Recently I’ve been writing about what you believe as far as your health and making the best, most natural choices to support your health. One of the best choices is to get as much of your nutrition as you can from real food, foods that support the liver and other organs in your body.
When people talk about nutrition they usually talk about vitamins and minerals. You need to get your vitamin C and you don’t want to become deficient in iron. That’s fine up to a point, but rarely do any of those nutrients work alone in your body.
To really stay healthy, it’s better to look at the larger nutritional needs of your organs and organ systems.
One part of your body that you really need to take care of to stay healthy is your liver. It is one of the hardest working and most abused organs in your entire body.
What Does the Liver Do?
It would probably be easier to list the functions in your body that the liver doesn’t take part in. It plays a vital role in your digestion, circulation and immunity. According to MedicalNewsToday.com, the liver has at least 5oo distinct roles.
Filters Your Blood
If you compare your body to your car, one of your liver’s biggest jobs is as your oil filter. It filters your blood to remove toxins. That includes alcohol and drugs or medications. It filters out used-up blood cells and creates substances that help your blood to clot and to keep your blood vessels healthy.
Digests Your Food
Your liver produces bile to help digest fats, proteins and some vitamins. The liver stores and digests carbohydrates to help maintain a constant blood sugar concentration. The liver also keeps a supply of several vitamins and minerals so that they are always available when the body needs them.
What to Avoid for Healthy Liver
Since your liver maintains such a high profile in so many of your body’s functions, it is important to make sure that you don’t expose it to too many dangers. One of the biggest dangers appears to be overworking it.
Alcohol is the most common cause for liver problems in the industrialized world. Alcohol is one of the many toxins that the liver filters from your blood.
Some prescription, over-the-counter, and other drugs can cause issues for your liver as well. With some prescription drugs your doctor will test your blood for certain liver enzymes after prolonged use.
Excessive sugar and/or fat intake can cause challenges as well because the liver has to work harder to deal with the higher amounts.
Foods That Support the Liver
The best way to support any organ or system in your body is to eat the right foods. Science will never completely understand everything that we get from our food. They can identify certain substances and their effects, but they will never know how all of the ingredients in our food work together to create life.
There are certain foods that support the liver, that contain nutrients that specifically help it and its functions.
Garlic
One that I see come up repeatedly is garlic. It contains sulfur, allicin and selenium that help to cleanse and detoxify the liver.
Turmeric
Turmeric is another spice that I see come up a lot for its ability to aid in detoxification and stimulate bile production to help digest fats.
Glutathione
A lot of taking care of your liver has to do with giving it the tools to cleanse and detoxify itself. Glutathione is one of those nutrients that helps your liver to do that. Foods that are high in glutathione include grapefruit, avocados, walnuts, carrots and tomatoes.
Glucosinolates
Glucosinolates are sulfur compounds that also help the liver to flush itself and the body of various toxins. Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage are high in glucosinolates.
Artichokes
According to LiverSupport.com, the artichoke is one of the best vegetables to choose to support your liver. It’s antioxidant qualities protect your liver from damage before and after exposure to toxins. It can help your liver produce bile and get it out to the intestine where it is used. Finally, it helps your liver to not store too much fat and cholesterol, preventing other issues.
LiverSupport.com cautions that you want to be careful when you choose your artichokes because they are one of the most heavily pesticide sprayed vegetables available. It might be worth spending the extra money to go organic to make sure that your artichokes aren’t going to do more harm than good.
Sarsaparilla
Sarsaparilla contains a lot of vitamins and minerals – vitamins A, B-complex, C and D as well as iron, manganese, sodium, silicon, sulfur, copper, zinc and iodine. It can definitely help the liver to stockpile it’s vitamin closet.
The biggest benefit of sarsaparilla is its ability to bind with toxins and wastes to detoxify the blood, assisting the liver in one of its most important duties.
Health Supplements for the Liver
As I have said before, I think it is best to go with real food to get your nutrition. That isn’t always possible, so you turn to nutritional supplements. I do too. You can still choose good supplements that are made from actual food extracts instead of a chemistry set and vials of synthetic substances.
Of all the foods that support the liver, artichoke and sarsaparilla are the best I’ve heard of. The Liver Support supplement that I use is made from extracts of the artichoke bud and sarsaparilla root. That’s extracts from real food that is more likely to have the unknown substances along with the known nutrients that occur naturally in the plants to achieve the expected benefits.
Disclaimer and Disclosure
I am not a doctor and do not make any medical claims. If you have a liver ailment, please consult your doctor. I am an independent distributor for the Liver Support supplement that I use and may earn a commission if you order through the link above.
How Do You Support Your Liver?
Did you know that your liver is so important to your body that it is the only organ that can regenerate? It is, but you still need to take good care of it. What do you do to support your liver? Do you eat any of the foods that support the liver? Share your thoughts in a comment below. I would also appreciate it if you would take a moment to share this post with your followers on social media.