The Best Detox Foods: Day 5: Herbs

HERBACEOUS HEALTH BENEFITS

It’s been an entire week of detox foods at Bondi Harvest and we hope you’ve managed to integrate some of them into your meals this week.

Herbs are great for adding flavour to food but they also come with a bevvy of medicinal properties and health benefits.

So far we’ve featured beetroot, greens, ginger and avocados. Today we shine the light on perhaps the easiest food to add to whatever you’re munching on to assist the detoxification process – herbs.

We could go through a list of herbs that you’ve never heard of and would never use on your everyday food to prove our point but instead we thought we’d just highlight the detoxing benefits of our favourite and most popular “everyday” herbs.

CORIANDER

Possessing natural cleansing agents, coriander (cilantro) contains compounds, which binds to toxic metals, helps pull them out of various organ tissues. It also helps in the secretion of enzymes and digestive juices in the stomach, stimulating digestion and easing indigestion.

MINT

By activating the salivary glands in our mouth, mint stimulates and facilitates our digestion. Simulating these digestive enzymes helps in absorbing nutrients from food and assists in converting fat into useable energy. It also improves the flow of bile from the liver, to the gallbladder and the small intestine.

PARSLEY

Often used as a simple garnish, parsley is actually a nutritional powerhouse full of vitamins A, B, C and K plus minerals iron and potassium. It’s a natural diuretic, which helps to eliminate excess fluid without depleting the body of potassium. It’s also great at balancing blood sugar levels and cleansing the blood.

DILL

The essential oils present in dill are great at activating the secretion of bile and digestive juices. They stimulate the intestine, easing the passage of bowel movements and relieve constipation. Dill also assists the removal or toxins, excess salts and water from the body.