5 Easy Ways to Use Food Grade Activated Charcoal
Food grade activated charcoal is an amazingly useful substance, able to both be ingested and used topically on your skin or teeth. In other words, it serves both the inner and outer body. Many emergency vehicles and emergency rooms even use it as an antidote for poison victims and pharmaceutical overdoses. Along with garlic and echinacea, food grade activated charcoal should be part of your medicine cabinet.
I use a shaker with a strong sealing cap to mix at least eight ounces of non-fluoridated filtered water or distilled water with at least a tablespoon full of food grade activated charcoal powder; more is generally better. Capsules are good for certain occasions, but the powders, although messier, are more versatile for larger amounts with faster absorption.
It works by adsorbing (with the d not a b) toxins. The carbon molecules attract toxins and neutralize them with an electronic bond, then they escort the toxins out of your system via your stool. Some assert that you can only detox what’s in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, but that is misleading.
The inner linings of your small intestines are covered with millions of small villi, tiny appendages that absorb nutrients into the blood’s circulatory system, which cycles completely throughout the body at an average rate of once every minute, though more with exercise and less at rest. After the abundant tiny villi get coated with activated charcoal, within a few minutes blood cycles through them often enough for the charcoal to adsorb many toxins from the recycled blood. So it acts as a blood purifier.
Read: Benefits of Activated Charcoal – A Medicine for All
5 Applications of Inexpensive Food Grade Activated Charcoal Anyone can Use
- 1. Emergency antidote for poison or pharmaceutical overdose, especially acetaminophen (Tylenol) – Massive dosing is recommended to combat pharmaceutical overdoses – so mixed into water is the way to go. A rule of thumb is 8x the amount of the poison within you that needs to be targeted. Since a lot of activated charcoal at one time is harmless, some suggest taking 50 grams of this very light charcoal powder as soon after poisoning (including food poisoning) as possible.
- 2. Whiten teeth – Simply take a wet toothbrush and dip it into a batch of powder or empty a capsule of the powder onto a wet toothbrush. Brush for a couple of minutes and clean up the mess in the wash basin before it adheres, then scrape your tongue. This also helps remove bacterial toxins from your mouth that cause tooth decay and bad breath.
- 3. General detox – Dr. Al Sears in South Florida uses food grade activated charcoal powder in water and recommends it to his clinical patients. He prefers mixing it with water and taking 20-30 grams a day of powdered activated charcoal (in divided doses and away from food) mixed with water over a period of 1-2 weeks. Others say less. I’ve done about 10-15 grams first thing in the morning for two weeks at a time.
- 4. Gas, flatulence, and bloating – These problems could stem from numerous sources, and maybe only abstaining from certain foods will treat it permanently, but activated charcoal powder will give palliative (symptomatic) relief. Try to take it one hour before food or two hours after. If timing’s a problem, then perhaps a gram of capsuled powder will suffice.
- 5. Insect and snake bites – The toxins from their bites causes irritation, and worse. With minor insect bites and bee stings, soak a cloth or gauze in a solution of activated charcoal powder and water, then apply it to the area. For snake bites, do this and drink a bunch of the powder as well.
This short truth/untruth article will dispel some of the disinformation about food grade activated charcoal you may have heard or read.
Additional Sources:
Activated charcoal is indeed a wonderful medicine, but people should be aware that it binds strongly to iodine. Once-in-a-while usage is fine, but long-term use could deplete the body of iodine–which many people are already deficient in.
How often shud 1 ingest the tablets? I take just 2 per day.
It should only be used for emergency poisoning and short-term detoxing (one to two weeks). Taking 2 per day indefinitely will eventually deplete your body of iodine (if you even have enough to start with, which most people don’t). There’s no need to take it long-term.
Thx so much fr that inform. I had no idea. So I will take it only in 2 wk intervals fr detoxing purposes like 4 times per yr. Any suggestions on a powdered form of aloe vera?
You’re welcome. I’m glad to help.
Two detox sessions a year is usually enough for most people (spring and fall are normal time frames). Some might need more than that if they are really toxic, like with heavy metals and parasites and such.
You should look into iodine deficiency, especially if you’ve been taking AC for any good length of time. You can supplement with Lugol’s Solution or Iodoral if you’re deficient (there are tests you can take which can determine this). They contain both iodine and potassium iodide, both of which are needed by different parts of your body; Lugol’s is liquid and Iodoral is tablet form.
