Colon Cleansing Foods

The colon is only a few feet long, but it plays an important role in a person's digestive health. The colon helps the body eliminate toxins and waste, and has the tendency to get coated with build up over time. By eating specific colon cleansing foods, a person can reduce the build up in the colon and allow the digestive system to function optimally.

Why Choose a Food Based Cleanse

There are a variety of different ways to cleanse the colon, including pills, water flushing and diet. Cleansing the colon by adhering to a careful diet is the safest, most natural way to clean the organ. Pills can create painful cramping and diarrhea, and water flushing tends to eliminate the good, healthy bacteria from the colon along with the bad toxins. Water based colon cleanses can also irritate the colon and cause injury.

Types of Colon Cleansing Foods

The best foods with which to cleanse the colon are those high in fiber. Fiber is the backbone of a healthy diet because it increases the feeling of fullness and satiety, is low in calories and helps food quickly move through the digestive system to flush out toxins.
Whole grains such as wheat, brown rice and quinoa, and fruits and vegetables are the best colon cleansing sources for fiber. By incorporating lots of fiber into the daily diet, the body will naturally reduce the buildup in the colon to cleanse the body of residual toxins and waste.
Other great colon cleansing foods are spirulina, algae, barley grass and wheat grass. Their high concentrations of chlorophyll helps them soothe and protect the colon during cleansing.

Foods to Avoid on a Colon Cleansing Diet

The two biggest culprits of toxin buildup in the colon are meat and refined sugar. Meat tends to be high in fat and loaded with antibiotics and hormones that impede the natural function of the colon and entire digestive system. Meat takes much longer to digest than grains, fruit and vegetables, which means it sits in the intestines and colon longer, putrefying and causing digestive issues.
Refined sugar is usually found in conjunction with refined flour, which backs up the digestive system instead of speeding its movement. Individuals who want to cleanse their colon through diet should avoid red meat and refined sugar during the cleansing process.

Colon Cleansing Time Frame

Fully cleansing the colon through diet should take at least one week of strict diet as described above. Colons that are full of toxins have about eight days of food buildup inside, which will flush out gradually over the course of a week.
For everyday people who are healthy but want to improve their digestive health, one week should suffice. Keeping the colon clean over time requires greater attention to the diet with one or two week long cleanses each year. For individuals suffering from severe colon issues and intestinal backup, a longer diet regimen can be prescribed by a physician.

Benefits of Colon Cleansing

By eating a healthy, colon cleansing diet, the body is allowed to work optimally and eliminate waste efficiently. A body with efficient digestion has more energy, clearer skin, and can better absorb vitamins, minerals and other nutrients from the food consumed.
The colon cleansing foods mentioned above are not strictly for dieting, and should be a regular part of a person's diet for ideal weight maintenance, health and sustained energy.

Considerations

An important part of having a healthy colon is having a good balance of natural bacteria present in the organ. Taking probiotics after a colon cleanse is a great way to maintain healthy bacteria in the body to aid digestion.