A peculiar thing about humans is that we’re persistently disturbed by reminders that we are, in fact, mammals who sweat, shed, bleed and expel foul matter on a daily basis. Entire industries exist to subdue the horror of having a body. Plentiful aisles in the drugstore are devoted to it. You’d think humans would have gotten used to the beastlier realities of existence by now. We’ve had millions of years to get used to it.

But no. How else to explain the prevalence of cleanses and detoxes, if not as antidotes to some perceived state of filth? In the early 20th century, John Harvey Kellogg prescribed yogurt whey enemas to promote “intestinal antisepsis” at his Battle Creek Sanitarium; today Cher tweets about getting colonics. If the impulse to cleanse ourselves is eternal, the areas to which we extend this metaphor are multiplying rapidly. It’s no longer enough to decontaminate the lower digestive system. Today we’re urged to purify closet, kitchen, desktop, checkbook, behavior and spirit. We are living in an age of “cleanse creep.”

“Toxins are better understood less as poisons than as barriers — obstacles to the life and health we truly want,” Deanna Minich writes in WHOLE DETOX: A 21-Day Personalized Program to Break Through Barriers in Every Area of Your Life (HarperOne/HarperCollins, $27.99). Minich, a nutritionist, defines “life toxins” as “mental, emotional or spiritual challenges” like gossip, water in plastic containers, ­people-pleasing impulses, disruptive electromagnetic fields, sugar, Splenda and nonorganic cocoa.

The book kicks off with a six-page quiz designed to suss out which areas of your life are most urgently in need of care. My impoverished areas were what Minich terms “the Fire” and “the Spirit,” signifying that my self-esteem, work-life balance and mind-body connection are out of whack. (This is correct.) What follows is an exhaustive program that readers may customize according to their personal ­weaknesses.

Woo-woo tips mingle with practical pointers. “Eat from heart-shaped bowls, and put heart stickers on your refrigerator,” Minich recommends. (Why? “To keep the spirit of love alive,” duh.) Ripe pears, she advises, are “especially good for moistening the lungs.” Eating barefoot with your legs uncrossed can make you feel more rooted. Among the more practical tips: Use green tea as a smoothie base if you want the health benefits but hate the taste. Buy seaweed flakes and put them in a salt­shaker to sprinkle over your salads and soups. (Think of it as salt’s wacky uncle.)

Like many people, I chafe against the phrase “clean eating,” and I’m suspicious of the implication that nonapproved foods are unclean. The idea strikes me as a crude counterpoint to the vogue for bestowing ­malevolent names upon enticing foods like deviled eggs and ­devil’s-food cake. There’s something penetratingly sad about our need to be reassured that a “sinful” chocolate cake is not literally going to damn us.

That doesn’t make Henrietta Inman’s CLEAN CAKES: ­Delicious Pâtisserie Made With Whole, Natural and Nourishing Ingredients and Free From Gluten, Dairy and Refined Sugar (Jacqui Small, $29.99) any less visually appealing. The author, a British pastry chef, is photographed in filmy white cotton garments, pink-cheeked and lissome with a basket of currants. The recipes in her cookbook are ­flower-strewn and photographed in mesmerizing close-up. Who wouldn’t want to emulate this lifestyle?

For Inman, “clean” means soy-free (which is easy; you don’t generally whip tempeh into cake batter) and, as the subtitle says, also devoid of gluten, dairy and refined sugar (which is a much tougher baking task, chemically speaking). To her credit, she uses the phrase “guilt-free” sparingly (once, by my count) and affirms that “the most important part of cooking is to bring happiness to the people who eat your food.” She is also a shrewd experimenter, boiling coconut milk into caramel and offering cashew cream as a frosting or pastry cream replacement. The cashew recipe yields an addictive satiny goo that reconstitutes itself into cement in your stomach, like anything properly delicious.