Knowledge Tid Bit: The Liver

Understanding why it is important to rid your diet of artificial foods means understanding a bit about the anatomy of eating and in particular, the role that our liver plays in this process.

The liver is our largest internal organ and is responsible for controlling blood sugar levels, regulating fat storage, and most importantly it acts as a filter for the chemical breakdown of everything that we put into our bodies. Proteins, fats, and carbohydrates are metabolized and broken down to provide energy while toxins are filtered out into the blood stream. But, when overwhelmed with toxins (all substances not recognized by the body as nutrition) the livers functionality is compromised and it cannot effectively process nutrients and fats.

Our liver is also responsible for producing bile which breaks down fats and aids with metabolizing fat soluble vitamins such as D, E, K, and A. But when bile becomes full of these toxins that our liver is trying to rid itself of its ability to do it's primary job is hindered.

So what is a "toxin"? This word used to drive me crazy. It sounds so alarmist and my mom tells this hilarious story about how she was approached my an employee at Whole Foods who had the worlds worst acne that explained to her that the acne was the result of "all the toxins" being "cleansed" from her body. Gross! So this is what a dirty hippie is. Lol! But the word toxin really is a lot less pointed. It is just a coverall word used to describe all of the things we ingest that our body does not recognize as having nutritional value and must filter out. It would be too hard to list them all so simply referring to "toxins" is how it's done. Artificial sweeteners are one example. They have no nutritional value which is why they are zero calories, however they still must pass through the liver, as do all other synthetic ingredients, which is forced to filter them from our body.

So the lesson is: Be kind to your liver! Try to minimize the time your liver has to spend working on filtering out the bad stuff you put into your body so that it can concentrate on doing its other jobs.