The 3 Unhealthiest Foods That Burden Your Liver
Opt for healthier menu items and processed foods by steering clear of the top three ingredients known to harm liver function.
Yvonne knew every trendy food outlet and health food store along her well-worn work routes. As a veteran sales consultant, she regularly traveled long distances in the car or on train trips.
At 50, she prided herself on eating healthy despite her hectic schedule. Cooked vegetables, salads, protein bars, and packaged meals were her go-to foods. Her days were long, and her fridge at home was mostly bare. Struggling to lose weight, she even pushed herself to squeeze in workouts at hotel gyms.
When her doctor’s concerned face appeared over a clipboard of test results at her check-up, Yvonne was floored to learn she had sky-high liver enzymes.
Yvonne’s mind raced with frustration. She‘d given up alcohol three years ago. How could her liver be in trouble? She’d tried everything—exercise, supplements, even those new weight loss drugs everyone was talking about. Nothing seemed to last long enough to budge the stubborn weight that had crept on since her milestone birthday.
Little did Yvonne know, her journey to understanding liver health was about to challenge everything she thought she knew about “eating well.”
Why Your Liver Health Matters
Your liver keeps your hormones and cholesterol levels in check as it filters toxins, like alcohol and chemicals, including medications, from the blood. When the toxin load exceeds what the liver can handle, it accumulates as excess fat in the cells.
I used to tell my patients this analogy: Think of a sink in an old home. You turn the water tap on full, but it drains from the sink slowly, indicating a blockage is forming. You might ignore it for years, but eventually, the amount of water pouring out of the faucet is more than the water that’s going down the drain, causing water to overflow into your home.
This is similar to what happens when the liver can no longer filter out an overload of toxins. Fat accumulates and then circulates in the bloodstream as triglycerides and cholesterol, ultimately to be stored as body fat.
This is how excess body fat, when combined with a diet that is high in refined seed oils—vegetable oils that are extracted from seeds—and sugars, leads to conditions such as metabolic syndrome and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). NAFLD can occur when too much fat builds up in the liver.
About 100 million people in the United States—about 25 percent of the population—are estimated in 2024 to have NAFLD. NAFLD has been recently renamed metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), according to the American Liver Foundation.
3 Foods That Burden Your Liver
Limit the following foods if you want your liver to perform optimally:
1. Fried Takeout Foods
The combination of starchy carbohydrates and protein commonly cooked with Omega 6 vegetable oil is the worst burden for your liver. These types of food are prevalent in takeout outlets and restaurants.
Even seemingly healthier options such as “gluten-free crispy chicken or fish” with a side of sweet potato fries will contribute to your dietary toxin load if eaten frequently. The inexpensive vegetable seed oils used in most eating out-of-home (EOH) places have been refined, making their chemical bonds unstable and producing damaging fats.
High-heat cooking processes with such oils create more harmful contaminants. These toxins, termed advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), acrylamide, and heterocyclic amines, are associated with increased obesity and diabetes risks.
The amount of fried foods a person’s body can handle varies, though a 2023 study published in the International Journal of Preventive Medicine found that participants who ate fast food for 20 percent or more of their meals accumulated excessive fat in their livers.
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The location of fat accumulation within the body is partially genetic. A large study published in January, including more than 27,000 people, examined the link between food intake and abdominal obesity. People who ate the most EOH fried food had the greatest increased risk of abdominal fat, even when their genetic predisposition to obesity was low.
2. Liquid Sugars
Sweetened beverages represent the largest source of sugar consumption in the United States, including many juices, sodas, coffee drinks, mocktails, alcoholic beverages, and energy drinks.
Easy access to these types of drinks is far from benign to your health. A recent, large-scale study linked regular consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks to an 85 percent increased risk of developing liver cancer or mortality from chronic liver disease.
Common sweeteners found in these beverages include:
- Corn syrup
- High-fructose corn syrup
- Dextrose, fructose, sucrose, glucose, or maltose
- Brown sugar or raw sugar
- Fruit nectars
- Honey, maple syrup, or molasses
- Cane juice or malt syrup
A 2018 meta-analysis published in the BMJ found that intake of excessive amounts of naturally occurring sugars, particularly fructose from sugar-sweetened beverages, had harmful effects on glycemic control, which is a precursor to chronic inflammatory diseases.
Another 2018 review suggests that both sucralose and fructose decrease insulin sensitivity and increase fat in the liver, causing fatty liver disease. These conditions can ultimately result in insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity, and other cardiometabolic diseases.
3. Seed Oil Dressings and Mayonnaise
Ultra-processed foods are industrially produced formulations of inexpensive ingredients from high-yield crops such as refined seed oils, sugar, starch, and protein isolates. They have a low nutrient value and are low in fiber. Since the 1980s, there has been a rapid growth of ultra-processed food consumption worldwide.
While polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) from vegetable oils were once considered safe, emerging evidence indicates otherwise.
The health impact of vegetable oil or PUFAs depends on the chemical structure, how the oil is extracted from a seed or plant, and how much refinement is required.
Refined seed oils contain high amounts of unstable fatty acids that can break down into toxins when heated and refined. A diet rich in PUFAs can lead to oxidative stress, straining our metabolism.
Most commercial sauces and dips are high in unhealthy PUFA oils—common examples include sunflower, canola, corn, and soybean oils, often labeled simply as “vegetable oil” or “hydrogenated oil.”
Research suggests that these refined seed oils alter liver function, increasing the body’s sugar requirements and driving appetites toward refined flour and sugar. So, our ability to cut down on these sources of excess calories is impaired, and many of us think it is our lack of willpower.
In contrast, olive oil, avocado oil, coconut, palm oil, and other healthy fat oils contain mostly saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, which are more stable.
You need not think that you have to make everything from scratch at home. A small range of healthier commercial sauces and dips, made using avocado oil or olive oil, are available in stores. With some good food detective work, you can also find affordable hummus dip made with olive oil.
Another way to make easy swaps to support your liver health can start with choosing meals or snacks made with healthier cooking methods, such as steaming, stir-frying, or grilling.
Yvonne realized it wasn’t hard for her to make better menu choices while dining out. By stocking up on healthier brands of snacks for travel, she was thrilled that her weight naturally and gradually came off over a few months without adding extra exercise. She was even more pleased that she boosted her energy levels, which enhanced her ability to focus and enjoy her food options. When she returned for a checkup, her lab tests confirmed the positive changes she had experienced—her liver enzymes were back within the normal range.
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