The Best Foods, Smoothies, and Supplements for a Liver Cleanse Detox

Liver cleansing detox, that's what we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about the foods best for that, smoothies, shakes, and supplements. One thing that I think is a kind of a misunderstanding about the liver itself, the liver does not hold or store toxins, okay? It gets rid of toxins. It's the main organ that turns these fat-soluble poisons into a water-soluble substance that is no longer poisonous, and then it gets rid of it through the bile ducts with the help of the bile. And when we talk about cleansing, we're really talking about cleansing the liver of fat and also inflammation or scar tissue. And the more fatty the liver, the more scar tissue and the more inflammation, the less it has the capacity to detox. And there's this whole cascade of amazing enzymes in the liver that help take this very severe, dangerous poison all the way through to the point where it's no longer poisonous. You can even get rid of 50% of the liver's fat through going on a low-carb diet. This is called a ketogenic diet. So I'm going to get into very specific foods, but you just need to know if you go on low-carb with intermittent fasting, you can drop a lot of fat off the liver really fast. And the less fat the liver has, the more it can do its job. The liver is about three and a half pounds, the size of a football. And it's really robust. It takes a beating and it can do its job just with 20% of the liver cells left. And it is the only organ that can completely regenerate itself. But there is a point of limitation. You can get to the point where it's so filled with scar tissue, that's called cirrhosis, that you're going to have to get on the list for a liver transplant. And a lot of times people don't have any symptoms in the initial phases of liver problems, other than some fatigue. But one real simple way to know if you have a fatty liver is just to look down and see if you can see your stomach protruding out, because abdominal fat is a good indication that you have liver fat. Now, as far as what causes the liver to become fatty, you might say, well, alcohol, right? Well, that's definitely something that can cause it. But there's also something even more common called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And that condition mainly comes from fructose, okay? Now, where would you get fructose? Fructose is in a lot of the sugars that people consume, like table sugar has fructose, beet sugar, honey, fruit. All are about half fructose and half glucose. So if you're eating a lot of sugar and drinking your sugar as in high fructose corn syrup, like all the sodas and juice and fast foods, chances are you have a fatty liver. Not to mention regular wine and frequent snacks will all contribute to a fatty liver. So what are the best foods to help heal the liver, to help strengthen its ability to detoxify? Right at the top of the list, you have something called cruciferous vegetables. That would be like kale, arugula, broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, mustard greens, brussel sprouts, bok choy, horseradish, cabbage. These are very unique vegetables that don't necessarily give you more enzymes, but they trigger or induce more of your own body's phase one, phase two enzymes to help you break down chemicals. And there's also very specific natural chemicals, they're called phytochemicals or phytonutrients in cruciferous that are even more potent than other things, okay? Like sulforaphane in broccoli sprouts or microgreens. Microgreens are basically just about a 10-day-old baby vegetable versus sprouts might be like between three to seven days. But radish microgreens or sprouts or broccoli microgreens or sprouts are loaded with sulforaphane. So what I like to do, instead of just using regular lettuce for my salad, I like to use the arugula leaf because that's going to more potently do a lot more good than regular lettuce. Another vegetable that's really good for the liver is beets. Beets help increase bile production, which can help get rid of toxins from the liver that they just been broken down. Beets can help increase the flow of bile, so then that bile can actually help eliminate all the toxins that your liver just broke down. Beets also trigger this phase one, phase two detoxification. So what you can do is you can shave some raw beet on your salad or just steam beets and consume beets. And just as a side note, fruit is not really good for the liver because you're going to get a lot of fructose. But berries, especially the blueberry, can help you reduce fibrosis in the liver. And it's anti-inflammatory, even though it is classified as a fruit, but it has a lot lower sugar than other fruits. You might think that to get rid of fat on the liver, you have to go on a low-fat diet. No, you don't. You have to go on a low-carb diet and get rid of the sugars because that sugar then converts into fat. The fattiest foods like eggs and organ meats, like beef liver and grass-fed beef and fatty fish, all are loaded with this other nutrient called choline that very potently gets rid of fat off your liver. Actually, choline is even part of your own bile, so it's kind of a detergent for fats. And take a wild guess what has the most choline. Egg yolks, beef liver, and fatty fish. But you can also get some choline in things like broccoli. So it's not just about going on a low-fat diet. There's also other fats that help get rid of fat off your liver, and that would be the omega-3 fats, which I just touched on, fatty fish, but salmon, seafood, grass-fed beef, sardines are all high omega-3 fatty acids that can greatly help the liver, as well as decrease inflammation in your liver. On the flip side, omega-6 fatty acids, all the seed oils like the corn oil, the soy oil, safflower oil, all of these things that are high in omega-6 actually create more problems for the liver. So I don't