Cleaning the Lymphatic System for Health and Healing and its Relation to Diet

I’ve seen more and more people throughout the years asking for help recovering their health after having tried various things.  I decided to put together something fairly simple that discusses how our lymph system seems to hold the key to detoxing and bringing health back to the body.  I’ve spent so much time learning that I’ve kept the simple things and discarded the rest, so I don’t have lots of scientific terms to explain things and it’ll be fairly simple.

The body is composed primarily of two major fluids, blood and lymph.  Everyone knows about blood, but few are aware of the lymphatic system.  The blood system is essentially a nutrient carrier system.  It carries food throughout the body to feed all of the cells which make up the body.  It’s said that the human body is made of roughly 100 trillion cells.  Every single one of them needs to be fed.  But what isn’t discussed much or well known, is that every cell also excretes waste, and what happens to that waste.  The lymphatic system is the body’s waste removal system, and there is over twice as much lymphatic fluid in the body than their is blood.  It seems to be an important system in the body with an emphasis on removal of cellular waste.  After the cellular waste finds its way into the lymph system, all of the lymphatic channels drain to the kidneys, where it can be excreted from the body.

The lymphatic system, unlike the blood system, has no pump.  It has one way valves that open and close through physical movement.  Stretching, being active by walking/jogging/running, rebounding on a mini trampoline, trotting on horseback, yoga, various exercise, etc. are some of the types of things that allow these valves to open and close so that the lymph fluid can find its way to the kidneys and the cellular waste can be removed.  Being active is more than healthy, it seems to be pertinent to the function of the lymph system.  There are even types of massage with a focus on lymphatic drainage.

What happens if this system is backed up or if the kidneys aren’t functioning?  Quite simply, the cellular waste backs up and we begin feeling that congestion in those areas of our body that it accumulates.  Migraines, joint aches, tumors, arthritis, chron’s, eczema, disease, etc. are all types of ailments that can be attributed to having a stagnant lymph system.

How is it that the lymph system becomes stagnant?  In large part it has much to do with the foods we eat as well as being too sedentary.  When we consistently eat foods that the human body is capable of surviving upon, but doesn't seem to thrive upon long term, we become “acidic” and the body deals with it in different ways.  Mucus is one way it will deal with this waste so that it doesn’t harm the body.  Leaching minerals to counter act the acids is another common one, such as calcium leaching from connective tissue and bone.  When we continue to consume what seems to be survival foods over long periods of time we accumulate acids and mucus, which the body becomes inundated with and the lymph system begins to back up.  When this goes on too long we start to lose function of our primary cellular elimination organs, the kidneys.  And then we begin to notice symptoms or ailments starting to show up.  It generally takes years for these conditions to become evident because the human body is an incredible survival organism.  Yet most of us are at the tail end of several generations or more of grandparents and parents eating these ways, so we’ve been born with considerable genetic weaknesses and we are experiencing ailments at a much sooner rate than the generations before us.

Not to worry though, this is all easily remedied.  But first we need to become aware of how this is happening and what we can do to reverse it all.  The how is simply from a diet and sedentary lifestyle that keeps our primary elimination channels from fully functioning which causes an accumulation of cellular waste within the body.  And what we can do to reverse it is to adopt a diet and active lifestyle that seems to have shown its ability to heal a multitude of people, while also including herbs to enhance tissue function of various glands and organs.

If we look at our physiology it begins to reveal some clues about a diet that will bring the body into a self cleansing state.  Every single one of our cells uses simple carbohydrates as a fuel source, so everything we consume that isn’t a simple carbohydrate needs to be broken down into a simple carb/sugar so that the cells can be fueled with energy.  The most simplest of carbohydrates is fructose, which is abundantly found in fruit.

And when we compare our physiology across all the different species out there, it becomes more evident as to the types of foods that the human body can use to generate this level self cleansing, which will get the lymph moving to bring about healing at an expedited rate. One thing to look at is the length of our GI tract compared to our body.  Carnivores have the shortest GI tract 1.5-3 times the length of their body and the most acidic stomach acids so that they can break down their food source quickly.  Having the shorter length of GI tract allows them to digest the food they eat before putrefaction sets in.  They digest their food very quickly, within 2-4 hours for complete digestion.  Omnivores would be next, their GI tract length is around 3 times the length of their body and they have very acidic stomach acid.  They have complete digestion in 6-10 hours, depending largely on what they eat.  Neither a carnivore or omnivore require fiber to stimulate peristalsis.  Looking at an herbivore, they have a GI tract 20 times the length of their body, and have complete digestion from 24-48 hours.  Frugivores have a digestive tract 9 times the length of their body and they have complete digestion around 12-18 hours.  Humans digestive tract is 9 times the length of their body and they experience complete digestion in 12-18 hours.  The herbivore, frugivore, and human all require fiber to stimulate peristalsis.  Here’s a picture that explains the difference between species in more detail.





