It’s impossible to miss it! These days it is all about the detox diets, be it fasts, colonics or juice cleanses, spring-cleaning isn’t just about our homes anymore, its now also about our bodies. But unlike these extreme diets, you do not have to break apart from your regular life to make it to the finishing line. In traditional Chinese medicine, spring is associated with growth and birth. The Food for spring is associated with liver health and the cuisine stresses on the element of wood. So, as we roll up our sleeves to clean our homes, we must also clean and de-bloat our guts from the winter indulgences to foods that help clean our guts.

People have varying food habits around the world. But some things remain ubiquitously similar, amongst everybody. People tend to eat soups in winter and salads in summer, so what’s special about spring? Spring is the transition point between the two broader seasons hence, should achieve a balance in terms of diet as well. Winters are usually packed with eating not-so-healthy comfort foods, so spring diets can be useful to shed some pounds to prepare for beach ready bodes or just simply break-up with certain foods are too bad for you like sugar.

Here are some tips on how to detox your gut with spring foods that are not so difficult to follow through:

Beets

Beets have long been misunderstood among health professionals. They aren’t just decoratively beautiful without any nutritional value. In fact beets are quite the opposite. They are highly rich in antioxidants and also help boost stamina to improve exercise performance. They are known to activate the liver enzymes and stimulate bile, which allows faster absorption of healthy fats as well fat soluble nutrients, like Vitamin E. Moreover, beets are known to transform your bodies harmful fats and toxins into water solution materials that help to eliminate those through excretion.

Garlic

Another food item that helps boost the liver to produce detox enzymes is Garlic. These are enzymes naturally produced in your bodies that help to eliminate toxins. Garlic is also rich in 39 anti-bacterial agents that make it a great food for keeping seasonal illness away.

While it goes great in recipes the true benefits of garlic can be reaped if eaten fresh without cooking it, as the allicin compound from garlic helps kill bad bacteria in your guts. Putting it in salad can be an easier alternative to biting on fresh garlic cloves painfully.

Homemade juices and broths

This is the season for those Instagram-viral photos of colorful homemade juices and vegetable broths. Juices of fresh vegetables are in rich in enzymes that eliminate toxins. Leafy greens are hugely helpful to bring about gut health, so opt for the freshest ones. Slightly bitter ones especially work faster like dandelion, parsley, kale, mustard greens, chard, endives, spinach, arugula and bok choy.

Fermented foods

If you are feeling bloated and constipated for more than 3 days, then you need to reach for the pickle jar immediately. Fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, and pickles are tangy treats rich in gut healthy nutrients that help restore your gut micro-biome and stop things from clogging up the system.

Broccoli sprouts

Broccoli has forever been known as the poster child of healthy foods. It is also a detox superstar rich in antioxidants that help in sparking production of the enzyme glutathione. For detoxification, Broccoli Sprouts work much better than normal broccoli as it contains a detoxifying compound indole-3-carabinol. Another benefit of broccoli sprouts is its effects on preventing certain types of cancer, as it is rich in substances that are pre-cursor to the cancer-preventing compound, called sulforaphane.

Spring-cleaning or not, just remember – you are what you eat!