Today I want to discuss how to cleanse your liver as well as the top 14 foods to cleanse and detox your liver. Your liver is your second largest organ, and it is so important for detoxification and for your overall health. So first I’m going to go over my five top ways that you can detox your liver on a regular basis.
Number one is start by removing all the toxic stuff in your diet. Listen, you can take all the pills, all the supplements, all the potions you want. and you know what? They will not do any good until you start getting the junk out of your diet. So step number one in doing a liver cleanse is to remove the processed grains and sugars and fast foods and packaged foods. Get rid of it all and just eat real food.
foods to cleanse the liver
Fruit it in its whole form, vegetables in its whole form, organic grass-fed meats, sprouted whole ancient grains, stick with those types of foods if you want to naturally cleanse your liver, and stay away from packaged, processed foods, especially conventional meat and dairy. Conventional meat and dairy are loaded with pesticides, herbicides, GMO residue, antibiotic drugs, steroids, hormones, other medication residue. Those are all stuck in those meat products that you consume. So again, stop consuming conventional meat and dairy is the number one step to detox your liver for good.
Step number two is start consuming liver-detoxifying herbs. There’s three specifically — milk thistle, turmeric, and dandelion. Now, milk thistle is known as the king of detoxifying herbs, and it’s been shown to specifically boost an antioxidant in your body called glutathione, which helps detox your liver and your cells. So milk thistle, again, the number one herb, typically 150 milligrams twice daily of milk thistle will play a huge role in supporting liver detoxification.
The second herb is turmeric. Turmeric has been shown to be very high in antioxidants that helps both the liver and the gallbladder. So turmeric, you typically want to do about a tablespoon daily in your food or supplementing with two capsules daily of about 1000 milligrams. That’s also going to help. The other great thing about turmeric is it reduces liver inflammation. So it reduces inflammation of your GI tract, so your colon as well as of your liver. So again, 1000 milligrams of turmeric daily, great for reducing liver inflammation and cleansing the liver.
turmeric foods that cleanse the liver
The third herb is dandelion. Dandelion is packed with potassium and other herbal compounds that have been shown to act as a diuretic and causing your liver to release toxins and also support the gallbladder in releasing bile. That’s really what’s going to cause that liver to dump the toxins. So there’s a great benefit of taking milk thistle, turmeric, and dandelion in a combination in a cell detox or a liver detox supplement.
But again, those three herbal extracts are the most effective herbs at naturally detoxifying the liver. Not to say there’s not others, like bupleurum and a few others that are great for the liver. But those are some of my favorites.
The third thing you need to do to detox your liver is to work on your body emotionally and detox your emotions. According to ancient Chinese medicine, the emotions you experience directly affect certain organs. When it comes to your liver and cleansing your liver, there are specific emotions of number one would be frustration. The other one is resentment, unforgiveness, and anger.
Those are the four emotions that directly affect your liver. So if you know you struggle with frustration, if you tend to get frustrated easily, if you have anyone in your life, including your spouse or coworkers that you tend to have resentment towards them, know that you’re not hurting them, you’re hurting yourself. You’re hurting your liver. Those toxic emotions are literally shutting down your liver and your body, creating disease in your system. And what I’d recommend you to do is get out a sheet of paper, write down all the people you haven’t forgiven, all the people you feel any ounce of resentment towards, your parents, spouses, coworkers, and really work to absolutely forgive and forget.I also just recommend as you do that, you may want to work with a counselor on this. You may want to work with a dear friend that’s close to you.
Listen, those toxic emotions aren’t hurting them, they are hurting you. So you really want to make sure that you work on healing and detoxing those emotions. Another great way to do that is practice gratitude. One of the things I do every morning is I get up and say what I’m grateful for. But practicing gratitude, forgiveness, building joy into your life, reading personal growth books, reading your Bible and reading scripture and memorizing verses, those types of things really will help you become free. But listen, don’t keep it inside. You really have to talk and work with somebody on this as well. So again, a best friend, a counselor, a church, those things can all help. But again, if you truly want to detox your entire system and liver, you’ve got to work on that emotional aspect as well.
Step number four, eat real livers.That’s right. I’m telling you to eat liver, like chicken liver or beef liver. In fact, ancient practitioners or practitioners from the past 100 years really used liver supplementation to help overcome liver toxicity and other diseases. If you look at men like Weston A. Price, the famous dentist who traveled the world and found what really caused disease, gum disease and liver disease and disease in the body. He recommended liver supplementation. Dr. Royal Lee, who started the company Standard Process, recommended raw liver supplementation and liver capsules and had great results with patients.
