I stopped looking a "science-based" anything a long time ago when I realized they were in bed with, and funded by, big pharma, big agro, big bio-tech, etc. They don't want us doing anything cheap that helps our health, so I ignore them.
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Who is "they" that is in bed with big pharma? Everyone who uses the scientific method?
You have to look at the funding source for studies you choose to believe in. The vast majority of universities and research hospitals are funded by the big guys. They do not fund anything that is not going to lead to a patent or high return on their investment. For example - telling people to avoid the toxins in the food supply is a money loser for those who create the additives.
The great thing about science is that anyone can do it! I hope, before you go telling people about detox routines, that you'll run a double blind study! I'd be happy to design one for you. It should be fairly simple. Serve both groups meals with identical nutritional content, but put an additive that you think causes a particular symptom in one group's foods. See after a few months if one group reports more or less of that symptom. Of course you need to make sure that the people they're interacting with don't know which group is which.
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I do not have to do any studies. I already have the experience of hundreds if not thousands of people in various fb groups who try reducing toxins, show almost immediate health changes, and go on to improved health. Everyone knows who everyone is and support each other through the process. The detox symptoms are dramatic enough that no one needs to be blind on top of that.
These fb groups are for people with chronic illnesses who have given up on, or have been excluded from traditional health care. The main groups I belong to are for any of the 200+ auto-immune diseases, migraines, ptsd, obesity, and depression/anxiety. All are in the category of "natural" remedies and treatments and all show the same good results.
The change in health does not take months - it takes only days to see results. A good example is with people who give up diet sodas. They remove colors, flavors, pesticides, artificial sweeteners and various other toxins in one fell swoop.
Some of those people who drink a lot of diet soda get noticeable results in hours. The biggest issue in that case is that the substances are addictive, so often giving them up is very difficult. Therefore many healthy foods and drinks are recommended to get through this difficult time.
Americans currently ingesting over 900 additives from the fda list that are Generally Regarded As Safe (GRAS). Once you get your chemical on this list - you can add it to anything in combination with any other additives from the same list. Trying to remove just one of them would be pretty much impossible.
The vast majority of these additives are not allowed in other country's food supplies at all. They have not been tested in combination and so therefore, the general public serves as lab rats. The cdc warnings are enough to make you wonder why anyone would put them in the food supply at all. Of course the answer is "money".
If you feel the need to prove this to yourself here is the suggestion I have given others. It is the same way I got started down this path.
Those are the big ones to start with, but you will find much more if you look. When I did this I stopped after checking several of GRAS products and decided to stop eating them all as best I could. At the same time, I boosted my nutrition intake from almost nothing to very high which was additional help in my healing.
Later:
Just remember: "They are blinding you with science" and you have the power to overcome.
... your example is diet soda and there many scientific studies linking diet sodas with health problems. Don't let your social group blind you to the usefulness of science.
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I have no use for studies funded by the people who make the additives. I have enough proof from the people who succeed in spite of those evil-doers. Since they know it is harmful, why do they still make it and allow it to be sold under the guise of GRAS? Once again, the answer is money.
If you do not like Diet Soda as an example, another is boxed rice mixes such as rice-a-roni vs making your own organic rice and doctoring it up with natural spices, herbs, and oils. You do not miss the colors, flavors and other addictive and harmful chemicals, it is healthier, and tastes better. The effort of buying the ingredients, learning to cook it and than actually cooking it are the stopping points for some people.
So, I want to get past the argumentativeness that we're both displaying and get into both where we're on the same page, where we diverge, and why I think it's important enough to engage with you about this "detox" thing.
If all you want to say is, "many people have unhealthy diets with low nutritional value, and they will feel better if they switch to diets high in nutritional value.", we have no disagreement. And there are many studies that will back us both up.
If you want to say, "capitalism encourages businesses to do things for profit, heedless of their impact on the well-being of humanity," I will likewise join my voice to yours with a resounding, "YES"
But I'm not sure why you're rejecting the scientific method whole cloth. If you want to say, "this study, funded by Pepsico, cannot be trusted because the people conducting were aware their funding would dry up if they didn't demonstrate xyz,", well, I will join you in being wary of it.
But there are several things that I can't get behind in this comment thread. The first is your repeated vagueness. I assume that you have specifics, but you want to acquaint me with the broad importance of this subject. I will be more able to understand your point of view if you give me specifics. One ingredient (or combination of ingredients) that, when removed from a diet (NOT accompanied by other lifestyle changes) resulted a particular symptom going away.
