Healthy Living

22 Hipster Health Trends That Need to Stop Right Now

Detox cleanses and juicing

A favorite of the hipsters and yogis alike is the detox, which basically means just starve yourself for a week and drink something repulsive and green from a blender.  Isn't that amazing? Not really. We have kidneys that detox us every day.  There! We just saved you about $500 and a week of misery.

In an effort to get more fruits and vegetables into our diets, juicing has risen to fame in recent years. This involves extracting the juices from fruits and vegetables to obtain their nutrients. People have adopted this trend as a way to detoxify the body or to help them lose weight. Although juicing does offer some health benefits, ultimately, it is not a better alternative. For one thing, juicing eliminates the fiber you get from eating whole fruits and vegetables, along with many antioxidants that naturally bind to plant fibers. And while it can help you lose weight in the short-term, over time, a diet that relies on drinking fruit and vegetable juices can actually slow your metabolism. In the same vein, juice cleanses can increase your risk of metabolic syndrome, as well as liver damage and obesity.

Adding the occasional fruit or vegetable drink to your diet won’t hurt you, but replacing whole meals or even your entire diet with them is not a good idea.