There is a lot of noise out there when it comes to reversing fatty liver disease and what you should stop eating.
But elimination is only half the battle and just because you cut out the obvious bad stuff doesn’t mean everything left over is good for you, nor does it mean that “healthy” foods can’t become unhealthy if you consume them the wrong way or in the wrong quantities.
One of my main rules when it comes to speeding up your reversal of Fatty Liver Disease – medically known as MASLD (Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease) – is this deceptively simple rule:
Eat REAL food that you cook yourself!
This is the rule that I still swear by today, even though I’ve been diagnosed with a fatty liver back in 2014 and I reversed it in the meantime (by following this exact principle). It still remains the absolute foundation of a healthy liver and a healthy life overall.
Why I always cook my own food
Look around you and you will see this: all food nowadays comes in a bag, a can or a jar. Most of it is ready-to-eat or a few microwaveable minutes away from a “meal.”
If you want a salad dressing, it’s already made for you, waiting in a bottle. If you want to bake your own bread, you have the pre-mix readily available. The steak is already cut and seasoned (usually with some preservatives thrown in for good measure), and all you have to do is apply heat.
On most occasions, this is not what I would call real food. This is not what our bodies have been fed for thousands of years. Instead, this is food that’s ultra-processed and packed with chemicals, preservatives and flavor enhancers that simply shouldn’t be there.
All of these are hurting your liver – and your overall health. There are countless studies and articles on the matter (like this one on the British Heart Foundation website, or this study on ready meals).
The Hidden Dangers in “Healthy” Food
While there are healthy food options coming in cans, jars, or bags, most of them aren’t. It’s easy to spot the bad ones by simply checking the list of ingredients. Actually, make it a habit to always look at the ingredients to make sure you don’t consume things you shouldn’t.
What to look out for? Any preservatives, flavor enhancers or things in excess (sugar, fat or sodium aka salt). Apart from these, if you see ingredients you can’t understand (Carboxymethylcellulose or Acetylated Monoglycerides, anybody?), these are usually bad for you.
In other words, if you need a degree in chemistry to understand the list of ingredients, the food is bad for you. If you see a ton of added sugars and fat or other regular baddies, the food is bad for you.
Did you know? Most peanut butters out there have unhealthy palm oil fat and sugar (with others having various flavors and other chemicals) – always go for the 100% peanut butter types.
Salad dressings are usually a mixture of artificial flavors, low-quality inflammatory seed oils, and stabilizers to keep production costs low. Instead of these, quickly prepare one of my recommended dressings at home (in minutes!)
Real food is very hard to come by nowadays. Even most of the food that we can eat in restaurants is not “real food” and it’s clearly not suited for a healthy fatty liver diet: saturated fats, fried foods, the use of ingredients that are full of preservatives and other additives – a ticking bomb for our livers.
Food in restaurants and much of the food you can get in a store is made to taste good. To look good. To spoil after a long period of time. In other words, ultra-processed.
All this is achieved by adding ingredients that can harm us. (Read more about these on Medical News Today or Weekand).
What is this “real food” I keep talking about, then?
Any type of fresh fruit or vegetable, legumes and seeds, as well as fresh meat and most dairy products are what I consider real food.
These should represent the foundation of your new eating habits and they are foods that haven’t been processed at all (or just a little).
But fortunately, you don’t have to stop here. Canned food can also be part of the “real food” that your body and especially fatty liver needs, as well as a huge array of frozen foods.
Note: Yes, all food we eat is processed, but I don’t want to get into this pointless debate. Yes, cut slices of chicken breast ARE processed food, because somebody processed the chicken… but we’re talking about processing that adds unhealthy ingredients to an otherwise healthy, natural food.
I wrote a recommended monthly shopping list for fatty liver here – check it out to see some healthy options that come in bags or cans.
How to choose the safest packaged foods
There are a few easy to learn tricks that help you know when food that is canned, frozen or available in a bottle/bag is indeed healthier than most (some being as good as food you can prepare at home from base ingredients):
– check out the list of ingredients. If you need to take a couple more chemistry lessons to understand the list, that’s not real food.
You should stay away from preservatives, the E range of chemicals, flavor enhancers, added sugars (as well as all the replacement names for sugar, like fructose syrup and such: there are 56 names for sugar on ingredient lists), and too much added fat, especially saturated fats.
– the fewer ingredients, the better. Have you ever checked out the list of ingredients on your daily bread?