Another thing that has been difficult for me to understand from your perspective is why you "toxins" are the problem when you're asserting major life changes accompany this. If someone adds vegetables to their diet and removes soda, I expect them to feel better. That is the expected consequence, and many studies demonstrate that this does happen. What hasn't been demonstrated, and which you're trying to assert is, if you take their white rice that was raised with artificial fertilizers and pesticides and replace it with the same strain of white rice, but raised without artificial fertilizers and pesticides, and you do nothing else to change their diet and activity habits, they will feel better. You don't name the toxins you're trying to remove, but you just now mentioned "organic" rice.
I have no beef with your encouraging people to make healthy meals, and absolutely you can look at a box of rice-a-roni and see that the nutritional content isn't great. But that's not a matter of "toxins". That's information on the box. No scientist is lying to you. A marketing department, sure. Money that flows into the pockets of politicians who appoint business-friendly supervisors to head gov't organizations, sure. But a scientist? Not generally.
And the other thing that is problematic for me in your anti-science rhetoric is your assertion that you have hundreds and thousands of examples via FB groups. ...I belong to a number of parenting groups, and many of them have different perspectives. In one group I can find hundreds and thousands of examples of why this particular parenting philosophy works, and in another I can find just as many examples of why that first parenting philosophy DOESN'T work. People self-reporting are notoriously unreliable. We humans are susceptible to a variety of biases as we report. Sometimes we lie, sure, but that's not even the biggest problem. We BELIEVE things to be true, and we look for reasons that support what we already believe. So if you believe that diet soda is giving you headaches, well, maybe it is. After all, there's a lot of caffeine in that stuff. But just because your headache went away after you stopped drinking it, doesn't mean that's why. Maybe your headache went away because in lieu of diet soda you drank water, and you had been chronically dehydrated. Maybe your headache went away just because. Maybe you still have a headache, but you expect it to feel better, and so you think it's less of a headache. Maybe you stand up straighter (this has been proven to make you feel more resilient, even if you are feeling the same amount of pain).
Here's another example from real life. My friend Chris, like you, believes that there are a lot of herbal remedies that are being hidden from us by corporations. Things like echinacea, etc. So when he gets sick, he goes to the store and spends $50 buying these supplements (I think this is ironic.) He swears that after taking them and only after taking them he gets better. He usually gets around to dropping $50 at the store when he's frustrated because he's been sick for several days.
So, to him, he gets better because he takes these things.
I also have colds sometimes. I also get frustrated after having a cold for several days. I do not buy anything at the story in order to get better. Shortly after the peak of my frustration, I also feel better. That's how our immune system works.
The point is, the scientific method helps us distinguish between causal relationships, correlative links, and just coincidence. There are enough people in the world that you can find a bunch of them who have had similar experiences for common stuff like this, even if there's no actual causal relationship. To illustrate the point, I will put forth this thought experiment:
1000 people are given a glass of beet juice in the morning and are told "beet juice will make you happier". Statistically 50% of the people are happier than usual and 50% of the people are less happy than usual. The ones who are happier than usual will make a facebook group called "BEET JUICE WORKS". The other ones will make a group called "BEET JUICE IS A SCAM". Everybody will believe that they are correct. They will become invested in being right, and even if anomalous results occur, like a person doesn't have a good day while high on beet juice, they'll find excuses for why it was different that day. Maybe they'll form a sub-group, "BEET JUICE WORKS, but only if you've been to the dentist at least once this year" or whatever.
I hope that my beet juice example at least made you giggle so that you aren't upset about this.
I'd also like to mention that you don't hear from the people who aren't having good results. A sweet friend of mine who had cancer and believed believed believed that doing all these things would help her. It didn't. One counter-example doesn't make you wrong. Cancer is an asshole. Maybe there's truth to some of what you assert and maybe there isn't. But the presence of anecdotes in your FB groups is not sufficient evidence to make the strength of the claims you're making. It is sufficient to begin studies. Studies are done. Science is not an enemy. It is a tool. Capitalism is the enemy.
If you want to talk about cancer there is this example of a failed protocol:
Yet, if doctors in the us want to try alternative cures, they lose their licences, go to jail, or move to other countries which are not so genocidal.
I do have all the example I need of the failure of the us food supply. This is the 80% of Americans who are obese and overweight and think this is their fate.
When I was a fat kid in the 1960's, I was one of few. By the time I found out about the BMI chart in the early 1980's I was one of the 18% of people who were obese on it.
So are Americans lazier and stupider now or it the food supply more poisoned? I choose to believe this is systematic poisoning and work to help people change as I can.