Detox: myth or miracle?

If you justify your Christmas and New Year's Eve food and drink binges by promising yourself a month of puritanical abstinence come January, you're not alone. The heady last few weeks of December can seem like one long party, filled with frequent visits to the pub, free-flowing booze and gut-busting foods, but now the New Year has arrived it's time to pay your dues. It's time to detox.

According to Meenu Bhandari, pharmacist and one of the founders of Farmacia, an Urban Healing Cosmetics shop in London, man has always been susceptible to bingeing and purging. She says, 'Since early times, man has been aware of the importance of an inner-self cleanse. Most ancient civilisations advocated a day of self-denial or fasting. The purpose of this was to allow the body to have the opportunity to clean itself of unwanted waste matter.'

How far we have evolved! If you're suffering a hangover from hell, the obvious thing is to swap the booze for water. But some of us want to go a step further and feel that only a complete body overhaul will return us to that mythical healthy and energised figure we imagined we were before Christmas hit us with a giant tin of Quality Street.

The case for

Farmacia nutritionist Penny Povey advocates a seven to ten-day detox on a diet of fresh fruit and vegetables, rice and grains including millet and quinoa, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds. Alongside this she's also a firm believer in the detox kit.

'A detox kit contains remedies with natural ingredients to neutralise and eliminate toxins from your body,' says Povey. 'Today's lifestyle with its high stress levels, processed foods full of chemicals, a polluted environment, high levels of electromagnetic waves, lack of exercise etc, all contribute to toxicity in the body.'