anyone who has ventured into clean eating—even if for only a week—would probably agree that mental clarity and an uptick in energy are really nice side effects. When your body has to spend less time breaking down processed foods, it can spend more time on stuff that advances the eight ball, so to speak. And those are generally the upsides that reveal themselves every time you look in the mirror. There are no makeup tricks or hairstyle hacks that can truly give the same results as eating the right things.
We’re going to explore some of the creative ways that you can reduce your toxic load, and boost your body’s own ability to detox. And we’re also going to break down gut health, which goes hand in hand with your detox lifestyle. Eating within a detox lifestyle is eating “healthy” and avoiding foods that contain known toxins, but the true picture is more nuanced than that. There are foods that tend to cause inflammation in the body, food allergies, and sensitivities, ranging from dairy and gluten to shellfish and nightshades (a family of plants that includes tomato, eggplant, and potato). While many detoxes revolve around week-long juice cleanses (which, incidentally, have a ton of sugar), we’re bigger fans of eating mostly clean (emphasis on eating, not “eating” liquids) or in a “detox” way all the time—or at least for as many meals as you can throughout the week. We do end up making plenty of exceptions, but in our books, it’s kind of a tradition to kick off the New Year with a 10-day detox (or occasionally longer) of completely clean eating—no exceptions—that really gives the gut a chance to take a break and repair itself. (If you want a detox in kit form, Dr. Alejandro Junger’s 21-Day Clean Program—cleanprogram.com—is pretty incredible.)
The rules of clean eating are relatively simple (if not a little painful, particularly for those who rely on a latte to kick-start the day, and a glass of rosé to wind it down), but if you can follow them for your own 10-day detox, we promise that not only will you feel amazing by the end, but you’ll look pretty amazing, too. And keep in mind that if you have concerns that you might have food allergies, there’s really no better way to test the thesis than to clean out your system and then reintroduce the potentially problematic foods (generally gluten and dairy) to see if they actually affect you. As our good friend and go-to expert on many matters of health, Dr. Junger explains: “After a cleanse, you’re working with a white wall and it’s easy to see the paint—when your system is chronically inflamed, it’s hard to tell what’s making the marks.”
But if you’re ready to look and feel better, here are the rules:
1. No alcohol.
2. No caffeine.
3. No dairy.
4. No eggs.
5. No beef, no pork.
6. No shellfish, no raw fish.
7. No gluten.
8. No soy.
9. No nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers).
10. No strawberries, oranges, grapefruits, grapes, bananas.
11. No corn.
12. No white rice.
13. No added sugar.
14. No peanuts, though other nuts are fine.
15. No processed oils and butters (margarine, spreads, and the like), and no vegetable seed oils like canola and corn. Stick to cold-pressed olive oil and coconut, sesame, almond/walnut, and pumpkin seed oils.
Don’t panic! This actually leaves a lot of delicious foods! Think brown rice, most animal proteins, most vegetables, most fruits, beans and legumes. And if you’ve done a full detox before and you know that foods like strawberries and eggs are not problematic for you, they can stay in your personalized rotation.
Don’t think we’re leaving you alone to fend for yourself, either. We wouldn’t take away your wine and cheese without offering some help! Thea Baumann, our food editor, has put together a menu of twenty-four simple, ridiculously delicious recipes, which you can easily stretch into a thirty-day GOOP Clean Beauty detox. (You can improvise, too: Basic salads, rice bowls, and simply prepared chicken and fish always make the cut.)
If a 30-day detox sounds overwhelming, use the recipes that follow to start with a 10-day burst. We’ve found this is a manageable amount of time to stick strictly to the rules preceding, planning around celebratory events on the calendar (be it a big birthday or dinner out with friends). We’ve also found this to be a satisfactory amount of time to reset our systems after we’ve been hitting the bottle for too long and we’re feeling run-down, with puffier skin and darker circles to match. You’ll want to amplify your better eating habits by drinking lots of water and getting some exercise, which points to another huge benefit of detoxing with food: You’ll have the energy to actually move.
Regardless of how long you stretch your detox, though, and whether you make it a seasonal or annual ritual, the hope is that you’ll add these recipes to your arsenal and turn to them even when you’re not eating full-on clean. While the results won’t be as marked, pivoting your weekly routine to be even a bit less processed can net some good results. Everyone has to start somewhere!
(That Can Last You a Month… If You Want!)
Unless you’re on a restricted calorie plan and trying to unload a lot of excess weight, detoxing and deprivation don’t necessarily have to go hand in hand. We’ve come up with twenty-four recipes that meet the clean standard, which will leave you feeling both full and satisfied. We’ve broken down these recipes by category, with the idea that you can mix and match accordingly, to put together a plan that feels like the right nutrient load for your size, age, and level of physical activity.