Week three of my 21-day cleanse has come to a joyful close. I am guilty of several outbursts of happy dancing, a nine-pound weight loss and a significant improvement in the stress to relaxation ratio; but no glitches in following the diet. It’s the first time I’ve achieved complete adherence, after four tries! Yeah, there was the accidental banana bread ingestion, but my intention remained consistent. I’ve renewed my commitment to eat mindfully, choose quality over convenience, and prepare food with love, creativity and enthusiasm. For however long it lasts, it’s an improvement.

The sacred ritual of eating food binds us to a place and time, and binds us to the company we keep. It’s why we loathe eating in hospitals, and love eating at celebrations. In Greek mythology, Persephone eats a pomegranate given to her by Hades, and becomes forever bound to the underworld. Eating connects us to the values, conditions and processes that created our food – ideally not from the underworld. Many of humanity’s sacred texts articulate rules on abstaining from some foods and carefully preparing others. In researching biblical texts, talking with friends, and doing a little soul searching, I concluded the message behind all of this is simply that food choices matter.

In my experience, there are two groups of people who really, truly love to talk enthusiastically about their bowel functions for hours on end: preschoolers, and people doing a detox cleanse. While I’ve never had an amazing must-tell-the-world experience in this arena, I do agree that if you’re going to do a cleanse, you need to be able to talk poo with your doctor (if no one else). Think of it like the scoreboard at a baseball stadium, in a game of you versus the undesirables. If you don’t keep an eye on your stats, you won’t play your best game.