I was shocked to see all those lines of ingredients, when bread should only have a maximum of four base ingredients: flour, water, yeast and sald.
Therefore, the golden rule of thumb is that the fewer ingredients are listed on the package, the better.
Of course, if there’s a natural sauce with tens of different herbs and spices, that can also be considered safe. (Or tons of seeds in the case of healthy bread options, for example).
If you want beans, the ingredient list should have beans, water and maybe salt. Nothing else! And so on.
Use common sense to decide if the ingredients used are natural or chemicals which are unhealthy!
– go organic. If you can afford it, ,go for it! Be it fresh vegetables, meat or canned food, if it’s organic, it’s even better than the non-organic part, as long as it is prepared the right way. Many organic products are still unhealthy because they have added sugars, fats and ingredients they shouldn’t have.
Just use common sense and consider the things recommended above if you choose organic.
Organic food is not more nutritious according to studies, nor has it any added benefits except from the fact that this type of food is not filled with the pesticides, preservatives and other chemicals that non-organic foods usually have more of (which, for those suffering of NAFLD, is actually a big bonus!)
The REAL Challenge: Cooking Your Own Food
This will probably be the biggest challenge for you, even bigger than switching to eating real food. Because that food has to be cooked!
But cooking your own food using fresh ingredients or, better said, real ingredients whether they come from the farmer’s market, can or bag in your freezer, is the real challenge.
Cooking is time consuming, is a bit difficult and you will fail on numerous occasions, especially if you’re not an experienced cook.
But it’s the only approach if you want to be 100% sure that you have total control over your diet. This is the control you need to reverse your fatty liver.
Ever since I have been diagnosed with a fatty liver, most of the food that I eat is food that I personally cook (or my wife does it, actually).
To make things easier, I have a free week-long meal plan for fatty liver disease here (no sign-up required).
You will start enjoying this type of food and if you ever go back to eating that fake stuff filled with additives, you will understand how unnatural it tastes.
This is also a solid approach if you follow the DASH diet – or basically any liver-friendly diet, like my Mediterranean one recommended above.
It might seem that you have very limited options out there because the number of ingredients you can use is relatively small and you should only boil, bake (with minimal added healthy fats – if any at all), or grill, but using your imagination and the ton of healthy recipe blogs over the internet will soon prove you wrong.
I already did my part here and shared plenty of ideas about what to eat:
Alternatively, you can check out my #1 recommended program for reversing Fatty Liver, which has recipes, advice, and everything you need to get healthy again.
The “Time-Saver” Strategy: You don’t have to cook every day
I know what you’re thinking: “I don’t have time to cook every single night.” Neither do I, so the secret to sustaining this lifestyle isn’t living in the kitchen, but batch cooking:
Cook once, eat three times (or more): If you are making a liver-friendly stew or grilling chicken, make triple the amount. The time needed for that won’t triple – on the contrary, in most cases it remains the same.
Use modern tools: An Air Fryer or an Instant Pot (pressure cooker) can be a lifesaver. You can throw ingredients in, press a button, and walk away.
With a bit of planning, you will be able to eat home-cooked food without spending all your time in the kitchen.
Final words
This is indeed a difficult task and something you might not be used with. Most important, it might seem that you don’t have the time to cook for yourself every day, or even every few days and indeed it’s pretty frustrating, especially at first.
But it’s something you will get used to, you HAVE to get used to because it’s your life that we’re talking about!
And your life and well being should be put on the top of the list of your priorities.
You might miss one of your favorite shows while you cook, you might have to stay up for 30 minutes more and therefore sleep a little less, but soon this will become a healthy habit and one you will get to love.
Even better, your liver will start loving it and you will be happy you made this choice.
Because this is the best fatty liver diet approach: cooking your own, real food! This is what has helped me reverse my fatty liver and it will help you too.
The best part of this approach? You’ll get used to it and start loving the real food you eat! So don’t try to find excuses not to do it and start cooking!
I was diagnosed with fatty liver in 2014 and successfully reversed it by mid-2015 using a natural diet and lifestyle changes. Since then, I’ve dedicated over a decade to researching this condition and helping others navigate their own recovery. I am the author of ‘From Fatty Liver to Healthy Liver’ and the founder of this community. My goal is to translate complex medical studies into practical, real-world advice that actually works, combined with my personal experience on the matter.