recommend consuming those. And unfortunately, we have way too much of those. I think nowadays an average person consumes 30 times more omega-6 oils than they should. And it's hidden in restaurant foods. It's in fried foods. They use it in salad dressings, mayonnaise, and many, many other foods. Now, as far as the protein that's needed for the liver to function, you need high-quality protein. That would be eggs, grass-fed beef, and fatty fish. You don't want to go on a no-protein diet because these amino acids are very, very necessary to help heal the liver. But then again, you also don't want to use low-quality protein, especially the plant-based protein powders, the soy protein powders. Whey protein is also hard on the liver. It's a refined product. There's no fat. The liver actually does better if you consume foods that have the natural fat with the protein. Probiotic foods are very healthy for the liver. That would be sauerkraut, kimchi, and kefir, and pickles. Those are some main foods that are really good to help strengthen the detox and also get rid of fat off your liver and also decrease inflammation. Let's switch gears to smoothies and shakes. There's two really good ones, and they both use blueberries, okay? So you get some blueberries, like a cup, and one of the shakes, you're using frozen kale. So what I like to do is take a bag of kale from the grocery store and then just put it in the freezer, freeze it solid, and then when you're ready, take a couple handfuls of kale, put it in the blender, okay? Take a cup of blueberries, put that in the blender, fill it up with water just above the material, blend it for like 30 to 45 seconds, and you have yourself a delicious, really healthy liver-cleansing shake. Another one I like to use is with kefir. Don't get the one that has low fat. Whole milk, and it could be either sheep milk or goat milk, but don't try to get the low-fat one. Of course, try to get the grass-fed and organic if you can, but that kefir is better than regular yogurt because it not only has the bacteria, it has a friendly yeast and a lot more microbes. What I like to do is take a cup or two of kefir and a cup of blueberries. And you may have to add a little water to it, maybe half of a cup. Sometimes you don't. I would first try it without the water because sometimes the kefir is more liquid. It really depends on how liquid the kefir is. And then you blend it for 30 seconds and drink that down. It's delicious. And so you have this probiotic blueberry liver-protecting shake. And then with the kale, you're actually drinking your cruciferous vegetable. And it's raw, it's frozen, it goes right in, and it really helps your liver. Now, as far as a drink goes, the best drink for the liver would be a combination of apple cider vinegar and lemon. The apple cider vinegar can help strip fat off the liver. It also can help support blood sugars and make insulin more sensitive, helping you correct insulin resistance, which is at the heart of a fatted liver. And also lemon is very, very sour. And it too has choline and other things that can help support the liver. It has a lot of vitamin C. It can help reduce inflammation. Take two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, put it in a glass. You can take one lemon, squeeze the lemon from that one lemon into the glass. And you have about 12 ounces of water. And then drink it with a straw. Sometimes I'll take the whole lemon, put that in the blender with about 12 ounces of water, two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, blend it down so I have some additional cool properties of that lemon peel that you wouldn't get from the lemon juice. You can use actual lemon juice, but just realize it's usually pasteurized. It's heated because vitamin C gets destroyed with heat. So if you just take an actual lemon and juice it yourself, that's always the best. Now, as far as the supplements go that are good for the liver, full transparency, I do sell a liver cleansing supplement. But as far as nutrients go, these are the best things for the liver. At the top of the list would be milk thistle. Milk thistle is used as the antidote to poison. I'm talking about poisoning from mushrooms, talking about snake poisoning. I'm talking about being poisoned from Tylenol and many other poisons. It's quite amazing. Milk thistle basically has this superpower to protect the liver, but it's also good for a fatty liver. It's also good to get rid of inflammation and to prevent scar tissue of the liver. And that term is called cirrhosis. Choline, I mentioned that before. You can get that as a supplement too. Choline helps strip fat off the liver. Then we have turmeric. Okay, that's really powerful for the liver too as an antioxidant. It helps reduce inflammation in the liver and it's been known to help you reduce fat on the liver too. Purified bile salts are also good to reduce fat in the liver. And a lot of people are deficient in bile. And so things kind of back up from the bile ducts. And when things back up, you can't detoxify. So part of detoxification is allowing things to flow through the liver. And bile salts many times can open up the stuck flow. So things can flow through and out through into the small intestine. Probiotics are really good for the liver as well. And the last remedy would be something called tocotrienols. This is a type of vitamin E that works 50 times stronger. And it's really good for an inflamed liver. And that's called hepatitis. But any inflammation on the heart or the liver can be helped using tocotrienols. So it can inhibit fibrosis. Because if you think about vitamin E is you can rub it into the skin to help get rid of scar tissue. Well, tocotrienols is really good for scarring of your liver. Now, there's one more video that I highly recommend you watch, okay? And this video has gotten a lot of views because it's an awesome video. You should check it out. I put it up right here.