Chlorophyll - It Does More Than Color Plants

Most people have at least a passing awareness of the molecule known as chlorophyll.  They know it is contained in plants, and gives the leaves their green color.  Considerably less know that without chlorophyll, much of the current life on Earth would not survive.  Chlorophyll is critical in the process of photosynthesis, which allows plants to help maintain the oxygen levels in Earth's atmosphere.  Without chlorophyll, plant life would not be possible.  And animals, including humans, who have an environmental symbiosis with plants - our bodies have adapted to the current atmospheric content - would also disappear.

However, in addition to making life as we know it possible, chlorophyll also has another use for people.  This critical molecule not only helps to sustain people, it can improve your health via detoxification.

Chlorophyll-A.  The most common form of the chlorophyll molecule.

Author: Jynto (talk), under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

Chlorophyll has an exceptional ability to bind to toxic heavy metals.  It does the same to free radicals, converting them to a neutral compound.   In various places on the internet, you will read about detox via juice fasting.  The Sphere of Health does not endorse juice fasting - going for days without solid food and drinking only a blended, pureed concoction of chlorophyll rich foods, along with supplemental teas or tisanes, or oils.  Among other reasons, the shock of the calorie crash over a period of days can put your system in an extreme metabolic slowdown known as starvation mode.  To detox, you can make a chlorophyll rich smoothie juice, just do not make it your only food consumption for several days!

To preface, the Sphere of Health recommends you eat a diet that is high in leafy green vegetables to get more chlorophyll in your diet, if you are not doing so already.  To do a three day detox, with consumption of extra chlorophyll, the best way to do it is with an extra amount of these chlorophyll rich vegetables.  In general, when it comes to leafy greens, the darker the green, the higher the chlorophyll content.  Kale is one that should be included in the mixture.  Spinach, collards, or if you like spice, mustard greens would be a good option.  But one of the foods with the highest chlorophyll content is wheat grass.  It is recommended by any advocate of a chlorophyll detox procedure.  Two other highly touted components would be blue-green algae and spirulina.  Over a three to five day period, drink three servings of these concoctions in addition to a well balanced diet.  Here is an example of a sample recipe. 

We all will have days, where either our willpower is low, or busy circumstances, or we just want to treat ourselves due to an occasion or vacation.  In that case, if you are not going to get the adequate chlorophyll in your system on a particular day, or maybe even a string of days, for whatever reason, there are chlorophyll supplements available.