Every January my inbox fills up with the same question, phrased a dozen different ways: what should I eat to reset after the festive weeks of trifle, cheese boards and one-too-many glasses of something sparkling? I understand the pull of it. There’s a tidy appeal to the idea that a few days of green juice can wipe the slate clean.
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to, though. Your body already has a cleansing system, and it’s a good one. Your liver, kidneys, gut and skin work around the clock without needing a special program from me or anyone else. As Healthdirect points out, there’s little evidence that detox diets do anything your organs aren’t already doing. So I’ve stopped thinking about food as a scrub-brush and started thinking about it as support. What can I put on my plate that makes that everyday work a little easier?
That reframe changed how I eat, and it’s a lot less punishing than a cleanse.
Why ‘cleansing foods’ is really just good food
When people talk about cleansing foods, they usually mean fruit and vegetables, whole grains, legumes and a few fermented bits. There’s no magic ingredient in any of them. What they share is fibre, water, and a spread of vitamins and plant compounds that fit neatly into the way we’re built to eat.
The team at Better Health Victoria recommends filling half your plate with veg and fruit, and honestly that single habit does more than any powder or protocol I’ve seen. I’m wary of anyone who tells you a specific food will flush toxins out of you. I’d rather talk about what these foods bring to the table, day in and day out.
Fibre, the quiet workhorse
If I had to pick one thing that supports the body’s everyday clearing-out, it would be fibre. It’s in fruit, veg, wholegrains, beans, legumes and seeds like chia and flax. Fibre keeps things moving through the gut, which is one of the main ways the body gets rid of what it doesn’t need.
It also feeds the good bacteria living in your gut, and it helps you feel full for longer, which takes some of the heat out of that mid-afternoon biscuit craving. Apples, oats, chia and flaxseed are easy places to start. Most of us fall short of the recommended intake, so this is low-hanging fruit in every sense. If your digestion has been sluggish since the holidays, more fibre and more water is a gentler place to begin than any juice regime, and I’ve written more about that in our gut health challenge.
Colour on the plate
The old advice to eat the rainbow holds up. Beetroot, carrots, berries and leafy greens each bring different plant pigments and nutrients, and eating a range of them means you’re not leaning on any single food to do everything.
- Beetroot and carrots are sweet, earthy and cheap, and they grate beautifully into a salad or blitz into a juice. I keep a bunch of beetroot in the fridge most weeks.
- Berries are little parcels of antioxidants, and blueberries in particular. I buy them frozen out of season and they’re just as good stirred through porridge.
- Leafy greens like spinach, rocket and kale bring fibre, folate, iron and vitamin C. The bitter ones, rocket especially, wake up a plate that’s gone a bit beige.
Green vegetables also contain chlorophyll, the pigment that makes them green. I love a big handful of greens in a smoothie, and if you want somewhere to start, our green smoothie bowl is the one I make most mornings on the Central Coast before a swim.
Healthy fats and a handful of nuts
Avocado and walnuts often get lumped in with cleansing lists, and I’m glad they do, because fat isn’t the enemy it was made out to be when I was younger. Avocados bring monounsaturated fats and a creamy texture that makes vegetables more appealing to fussy eaters, which is half the battle in most households.
Walnuts, along with chia and flaxseed, carry omega-3 fats. Eat for Health, the national dietary guidelines, groups nuts and seeds with the foods we should be eating more of, not fewer. A small handful of walnuts on a salad or in your porridge is an easy addition, no recipe required.
Fermented foods and your gut
Sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha and kefir have gone from niche to supermarket-shelf in the years I’ve been writing about food, and I’m pleased about it. Fermented foods carry live bacteria that add to the mix already living in your gut. A healthy, varied gut community is tied up with digestion and how we feel generally, though the research is still catching up on exactly how far that goes.
You don’t need much. A forkful of sauerkraut alongside dinner, or a small glass of kefir, is plenty. I started with a spoon of kraut on the side of my eggs and now I’d miss it if it wasn’t there. If a food makes you feel good and you’ll actually keep eating it, that counts for a lot.
Herbs, garlic and the things that add flavour
Garlic, onions and turmeric turn up on nearly every cleansing list, and while I’d steer clear of any grand claims about them, they earn their place for a simpler reason. They make vegetables taste good, which means you eat more of them.
Turmeric is nearly tasteless and stirs into curries, soups and scrambled eggs without complaint. Garlic and onions form the base of most dishes I cook. Nutrition Australia has a good rundown of building meals around plants and wholefoods, and flavour is what makes that sustainable rather than a chore. A pot of vegetable soup, heavy on the garlic and greens, is my version of a reset, and it beats a juice cleanse hands down.
The habits around the food
Food is only part of it. Water, sleep and moving your body all support the same everyday systems. When I’ve slept badly, I crave sugar and reach for the wrong things, so I’ve come to treat rest as part of the picture rather than separate from it. There’s more on that link in our piece on sleep and weight loss, and if the holidays left you frazzled, a few tips to reduce stress will do more good than any single superfood.
None of this asks you to give anything up or follow a rigid plan. Add a bit more colour, a bit more fibre, a bit more water. Cook things you enjoy. Your liver and kidneys will keep doing their quiet work, and you’ll feel steadier for the support. That, to me, is the whole point.
— Tanya Pryce, Golden Door Living