Dr. Gerson, who started Gerson therapy, recommended beef liver in overcoming cancer. So you can see here real liver is great. So what I do is I do a chicken liver. You can make a chicken liver p�t�.I’ll do a chicken liver Crock-Pot, where I’ll do two-thirds chicken, two pounds of chicken and maybe one pound of chicken liver I pick up at my farmer’s market or health food store. Do that with celery and onions and carrots and make it into a big Crock-Pot. That’s another way to do it. Or hey, if you just can’t eat liver, you can buy desiccated liver tablets online. Another easy way to do it is getting liver in your diet.
Step number five for a natural liver cleanse is to consume foods that cleanse the liver and specifically think spring.Think sprouts, salads, sour foods. In fact, sour foods, according to ancient Chinese medicine, are the foods that are most nourishing to the liver. So think about this, again, a big spinach salad with sprouts, maybe some tomatoes, some cucumber and then sprinkle a little bit of olive oil. Then along with that, some apple cider vinegar.
Again, you’ve got the sourness, you’ve got the fresh sprouts. But again, apple cider vinegar, sprouts, vegetables, vegetable juices, all of those foods are very cleansing to the liver along with sour foods, including most probiotic-rich foods, things like kefir. Also, sauerkraut, kimchi, beets, artichokes, dandelion greens, all of those are fantastic for naturally cleansing the liver.
Next, I am going to talk about 14 foods that cleanse the liver. When the liver is taxed it can’t process toxins and fat in an efficient way. There are many foods that can help cleanse the liver naturally, by stimulating the natural ability to clean toxic waste from the body. Eating the following foods is the best way to keep your liver healthy and functioning the way you need it to.
Number 1, garlic. Just a small amount has the ability to activate liver enzymes, which help your body flush out toxins. Garlic also holds high amounts of allicin and selenium, two natural compounds that aid in liver cleansing.
Number 2, grapefruit. It’s high in Vitamin C and antioxidants, and has the natural cleansing ability to support the liver. Grapefruit juice helps boost the production of liver detoxification enzymes, and helps flush out carcinogens and other toxins.
Grapefruit1 to cleanse the liver
Number 3, beats and carrots. Both extremely high in plant flavonoids and beta-carotene. This helps stimulate and improve overall liver function.
Number 4, green tea. This liver loving beverage is full of plant antioxidants and catechins, a constituent known to assist the livers overall function.
Number 5, leafy green vegetables. One of the most powerful allies in cleansing the liver that can be eaten raw, cooked, or juiced. High in plant chlorophylls, greens literally suck up environmental toxins from the blood stream and the body. They eliminate and neutralize chemicals and pesticides and are powerful protective mechanisms for the liver.
Number 6, avocados. This nutrient super food helps the body produce glutathione, which is necessary for the liver to cleanse harmful toxins. Recent studies show that avocados greatly improve liver health.
Number 7, apples. They are high in pectin, apples hold the chemical constituents needed for the body to cleanse and release toxins from the digestive tract. This makes it easier for the liver to handle the toxic load during the cleansing process.
Number 8, olive oil. Cold pressed organic oil such as olive oil, hemp seed oil, flax seed oil, are great for the liver. When used in moderation they help the body produce a lipid base that can suck up harmful toxins. In this way it takes some of the burden off of the liver in terms of the toxic overload that many of us suffer from.
Foods to cleanse the liver
Number 9, whole grains.Grains such as brown rice, which are rich in B complex vitamins, improve the overall fat metabolization and liver function as well as liver congestion.
Number 10, cruciferous vegetables will add necessary enzyme production in the liver and support it. These natural enzymes will help flush out carcinogens and other toxins from the body.
Number 11, lemons and limes. These citrus fruits contain high amounts of vitamin C, which aids the body in synthesizing toxic material into substances that can be absorbed by water. Drinking freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice mixed in water in the morning will help stimulate your liver.
Number 12, walnuts. Holding high amounts of the amino acid arginine, walnuts aid the liver by detoxifying ammonia. They also support glutathione production in the liver.
Number 13, cabbage. Much like broccoli and cauliflower, eating cabbage will help stimulate the activation of two crucial liver detoxifying enzymes that also help the liver flush out toxins.
Number 14, turmeric, the livers favored spice. Turmeric helps boost liver detox by assisting the enzymes again that actively flush out known dietary carcinogens. Other liver cleansing foods are artichokes, asparagus, kale, and Brussels sprouts.
Eating the 14 foods listed above is a great way to keep your liver functioning properly. However, for best results, I would recommend doing a liver cleanse. Doing a liver cleanse at least 2 to 3 times a year will eliminate any foreign substances that you may have trapped inside of your liver.
In cleaning the liver it is important that you first cleanse the colon. The video below will give you insights on how to achieve this.