How to protect your liver this festive season
Diwali parties are on, and they are synonymous, usually, with too much of drinking and exceptionally rich, greasy food that's hard not just on our gut but on our liver too. In fact, the liver has its task cut out these days; no sooner that it manages to purge out toxins from one lot, an even more rogue lot shows up.
Well, I could tell you to go easy on the merrymaking spell with the usual "don'ts" (and risk you stopping to read his piece any further), or I could suggest some damage control steps. For now, I am choosing not to play spoilsport and going with the latter. The following is a list of 15 natural liver protectors that you must adopt, beginning today, to help your liver sail through these trying times unscathed, or at least limit the devastation.
Drink smart
Have half a lemon freshly squeezed in warm water every morning. Lemon is a naturally cleansing fruit as it provides a wealth of antioxidants, primarily vitamin C, and also help the liver produce more enzymes which give you more energy and help with digestion.
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Get hold of kokum (mangosteen fruit) or its juice and have as often as possible. This wonder berry, mostly grown along the western side of the country, has a pleasant, tangy-sweet taste and is loaded with antioxidant garcinol, which helps in balancing the free radicals (byproducts of the toxic insult that we heap on our body repeatedly these days) that mess up the liver big time. Another compound in it: hydroxy acetic acid (HCA)works to suppress the bad fatty acids in the body, thus easing the burden on the liver. Barley water, bael ka sherbet and wheat grass juice are also effective liver tonics. Finally, also get an H2O overload. Aim for two litres of fluid daily to help your kidneys eliminate the toxins that the liver breaks down.
Chew smart
Chew a garlic pod every morning to score allicin and selenium, two powerhouse nutrients for your liver. Allicin cleanses and nourishes the entire body, particularly the liver, and selenium, a naturally detoxifying mineral helps ward off immune system invaders to lighten the load on the liver. In addition, garlic also activates enzymes in the liver which help with overall digestion and flushing out toxins. You can get allicin from raw onions too, so eat some with every meal.
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Also target eating one teasponful of sesame seeds a day; sprinkle on stir fries, soups, or mix in nut trails. They contain two types of special fibre (lignins) - sesamin and sesamolin, which besides mopping up extra cholesterol from the body, also help protect the liver from oxidative damage caused by free radicals. Also munch on 8-12 halves of walnut every day. Arginine in it helps the liver detoxify ammonia, a waste product in the body, and omega-3 fatty acids in it help the liver process fats and reduce the production of triglycerides.
The red beat
Pomegranate juice is perfect to tone up liver's functioning. So have a glass of juice (with some citrus added to it for better absorption) or chew the seeds happily. Beetroots also help. So shred and add to salads, make a beetroot soup or juice it. Betains in it trigger enzyme GST's activity, which is important for the elimination of toxins from the liver.
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Beets also have pectin, a soluble form of fibre that's well-known for its cleansing properties. All apples (not just red) are also rich in pectin. Plus they are rich in malic acid, a naturally cleansing nutrient that also helps the liver big time by removing carcinogens and other toxins from the blood.
Herbal help
Use cumin seeds liberally during tempering (tadka). Roast and powder it, and sprinkle over all dishes too. It is an effective regenerative tonic for the liver because of its potent free radical scavenging abilities, as well as the ability to enhance the liver's detoxification enzymes.
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Similarly, chewing on saunf (bitter fennel) after meals also helps. Use turmeric in your cooking liberally too as curcumin in it prevents alcohol and other toxins from being converted into compounds that are harmful for the liver.
So make merry but spare some thought for your liver too. Festival time is full-time work for this hard-working second largest organ of the body. Ease out some of its troubles so that it doesn't trouble you later.