I once purchased powdered aloe from Mountain Rose Herbs so that I could use it in making personal-care products. I didn’t take it internally. The powder clumps very easily, in my experience. I just take mine in liquid form. Right now, the aloe I take is an ingredient in a nopal cactus juice blend. Before that, I took aloe arborescens, which is a slightly different plant than aloe vera; it’s used in part for cancer treatments. The juice I took is expensive, so I didn’t continue.
I’ve taken New Chapter’s aloe capsules but I stopped buying their brand when they sold out to Proctor & Gamble. I don’t trust them with my supplements seeing how they help to create a polluted world. George’s is said to be a decent brand of liquid aloe juice. They purify it to take out the constituents that can cause diarrhea. If I remember right, they use organically-grown aloe, though I don’t know if it’s certified organic.
Hey, there’s the reply that wasn’t showing up yesterday. Lol. My reply to this is above, in case you hadn’t seen it. Take care!
I will pray for u tonight. Just got your reply now. So sorry to hear of health news. But.keep on pluggin away. Be strong. I pray u get better. Tina
Thanks; that’s very kind of you. 🙂
Hi again, Tina. I just wanted to let you know that your last reply to me isn’t showing up because of a typo which made it look like you were posting a link. For some reason, it showed me the reply in my notifications, but it didn’t come through my email. I can still try to reply to it, though.
I do know quite a bit about these things because I was sick for a long time as a consequence of having IPL done on me (intense pulsated light treatments). My doctors at the time weren’t able to help me and soon after that I lost my insurance so there was no way I was going to continue seeing/paying them when they couldn’t even tell me what was wrong or how to fix it. As a result, I was forced to start doing a lot of research on healthcare; thus turning into my own (alternative healthcare) doctor. I was so sick that I couldn’t work, and so I was able to devote most of my time to research. Through a series of help from several energy workers, I was able to stop having strokes and continue living but I still couldn’t work a normal job so I just buried myself in information.
I learned that many of my problems before the IPL were caused by deficiencies and pathogens. It turned out that I just kept researching and learned about many other things that weren’t necessarily affecting me at the time. Unfortunately, the IPL put me down so far that my body couldn’t keep up and I am now treating myself for cancer. My pre-existing deficiencies and pathogen load combined with my energy problems and inability to exercise for 8 years led to my current state. It’s been a rough road and I still struggle with neurological and/or energetic issues, but I’m thankful for the opportunity to help other people now with my new-found knowledge whenever I can.
Good luck to you, Tina. I wish the best for your health. 🙂
May I ask what happened to you from the IPL?
Hi Dana. Yes, you may. It’s quite complicated and long, so I’ll try to summarize it in a few paragraphs. My IPL was for hair removal on my legs, bikini area, and underarms, so there was a lot of surface area involved (most IPL is done only on the face for things like acne scars, so most negative side effects are cosmetic only–which is, of course, a very traumatic thing to those people). After the first IPL session, not much happened besides a few headaches and feeling weird. It wasn’t until after the second one (about a month later) that the serious effects started occurring. I paid for three sessions and only had two done because of what was happening. I had the IPL in 2005, so my life has been in ruin for nearly 10 years because of it.
In brief, the effects of the IPL caused years of headaches so bad that it hurt to lay my head on a pillow, encephalitis of my brain and spine, brain fog, strokes, episodes of prolonged paralysis, sensitivity to light and sound, tremors, myoclonic jerking, severe fatigue, difficulty with swallowing and yawning and sighing and breathing, and subsequent weight loss. It also caused me to have severe neurological and nervous system dysfunction which has taken years to resolve, including speech impediments and word slurring, problems with reading (needing to reread sentences) and concentration, dyslexia, and trouble with muscle coordination and muscle strength. There was much damage to my energetic body.
As I mentioned to Tina, all of this eventually made it so my body wasn’t able to defend itself, and I am now dealing with cancer because of it along with my pre-existing nutritional deficiencies and pathogenic load. I’m still not back to “normal” (with regards to my neurology and energy problems) and I’m not sure I will ever be 100% again, but at least I’m able to function now–albeit at a reduced level from before the sessions.
I would highly recommend that everyone stay far far away from any IPL services. It has seemingly helped some people, but it has also harmed just as many people (again, most damage is cosmetic). I didn’t know about the problems people were having with facial IPL before I got it done on my legs and underarms, or I wouldn’t have had the procedures done on myself. It just wasn’t worth it–especially since it didn’t actually work (I went back to shaving and now use sugar wax). If it had worked, it *might* have been worth the trouble–but not likely.