There are just a bunch of foods to cut off your diet when dealing with a fatty liver, but this doesn’t mean that everything else is permitted, nor that “healthy” foods can’t become unhealthy if you consume them in excess.
One of my main rules when it comes to speeding up your reversal of NAFLD 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 all the way back in 2014 and I reversed it in the meantime. It is one of the main rules one should follow to ensure they eat a healthy diet.
Why should you cook your 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 cook it.
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 Health Foundation website, or this study on ready meals).
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, because this way you will find out that many of the things you buy are actually unhealthy.
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 some having other nasties). Salad dressings are usually a mixture of artificial flavors, chemicals and low-quality oils/vinegars to keep production costs low.
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, it’s no longer natural.
And all these are achieved by adding more sugar, more fat, more chemicals, resulting in a highly processed and less nutritious food which can also be proven really unhealthy. (More references: Medical News Today, SFGate & all lists of ingredients on foods).
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.
Or just read below to see how to choose real food that is canned, frozen or available in a bottle/bag:
– 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 and 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).
– 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 organic foods, then go for it! Be it fresh vegetables, meat or canned food, if it’s organic, then it’s better than the non-organic type.
Just use common sense and consider all the things recommended above as well. Simply because a product is organic, it doesn’t mean that it’s also safe for a fatty liver.
Most of the processed organic foods are also unhealthy and there are tons of organic foods that are high in sugars and fats, which are also not recommended in a fatty liver diet.
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!)
Best fatty liver approach: cook 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 on your diet.
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).
This way, you have control over a few key factors for a healthy fatty liver diet: oil intake, sugar intake, and ingredients used. This is the control you need for being able to reverse your fatty liver.
This is not fancy, this is not fun and the food will not taste as good as the sweet, salty and fat food you’re used to eating, but it will be healthy and it will help you reverse your condition.
And the best part is that eventually, your taste buds will adapt. 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.
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 no added fat), or grill, but using your imagination and the ton of healthy recipes blogs over the internet will soon prove you wrong.
I already did my part here and shared a ton of ideas about what to eat and you can check them out below:
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.
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 a fatty liver back in 2014 and managed to reverse it by mid-2015. Since then, I’ve been studying it, continuously updating my knowledge with the latest scientific findings and practical approaches to give others the help they need to reverse their condition.
My approach to managing fatty liver is holistic, balancing scientifically-backed information with real-life, practical advice based on personal, direct experience.
I am also the admin of the Fatty Liver Support Group on Facebook and the Fatty Liver Subreddit.