It is one of the most important organs of your body. From the TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) perspective: its stores blood, ensures a smooth flow of ‘Qi’; controls the tendons and sinews; it manifests in the nails; it is affected by anger; balances protein, fat and sugar and removes toxins from the blood. All of this will eventually impact the inflammation levels in the body.
Your diet and environmental toxins can affect the liver. Ways that you can diagnose this for yourself is if you see the following: sluggishness, digestive issues, acid reflux (with bile), yellowness in eyes (as the liver opens into your eyes) and urine, pain in tendons and muscles, no weight loss (despite trying), fatigue and anger, frustration, tendency towards depression and experiencing a sour taste in the mouth.
Here are some tips to help you clean out your liver:
1. Get rid of trigger foods like: dairy, sugar. refined flour (maida), processed foods, refined oils, foods with chemicals and additives.
2. Drink a greens juice daily: The liver loves greens, specially bitter greens like mustard, arugula (rocket), amaranth (cholai). Use these with barley grass powder to make a nice juice concoction for yourself.
3. Include bitter foods in your diet like: lime, radish (mooli) and radish tops, arugula leaves, mustard seeds, fenugreek (methi).
4.Include 1 sweet vegetable daily and those high in potassium: like carrots, cabbage, onions, red pumpkin (lal kaddu or bhopla), sweet potatoes and beetroot. Sweet potatoes, help with potassium and magnesium and are low on the glycemic index not spiking insulin levels. Beetroot is high on antioxidants and potassium as well, important for a liver cleanse. Bananas are prebiotic and also a good source of potassium.
5. Use spirulina at least once a day: it’s a sea algae will help absorb toxins and if you add it to your green juice or simply water it helps with detoxification.
6. Use raw haldi (turmeric): We Indians, use turmeric (haldi) in our food as a staple; however fermenting it in a quick pickle will also help absorb it better creating a colony of good bacteria to support a liver cleanse.
Here is a nice greens juice recipe that could help:
Juice: 250-300 ml of green smoothie
Ingredients: arugula (or any other leafy green)+ fistful methi (fenugreek) +1tsp barley grass powder or fresh wheat grass+ + 1 sachet/capsule probiotic to smoothie+1/2 tsp spirulina (pl pick up organic if possible)+add water to thin down. If you don’t have a juicer then simply blend in a mixer. Do not strain. Squezze some lime juice in the end and you can add some raw turmeric to this blend.