So back to the lymph system and how important it is.  When we adopt a diet that brings about such alkalization and hydration to the tissues of the body, lymphatic stagnation begins to break loose and it is excreted through the kidneys, which will bring hydration and alkalization even deeper into the tissues, then the process can continue on even deeper levels within the body.  We can and should enhance our bodies with herbs, which will expedite the removal of theses wastes, while eating foods that alkalize and hydrate the tissues of the body as well as being active.  The human body is capable of healing from a myriad of ailments.  Even environmental toxins from industry will be removed….asbestos will come out of the body, as will heavy metals, toxic resins, and all manner of industrial byproducts.  It seems that everyone who adopts this type of diet and uses herbs, begins to detox and heal from their ailments.  And accidents which physically harmed the body seem to be recovered from as well.  There is a skydiver who was paralyzed after an accident who is now walking because of his adherence to a raw food high fruit diet with lots of herbs and lots of fasting.  Here’s a short clip of him.  Paralyzed Skydiver Walking  It’s been a while since I looked into his story, so you may be able to find more info if you search for it.?

Here’s a growing number of people sharing a little bit of their healing story.  BeMyOwnHealer
Hilde Larsen's youtube channel who has recovered from extreme rheumatoid arthritis and is very knowledgeable on the subject of detox and healing.
Athena from her youtube channel Emerald Cafe has overcome severe chron's.
Bone and Nerve Regeneration & News Report A video of a man discussing his recovery following this path using Dr. Morse's advice.
You can find many others across the internet and quite a few on youtube.
Dr. Morse also has a fan page on Facebook that was created by people who found healing on this path.

I’m going to embed a couple videos of Dr. Morse who has been helping people along this path of detox and healing for over 40 years.  In both videos he talks about the lymphatic system and how get it functioning again, using foods and herbs, to regain health.

The Great Lymphatic System


Detoxification the Art and Science


That’s it for now.  That should help anyone get started on the journey of finding healing and health by getting the lymph system moving.  Dr. Morse is at the top of the list if you want to learn about cleansing the lymph system using foods and herbs to bring healing to the body.  There are many other great raw foodist’s on youtube with lots of great recipes to help you transition into a raw food diet that will help you find your path onto one of healing and health through getting the lymphatic system moving.  I like TannyRaw on youtube for all her recipes, FullyRawKristina has good recipes too, as does LifeRegenerator and TheRawAdvantage.  There are quite a few others and you’ll learn enough from them to come up with your own delicious recipes.

I’ll share my favorite fruit smoothie recipe that I’ve been making for almost 5 years now.  I use a Vitamix blender with an 8 cup carafe/jug.  A regular blender will sort of work, it’ll just be kinda chunky and you may need to add more liquid.  I like deep red or black grapes, whichever is the freshest and sweetest at the time.  HINT on finding fresh grapes…look for green stems, this shows that they were picked most recently compared to the ones with dry stems. ;-)  And I find a frozen fruit mix in Costco or Sams club that has pineapple, mango, peach, and strawberries.  I purchase the tastiest freshest oranges I can find.  I first fill my Vitamix with about 3-4 cups of washed grapes.  Then on top of that I fill with the frozen fruit mix to about the 7 cup mark.  I am currently using the juice from 3 oranges that I juice with my citristar juicer.  With all the fruit in the Vitamix carafe, when I pour in the juice , it comes up to around halfway on the carafe.  With the grapes and this much orange juice, I find that I don’t need to add water.  I blend it up for around a minute or so.  If you have a dehydrator, this makes excellent fruit leather.

I’ll share a salad recipe of mine that I frequently make as well.  I like to shred my salad greens fairly fine, I also make cuts down the length of the greens/romain before shredding to also make the pieces short.  This is sort of a general dressing recipe that changes depending on what I have, but these are the staples I typically use.  About 4 tomatoes, generally roma.  1 ripe bell pepper, no green ones.  A spicy chili, I like habanero.  4 celery stalks. 1-2 large pitted dates.  The juice from one lemon, I’m careful to keep the seeds out because they are bitter.  And I like to use dill weed and seed, I don’t know how much, I go by taste.  Sometimes I’ll add a little bit of an Italian herb blend, though generally not much.   You’ll need to chop the tomatoes, bell pepper, and celery to get it to pull into the blender blades.  Add the wettest stuff first/tomatoes, to help pull everything else into the blades.  I blend all this up really fine in my Vitamix for about a minute, it makes about 4 cups of dressing and will cover quite a bit of greens.  I like to also make zucchini noodles with a spiralizer and chop them into small bite size pieces to mix with the greens sometimes.  Adding finely sliced celery and chopped cucumber is good too.  You can also finely dice an avocado to add to the salad mix.  Having some dulse to munch on is pretty good as well, I generally don’t add it to the salad, I just like having it on the side.