macgyver - 11 April 2008 05:21 AM
Just once I would like someone who sells these items and a million other “detoxifiers” to tell me in non-pseudoscientific terms exactly what these “toxins” are. Toxins are the idiot catch phrase of the worried-well in the 21st century. I guess anyone who is stupid enough to fall for this non-sense deserves what they get, but the hijacking of science to sell snake oil is a real problem.
My understanding of toxins from when I was a New Age-believin’, raw-food eatin, juice-fastin’ vegetarian a zillion years ago is that we absorb all sorts of nasty chemicals in our modern American lives, e.g. chemical fertilizers, pesticides, air pollution, industrial waste, etc. and the body will store up more and more of these health-damaging poisons unless we take action to purge ourselves of them by doing stuff like eating organically-grown foods, living in an unpolluted environment, and doing so-called “detoxification” practices such as fasting, enemas, colonics, etc. etc. Certainly people are exposed to the miracles of modern chemistry and industry every day, but the claimed effects on one’s health described by promoters of detoxification products are often dubious, and the products and practices are very dubious if not downright useless or hazardous. That’s where all the pseudo-science is, replete with ludicrous consequences. For example, the first cup of coffee I ever brewed in my life went into an enema bag and up my ass during a juice fast, because I had read that coffee enemas were useful in detox programs. Before that I had only used warm water with some fresh squeezed lemon in it (a full half-gallon up the butt) in my quest for purity and health. 
My bible for all this woo during the mid- thru late-’70s was a book named “Survival into the 21st Century” by Viktoras Kulvinskas, who helped make wheat grass juice famous. If you ever chance upon this book, it’s worth looking thru, as it is one of the craziest, giddily woo-packed volumes of New Age late 20th century apocalyptic survivalism ever published.
