Foods for Liver Health

With the Christmas social season in full swing, this is the time of year that people tend to be a little excessive! There are numerous Christmas catch ups and the usual Monday to Friday routine of eating gets thrown out the window. Also, with all of these social gatherings usually comes more and more alcohol. So how do we use the foods we are eating to support our livers going through all of this and learn about what foods are good for liver health?

The liver is one of the main detox organs in the body, and so having a healthy liver is essential during Christmas time. The liver breaks down alcohol to prevent it becoming too toxic for the body to cope with. Remember as well that the liver has many other jobs to do, so having a liver that is not functioning as efficiently as possible can also affect our overall health.

Not getting too technical, the liver actually has two main phases on detoxification and we need to support both phases to ensure toxins are being removed from the body.

The food we eat over the next few weeks can actually assist the liver and support it in doing its job. Food that are good for liver detox include (I’m giving you just a few)

• Green leafy vegetables such as broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts or cabbage
• Herbs and spices such as garlic, rosemary, cumin, coriander, caraway, dill, fennel and turmeric
• Green tea
• Watercress

In addition, the amino acids that make up protein are essential for liver detox so do make sure that you are eating a little extra oily fish (salmon, mackerel, tuna) for lunch and nuts and seeds as snack.

Meat is also a good source of B vitamins, which help the detox processes of the liver.

And finally, fill your diet with fibre and anti-oxidants in the form of fresh fruit and vegetables, which will help support general liver function.

Happy Holidays