Why Janice Clyne believes clean eating is better than detoxing

Then she's out to the garden to feed her free-range rescue chickens and collect their eggs; while she's there she harvests lush curly kale and dark green cavolo nero growing in the kitchen garden. She feeds this into her juicer along with raw beetroot, red cabbage, red onions, pineapple, ginger and lime to whizz up a most delicious, vibrantly coloured health drink. "This gets live enzymes straight into your system and is a great detoxifier," she says brightly. "You can't get better ingredients than locally grown organic ones, because they retain their healthy vitamins and minerals and little if any pesticides. Eating them raw is more palatable if they're contained in a single drink."

Its vibrant colour belies the powerful hit of earthy, sharp flavours it delivers, its light sweet notes just enough to give it a pleasing lift.

Janice Clyne is a fresh new voice in the Clean Eating movement - a modern and, she argues, more realistic, eating plan than the usual January detox. If her lifestyle sounds complicated, she maintains that actually it's incredibly simple for everyone to stay healthy through diet. A qualified food scientist and biochemist who gained a BSc (Hons) in Agricultural Chemistry at the University of Glasgow (where she met her business development consultant husband Alastair, who was brought up in Drumchapel) and then an MSc in Analytical Biochemistry at Dundee University/Ninewells Hospital, Wishaw-born Clyne born has had an interesting career around food and drink. She has advised the likes of Warburtons bread, Chivas Regal whisky and Beechams fruit drinks on product development, and has trained as a macrobiotic health coach. She has established her own consultancy, Nourished by Nature, to empower others to lead healthy lives, delivering nutrition workshops.

"I love real food and am lucky in that I have the time and wherewithal to grow and buy it, but for those with less time and cash it's still possible to have a really healthy diet while avoiding cheap fat and salt in processed foods. My advice is to buy the very best ingredients you can afford, from Lidl, Asda and Morrisons as well as WholeFoods Market and Waitrose. It's a good idea to have a pot of vegetable soup on the go all week, and to use lentils as a substitute for meat as they are cheaper, don't go off and are fantastic for health as they go through the system quicker than meat. The more colours you have in your food, the better. Vegetable dips such as walnut and beetroot with tahini can be made and stored easily in the fridge for snacks. Beetroot is in season right now and it provides fantastic support for the liver, while raw cabbage can help those with IBS and stomach ulcers."

She recommends that Herald readers invest in a good juicer, but cautions against using too much fruit in juices and smoothies because this makes the drink too sweet, feeding our craving for sugar.

"In terms of health, sugar is the biggest problem in the world today. Sugar encourages cancer tumours because it makes our systems acidic. Fizzy drinks steal calcium and magnesium from the bones and can cause osteoporosis; since sugar creates acid in the system, the body has to find calcium and magnesium from existing sources so they can make new bone. On top of all that, sugar dulls the brain, makes you fat, causes wrinkles and rots the teeth. Far better to keep your body in a mild alkaline state."

She does not eat meat or dairy, and advises non-vegetarian readers to cut down and only buy best quality, high welfare, locally reared meat. "All animal products create acid in your body. Cholesterol only comes from food that comes from animals - ie, meat and dairy. You don't get it in plant-based foods."

So for clean eaters, milk and dairy are a no-no since they are mucus-forming and also acidic, and can contain hormones and antibiotics from cattle. The worst food, she says, is dairy ice-cream because it's a combination of sugar and dairy. "Remember, stressed is desserts spelled backwards," she cautions. Homemade desserts with bananas, nuts, dates, berries and raw cacao powder do the job of providing sweetness while nourishing the system.

"Every chronic disease - bronchitis, sinusitis, arthritis - has inflammation at its core, caused by sugar, dairy and gluten. Eating alkaline foods containing lots of omega 3 helps, but that's very low in processed foods."

Three of her daughters are vegetarian; the other is vegan; her husband dramatically cut down his meat consumption five years ago, and says he feels lighter and has more energy.

On a more delicate note, she says we should look after our bowels and be able to visit the loo at least twice a day; this is facilitated by a plant-based diet. "Constipation is a horrible feeling, as putrefying meat and dairy food gets clogged up in the system."

Clyne says she is not a great believer in dietary supplements as eating well should eliminate the need for them. "Clean fuel fills you up. You don't need meat to build muscle."

At 54, Clyne has the fresh skin, a lean figure and the effortless agility of a much younger woman; she says she sailed through her four pregnancies and her menopause. Testament, surely, of practising what she preaches. She says: "I don't take my health for granted. I don't want to get any chronic diseases. I eat what makes me feel good."

Neither does she believe in calorie-counting. You don't have to when you're eating well. It's not fat that makes you fat; good fats are in avocados, nuts, seeds, olive oil. It's sugar.

Diets don't work. Bringing in real food to the diet does. "Try to do one good thing a day and gradually the cravings for bad things will stop."

Visit nourishedbynature.co.uk