Worst Foods for Liver: Which Ones to Ban from Your Menu?
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Do you eat healthy? But what does that mean? Quality, quantity, or type of food? If a food is good for your bones, it can be bad for the heart and in this sense, we can make a whole list. However, there is an organ, on the work of which the digestive system and our health in general depend. Unfortunately, we only sound the alarm when the problem arises. What are the symptoms of a liver problem? When to worry? What are the best and worst foods for this organ? Have you thought about it? Answers and expert advice in the article below.
Worst Foods for Liver: Why Ban Them from Your Menu?
If one day you feel a sudden and sharp pain on the right, under the ribs, it might be a sign that your liver is experiencing problems. Along with the pancreas, your liver performs important functions including the elimination of toxins, the production and excretion of bile, and the activation of enzymes. This is why the work of this “team” must be well synchronized, without disruptions. What could upset the balance? Your choice of lifestyle and diet, of course!
Unhealthy eating habits can overwork the organ. It is imperative to draw up a list of the worst foods for liver and track the signs that require urgent detoxification. The latter should not do without the advice of a qualified dietitian or a nutritionist doctor.
Ignorance equals suffering! So, to avoid eating and drinking to the detriment of your liver, be informed about the foods to ban from your menu.
What Foods Disrupt Liver Function?
Do you think about your liver during a drink with friends? What harms it the most? Are you inclined to give it up? This decision is difficult to make, and in most cases, it is reached quite late. It turns out that the worst foods for liver are the ones that give the most pleasure. So, pleasure versus liver health?
Whether you have a diagnosed liver problem or are worried about causing damage to your organ with junk food, here are the top foods to avoid or eat in moderation. As the risk of fatty liver disease is the most common, saturated fats must be eliminated. Red meats and cold meats are the main culprits for cholesterol. The worrying data leads to the question whether it makes you gain weight and whether it can be reduced. Too much fat can overwork the liver, so eating your favorite French fries regularly can lead to long-term inflammation. Instead of stuffing yourself with it, you should add more fiber to your diet. For example, a cup of blueberries provides almost 4g of fiber, and this fruit has also been linked to reducing chronic liver damage.
On the black list, food experts include pepperoni which is one of the worst offenders when it comes to high saturated fat content, with around 17.7g of saturated fat per 100 grams (89% DV). According to the Fatty Liver Foundation, saturated fats are more “metabolically harmful” to the liver than other fats. Instead of eating pepperoni or other cold cuts, try a hearty bowl of oatmeal, which can actually reverse the effects of fatty liver disease.
What about cheeseburgers? Fast food types contain up to 16g of saturated fat, so unless you prepare or cook your burger yourself, you may want to avoid them. Their good replacements are vegetables rich in fiber. A compound called “indole” is found in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables, and it has been linked to fighting nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
If we expand the group of food products of animal origin, we will sift through dairy products such as whipped cream, ice cream, butter, whole milk.
Which Foods Make Fatty Liver Disease Worse?
There is a supplement that creates the delicious taste of desserts and meals, but really serves no purpose. Health wise, whipped cream contains a lot of calories, sugar, unsaturated and saturated fats, about 23.2 g per cup of cream.
Instead of cooking with butter, try replacing it with olive oil, which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids that reduce liver enzyme levels. Olive oil can help with weight control and loss.
A healthy replacement for whole milk can be a low-fat version or green tea, which is one of the most beneficial drinks you can drink for your liver and overall health.
If you want cheese, choose walnuts over ricotta. A snack of nuts or almonds provides plenty of vitamin E, and protects the body against fatty liver, while offering cardiovascular benefits at the same time.
Any dessert containing a lot of sugar should be avoided for the sake of your liver. Along these lines, most ice cream contains 92% of the daily value for every 1/2 cup.
Worst Foods for Liver: Why Ban Vegetable Oils & Soups?
What to cook with if many vegetable oils are actually high in saturated fat? Say goodbye to palm kernel oil, coconut oil, cocoa butter and beef tallow. Long live avocado oil!
As for sunflower oil, it is acceptable if you change it each time you cook. In this group, rapeseed and olive oil can also be tolerated.
Not all soups make the blacklist: only those that have a long shelf life and tend to contain huge amounts of sodium. In fact, ingesting foods with too much salt, like processed and packaged soups, could lead to liver fibrosis and scarring.
Let’s end this repertoire with alcohol, without which nothing happens as it should. Except that after a few hours, you have a hangover and you feel full as a barrel. Your liver is responsible for filtering toxins like alcohol, but some liver cells die with each filtration.
The good news is that two cups of coffee a day can reverse liver damage caused by alcoholic beverages.