If you have been in the natural health community for any length of time you have probably heard about the supposed magical powers of cilantro to pull heavy metals from your body. Heavy metal detox smoothies with cilantro, detox tinctures, powders, potions, and various other products claim to use the magical power of cilantro to pull metal out of your body.
With heavy metals being the big scare tactic in natural health, anything that can “assist the body in detoxing” them has a huge appeal, which means money in the pocket of those who sell them. You may have even seen popular terrain theory gurus like Dr Kaufman profiting off selling you some expensive cilantro concoction to help you “pull out heavy metals.”
All of this marketing is a scam.
The people pushing it may not realize it is a scam, having fallen for some false correlations, lacking an adequate understanding of why the body creates symptoms, or having missed some lapses in logic in these claims, but it is a scam nonetheless and one which ultimately is keeping true health out of reach for you.
Cilantro is not a magical herb that can float around your body and suck out the heavy metals and there is nothing – no product, herb, pill, potion, or tincture – which can ever “assist the body in detoxing.” Anyone selling you on the idea of “assisting the body in detoxing” either is scamming you or is ignorant of how the body operates. They are selling you science fiction that belongs in Star Trek, not real life.
The body takes all action
When we consume any substance the substance itself is acted upon by our body. The substance is inert, meaning incapable of action, or dead. The food is chewed by the body and swallowed by the body. It enters the stomach where it is broken down and softened by the contractions of the stomach. The body creates and releases enzymes and acids to break apart its bonds. Then the body moves the substance from the stomach to the digestive tract, where additional contractions break the material down and the body’s bacterial colonies go to work on the substance. The body breaks down the material and the bacteria moves the material to the cells by passing through the walls of the digestive tract. Every step from the first bite to the elimination is an action taken by the body on a substance that takes no action.
Let us compare this to the cilantro chelation myth. In the claim, cilantro is said to attract heavy metals, pull heavy metals, remove heavy metals, or assist the body in removing heavy metals, often the claims state that it will remove heavy metals from our brains or improve cognitive function, presumably by its power of removing those heavy metals. How is this possible? Inert objects take no action. As we just saw, all actions are taken by the body against the substance. At no point does the cilantro gain the ability to direct its own action. The cilantro does not jump out of the stomach and swim up to the brain in order to work like a magnet to suck out heavy metals. This is biologically impossible.
Many people have fallen for this logical black hole, however cilantro is inert. Perhaps when bottled and sold for $120 for 1.58 oz it can suddenly perform magical feats. Back in reality, cilantro cannot push or pull, it can not attract or repel anything. It can no more take action on the body than a virus can. (https://www.therawkey.com/are-viruses-real/ ) Inert objects or substances cannot take action. Until that changes, cilantro cannot assist us in detox.
How did we get the idea that cilantro can detox us?
At this point, you might be wondering how this fallacy became a common claim in the natural and alternative health communities. There must have been some type of science that led to these beliefs. As with any bit of misinformation there is always some kernel of truth that they grow out of and the same is true with the idea of cilantro chelation.
In this case, an observation was made, heavy metals in water moved towards the cilantro in water. Much like a magnet pulling a metal paper clip, rather than remaining stationary the metal in the water moved towards the cilantro.
Here is the problem:
In vivo is not ex vivo.
In vivo means “performed or taking place in a living organism.” Ex vivo means “that which takes place outside an organism”. Cilantro in water is ex vivo, occurring outside of the body. Cilantro in the stomach is in vivo, occurring inside of the body. When we study something in science we are either observing an action in vivo, occurring inside the body, or we are observing ex vivo. Things that occur outside the body do not react in the same way inside the body. Outside the body, there may or may not be a living organism taking action against the substance. In vivo, the body is taking action.
Metal floating towards cilantro in a glass of water does not equal metal being pulled from the brain or some other tissue. The cilantro remains in the stomach until the body breaks it down and eliminates the waste. There is no way for the cilantro to magically pull from the brain to the stomach. The body takes all action. The cilantro is inert; it is dead. Nothing inert can move something from one area of the body to another. If anything was moved from the brain it would be by the action of the body.
