The best foods for your liver

Albeit a small organ, your liver holds plenty of responsibility performing over 500 functions on a daily basis. Some of those tasks include excreting bile for digestion, metabolizing fats, proteins, and carbohydrates, and detoxifying the body. For the most part, your liver doesn’t require too much assistance, but if you bog your liver down, you will find over time it simply doesn’t work the way it used to, affecting other bodily functions as a result.

Factors that can hinder your liver’s top performance include being overweight or obese, eating unhealthy, smoking, and drinking alcohol. These factors gradually make the liver sluggish and fatty, and trigger scar formation. If liver problems go undetected, worse complications may arise, including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, fibrosis of the liver, or cirrhosis – an untreatable condition.

To ensure your liver doesn’t get sick and doesn’t make you sick in turn, here is a list of 34 foods you should incorporate into your diet to support proper liver health.

34 foods to help improve your liver

• Water
• Cruciferous vegetables – broccoli, cabbage, bok choy, etc.
• Dark leafy greens – kale, spinach
• Sea vegetables
• Sprouted seeds, nuts, beans, and grains
• Garlic
• Onions, shallots, and leeks
• Eggs
• Artichokes
• Mushrooms
• Berries
• Apples
• Prebiotic-rich foods – asparagus, leeks, root vegetables
• Cultured foods – kimchi, sauerkraut
• Flaxseed
• Hemp seed
• Chia seeds
• Coconut oil
• Avocado
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Ginger
• Cumin
• Coriander
• Cardamom
• Cayenne
• Cinnamon
• Fennel
• Turmeric
• Meat
• Fish
• Whey powder protein
• Vegetable protein
• Marine-based protein
• Land-based protein – beans, chickpeas, lentils

As you can see, the products that support a healthy liver are wholesome foods, meaning, none of these items are processed and contain artificial sugar. Making these foods an integral part of your diet will not only help your liver stay healthy, but will make you feel better overall.