New Years resolutions should encourage living life to the fullest. Maintaining vitally healthy organs is essential for high quality of life, especially after an abundantly decadent season. All organs need purifying, whether on a continual basis or a couple times a year, with an intentional detox. The liver is the garbage disposal system of the body and if the garbage disposal backs up, nothing fun in the kitchen can be done until the nasty job of unclogging is dealt with. After the food filled holiday’s flushed with rum spiked eggnog and a beer with the brother-in-law, your liver’s dragging.
Your largest organ is the skin, which has great potential to eliminate toxins. Adopting a daily dry skin brushing habit will greatly help take some of the extra load off the liver with the added benefit of providing superbly healthy glowing skin. The liver is the bodies second largest organ which provides many essential functions connected to digestion, metabolism, and the maintenance of a healthy immune system. Detoxification for the liver is essential for a healthy function in all the other organs. Your bodies natural detox system is in place, all we have to do is fuel it.
There are supplements out there to detox the liver, if it has gotten to the point where something drastic must be done. While supplements are much better than going on medication, you can find a rhythm in life that’s self-cleaning and self-moderated to maintain your liver. Keeping consumption holistic, there are some great juice cleanses that help boost your organs.
When beginning a cleanse, especially if it's new to you, never remove a food from your diet without replacing it. If you’re trying to drink less alcohol, find a good-for-you drink that you can enjoy abundantly. Ginger tea, kombucha, lemon water, mint ice tea (honey sweetened), or carrot juice are all great beverages to indulge in without worrying about consuming too much. If you’re trying to eat less cookies, find those snacks that help with the liver cleaning. Pecans, dried mangos, honey sweetened yogurt, carrot sticks, or nut butter and apples are great snacks to start your substituting with. And when you know you’re going to have a snack soon, start to think about it, wetting your appetite in your mind. Plan it out so the craving can pull you closer to enjoying that carrot stick choice and away from the cake choice.
The best way to encourage toxins to leave is by drinking lots of water!
Now let’s get deeper with the help-your-liver kind of thinking. Some great foods that build your liver back up are beet roots and greens, kale, lemons, parsley, dandelion root and greens, cilantro, turmeric, garlic and avocado. Start working on snacks with these foods in mind. Pickled beets and roasted beet wedges are an awesome treat. Turmeric tea right before bed is so soothing for your liver. Kale chips are super easy to toast up. Make a huge batch of dandelion tea and put it in the fridge for easy drinking all week. And the best, guacamole with your garlic, lemons, cilantro and avocado is a meal in itself!
Learning to incorporate these foods into your lifestyle eating is vital to the longevity of your liver. Fad diets come and go, but keeping a healthy rooted kitchen lifestyle will be just what the disposal needs to function optimally.