It’s that time of year when we are told we should be detoxing the excesses of Christmas. Abstaining from alcohol and even giving up food altogether to help us ‘cleanse’.
For some people this helps kick start a healthy regime, makes them feel good and maybe lose a few pounds in the process. Sometimes its beneficial to eat less – indeed some studies suggest those that do, may live longer.
But did you know that the liver requires nutrients only obtained from food, in order to detoxify properly? The vitamins and minerals we obtain from our diet are co-factors required for numerous chemical processes that happen in the liver to breakdown toxins. Without them, the detoxification process can be impaired – and even make us more toxic!
You don’t always need to do a specific detox programme to help support your liver’s detoxification processes. You just need to eat the right kinds of food and have the digestive ability to break down and absorb the nutrients from them.
Here are some tips to help optimise detoxification:
- Drink 1.5 -2 litres of filtered water per day, this helps to keep the body hydrated, optimise digestion and flush out toxins.
- Eat brassicas daily: broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and kale.
- Eat vitamin B rich foods such as asparagus, lentils/beans, spirulina, spinach, almonds, avocado, eggs, oily fish, sunflower seeds.
- Eat vitamin C rich foods such as lentils, oranges, berries, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, green leafy veg, broccoli, pineapple, citrus fruits, tomatoes, peppers.
- Eat protein with each meal such as eggs, salmon, lentils, beans, oily fish, quinoa, nuts, seeds and grassfed meat.
- Ensure your gut is working optimally. This means healthy solid stools. No excessive wind, bloating, pain or acid reflux. If your gut isn’t able to process and eliminate food waste properly, this can impact your detoxification and your entire health. Consider working with a BANT registered nutritional therapist (such as me!) to address issues in this important area .
- Increase your intake of herbs such as coriander, rosemary and parsley which all support liver detoxification processes.
- Drink green tea. It contains antioxidants called catechins which have been found to assist liver function.
- To minimise toxic load, eat organic fruit & vegetables or at the least make sure you buy the ‘dirty dozen’ (the list of the most highly sprayed fruit and vegetables) outlined here: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty_dozen_list.php
Let me support you on your journey to optimise your health. Get in touch for information on how nutritional therapy can support you at catherinearnoldnutrition@gmail.com