Adding to the inaction of inert substances we must also realize that the stomach is a filter. The digestive tract and the stomach are outside the body, not inside. Picture the body as a donut and the stomach and digestive tract as the donut hole. Substances enter the mouth and exit the anus and the entire time they remain in the tube which is the digestive system. Only the body’s workers, the bacteria, and microscopic organisms can pass from the digestive tract to the interior of the body. These workers break down the usable material and carry that into the body while leaving behind all of the unusable material. The original food does not enter the body cavity, only the materials the body wants and can use will enter.
Now that we are clear on how dead material cannot take action, let’s look at why some people are confused into believing that cilantro, as well as other toxic materials like herbs, liver cleanses, kidney cleanses, etc., are “assisting their body with detox.”
Nothing can detox the body
When it comes to healing the body we cannot use products to start a detox, speed up detox, or influence detox in any way. All we can do is create a burden or not create a burden. What we can do instead is put the conditions in place to lift enough burden from the body so that the body is able to initiate the detoxification of old waste which is impairing cellular function. Rather than initiating detox for new poisons, when we remove burden the body can remove old waste and improve cellular function. We can stop putting in the poisons and toxins that require detoxification or rapid removal from the body and instead, the energy can shift to repairing decades-old damage and removing old waste.
Most importantly we can stop burdening the body with foods that are difficult to digest, assimilate, and eliminate and that drain our nerve energy and steal that energy away from the cleaning and healing processes.
In other words, healing is all about subtraction and not addition. Healing requires us to put less in the body, put less burden on the body, do less, and rest more. Healing is not about addition. We don’t add things to assist the body, we take things away to remove the burden from the body. To learn more about what detoxing is please read: https://www.therawkey.com/what-is-detox-really-its-probably-not-what-you-think/
Cilantro is a mildly toxic herb
Our body is equipped with certain defensive mechanisms to protect us from harming ourselves. Unfortunately, over many generations of social conditioning, we have taught ourselves to ignore or fear some of our greatest defensive protections.
The ones we fear are the expulsion symptoms: diarrhea, vomiting, coughing, sneezing, fever, and other symptoms. These are all used by the body to remove poisons, toxins, acidic cellular debris, and other waste that impair the body’s ability to function normally. Modern medicine has taught us to fear these healing processes and to apply either pharmaceutical poisons or more natural plant-based poisons to shut down the body’s healing processes and suppress the symptoms, rather than addressing and removing the cause of the excess waste. We apply poison to the body and then when the body responds by trying to remove the poison we apply more poison to the body until the body runs out of energy to expel it and instead moves further up the disease ladder. This is the basic premise of the medical model.
The defensive mechanisms that we ignore are our senses. We are gifted with a sense of taste and smell which are designed to protect us from consuming irritants, toxins, and poisons. When a food smells sour, we know that it is rotten and should not be consumed. If we ignore this sense and eat some yogurt or fermented foods, drink alcohol, or otherwise consume a rotten substance the body has to deal with this via other means, usually diarrhea or vomiting.
The sense is meant to protect us and avoid the expulsion symptoms from having to be used. But most of us have been well trained by society to ignore this protective sense when it comes to certain traditional “foods” and toxic beverages.
If we drink alcohol our first reaction is to pucker and have discomfort at the taste of the alcohol. The alcohol is not pleasant to consume. It is dry or bitter and if strong enough creates a burning sensation. The feeling we register is not one of comfort, even if we have been trained to associate positive emotions with drinking. This is our first warning that we are consuming a poison. Next, our stomach will register discomfort. We keep going though and eventually, we become intoxicated, which simply means we have been poisoned.
