Spring the season of liver detoxification

Spring is a new beginning – the time of year to rise with the sun and take early brisk walks according to Traditional Chinese Medicine. The appetite for food decreases and the body naturally cleanses itself, not only of food residues, but excessive desires and emotions of dissatisfaction, impatience and anger. Things are seen in new ways. This is a time for contacting your true nature and giving attention to self awareness and self expression.

This is the season to attend to the liver and gallbladder. In spring we naturally cleanse the body of fats and heavy foods of winter. The diet should be the lightest of the year and contain foods which emphasise the ascending and expansive qualities of spring – young plants, fresh greens, sprouts, and immature wheat and barley grass. Salty foods have a descending energy and are best avoided at this time.

The expansive, rising quality of sweet and pungent foods is recommended e.g. honey with mint tea. Honey mixed with apple cider (1 teaspoon of each in cup of water) is also harmonizing to the liver. Pungent cooking herbs: marjoram, basil, fennel, rosemary, caraway, dill, bay leaf and pungent foods: water cress all members of the onion family, mustard greens help move liver stagnancy. Other good foods: beets, taro root, strawberry, peach, cherry, chestnut, pine nut, broccoli and Brussel sprouts, mung beans, seaweeds, radish, cucumber, tofu. Complex carbohydrates such as grains, legumes and seeds have a primarily sweet flavour which increases with sprouting. Young beets, carrots and other sweet starchy vegetables, thinned from the spring garden provide a refreshing sweet flavour. Bitter foods can also help clear the liver; rye, alfalfa, chichory, endive, radicchio, rocket, dandelion greens, asparagus, radish leaves.

Food preparation should be simple. Raw and sprouted foods (grains, seeds, nuts, legumes) stimulate cleansing and cooling. Food is best cooked for a shorter time but at higher temperatures. Cooking with water, light steaming or minimal simmering is ideal. Raw food are indicate in spring and summer, excess at other times may weaken digestion and trigger excessive cleansing reactions and should not be used at all where there is bowel inflammation, signs of weakness or deficiency. Raw foods are best suited to those showing heat and excess in their body, diet and lifestyle. Thin, frail, deficient people may become more cold on raw foods. For an individually tailored diet see a professional.

Eliminate foods high in saturated, damaged or poisoned fats –lard, mammal meats, cream, cheese, eggs, hydrogenated fats, margarine, shortening, refined and rancid oils, excesses of nuts and seeds, chemicals in food and water, pharmaceutical drugs where possible, all intoxicants and highly processed refined foods.

Disharmony in the liver may stem from too may desires – sex, fame, power, security, money, or rich tasting food – which can stimulate a person to eat excessively. Regardless of diet, emotions as themselves, when driven by greed, anger and resentment greatly damage the liver. Unresolved emotional issues are stored physically as residues of excess in the liver, while emotional clarification unlocks and releases these residues. Various awareness methods can help: relaxed meditation, affirmations, prayer, and visualizations.

Enjoy the beautiful spring with an abundance of energy and vitality by applying all or some of the above dietary principles for clearing your liver of physical and emotional stagnancy.

The information presented on this site is presented as a information guide and reference only, and is not intended as a substitute for competent advice and guidance by a qualified practitioner.

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