Roughing it

One of the ways your body takes care of itself is with its waste disposal system. The system works best when it has sufficient fiber to carry the waste. Yes, fiber is your personal garbage collector.

What is fiber? * Fiber is plant roughage. Animal-derived foods have zero fiber. Plant roughage is the part of beans, grains, seeds, nuts, vegetables, and fruits that resists digestion.

What does fiber do? * Fiber moves everything through your intestines, picking up and pushing it through, even scrubbing it clean as it goes. Fiber also absorbs all the chemicals and toxins you've ingested and gets rid of them.

How does it work? * The waste disposal system in your body starts with the liver, which continuously filters your blood. As your blood passes through the liver's network of capillaries, liver cells remove toxins, chemicals, cholesterol, medications, waste hormones, and whatever else your body doesn't want. These undesirables are sent from the liver through the bile duct and into your intestine. There, fiber soaks up this waste bile and carries it out with other waste products.

As long as you're eating lots of plant foods, your waste disposal system will work pretty well. If you eat a lot of animal-derived foods, the liver filters out the toxins and chemicals, sends them through the bile duct, and then… they have nowhere to go. So they get reabsorbed back into your bloodstream, and the whole process starts over. Think of it this way – not enough fiber equals a higher percentage of waste in your blood. And that makes your blood the garbage dump… and not the toilet.

Eat your fiber.