The body responds by activating all of its defensive mechanisms. If we are lucky we have enough vital energy in our body to vomit and remove the poisonous beverage out the way it came in, minimizing the damage to our cells. If our body lacks the energy from years of chronic abuse then the poison travels through our system and the liver has to spring into action to break down the poisons.
With each substance we consume our senses tell us if it is a beneficial substance or a toxic substance. Our natural foods cause no discomfort when eaten. https://www.therawkey.com/our-natural-foods-do-not-create-discomfort-or-disturbance-to-the-body/
Toxic substances cause some form of discomfort. The most common ways we register this discomfort are spicy, bitter, excessively salty, or sour (fermented). When we consume these substances our body becomes stimulated as it takes action against the material to remove it. This is akin to a red-alert, all-hands-on-deck reaction. The body ramps up its energy to defend itself from the damage the substance is causing. Unfortunately, we subject our bodies to these abuses from a very young age, long before we are capable of refusing the foods our parents force-feed us. Many children spit them out and cry but well-meaning parents keep forcing them to eat, not understanding the rejection because they were force-fed these same substances long ago and no longer have the awareness to realize the discomfort they cause.
This is how we have trained ourselves over many generations to ignore the senses God gave us. We do so at our own peril.
Cilantro is one of those substances. If your system is clean and you have awareness and vitality you will notice that cilantro is bitter and spicy. You would never sit down to a large bowl of cilantro because to do so would cause great stomach pain and likely vomiting. In small quantities, the poisonous herb is added to cooked foods to stimulate us. We eat it often enough that the body has stopped responding aggressively against the poison, the body simply doesn’t have the vital energy available to do so, but we do still get a mild rush from the injury that is caused each time it is eaten. This rush is stimulation and it is behind most of our food addictions and cravings.
Cilantro is just one of many ways the average person ingests toxins each day. Since we are burdening the body on a daily basis the body must conserve its energy. When we ingest a new irritant the body will respond to this with vigor, but if we eat irritants chronically the body becomes tolerant and conserves its limited energy for more concentrated poisons. However, when we return to the natural diet and return vitality to the body, we immediately notice the burning, the bitterness, and the discomfort. Regaining our connection to our senses allows us to omit this harmful herb from our plates.
However, for those who are not eating naturally, their connection to their protective senses is dulled. Instead of hearing the body’s warnings and heeding them, they consume the cilantro as a culinary spice or as a magic potion in hopes of ‘assisting detox’ and their body responds by ramping up detox symptoms. Then the unwitting victim sees the detox symptoms and believes the cilantro is “assisting detox.” What is really happening is the body is taking action against the cilantro itself, which is then taking energy away from the body being able to heal and do deeper cleaning. By taking the cilantro, they not only are not assisting detox but they are both causing injury to the body and taking energy away from the body that the body could be using to detox and heal removing old waste. Cilantro is not only not helping them detox but it is impairing detox by distracting and robbing energy.
This same misunderstanding has been used to sell other detox herbs, tinctures, TRS and heavy metal detox sprays, spirulina, chlorella, and other non-food supplements. In all cases, the increase in detox symptoms is a result of the body taking action against the supplement and not a removal of the heavy metals. They are only impairing and slowing the removal of heavy metals.
Only the body itself can remove heavy metals and the only way it can do so is if we stop causing the daily injuries that drain the energy from our body and impair the detox processes.
Do you want to learn more about how our self-healing and self-cleaning body remedies disease conditions and returns to a state of health when the conditions of health are supplied? Start by reading “Why do we get sick? – https://www.therawkey.com/why-do-we-get-sick/
Have more questions? Want to get answers about your specific health issues or concerns? I offer consultations, learn more about them here: Consultations – https://www.therawkey.com/consultations/
Ready to make changes but not sure how to begin? Need some motivation or accountability? Why not join our 30-Day Terrain Model Diet Support and Education Group: New Groups start on the 1st of every month! Support Group Information and Sign-Up Form – https://www.therawkey.com/terrain-diet-support-group/
Eat fruit and be well my friends.
