Your body has some pretty sophisticated ways to help you adapt to where you live, how you live and what you have available to eat.
But what happens when changes happen too fast? That’s the situation we’re in today. Our bodies can’t adapt to the pace of changes to our food and environment.
At any time, no matter where you are, you have access to fatty, sugary, and starchy foods … and nutritionists are telling you to eat many times a day to keep your metabolism high.
Is it any wonder that we snack and then snack some more?
Unfortunately, the one organ responsible for sorting out the aftermath is having a hard time keeping up. And research shows that much of today’s snack food will damage this organ while it expands your waistline.
The problem is sugar. Natural sugar is not bad. Foods that cause your blood sugar to increase are the problem. They can lead to an accumulation of fat around the liver, which can be deadly.
The fatty liver condition, called hepatic steatosis, can eventually lead to a swollen liver and cirrhosis. If allowed to continue for a prolonged period of time, it can compromise the liver’s ability to filter and eliminate toxins from the body.
In this study, the researchers discovered that frequent snacking accelerates the deposit of fat in the liver and belly fat. Further, this has a worse effect than eating large meals and not snacking.
Dutch researcher Mireille Serlie recommends
“Americans consume up to 27% of calories from high-fat and high-sugar snacks… Eating more often, rather than consuming large meals, contributes to fatty liver independent of body weight gain. These findings suggest that by cutting down on snacking and encouraging three balanced meals each day over the long term may reduce the prevalence of NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease).”
To help your liver, and keep it cleansed of junk and free of fat, you should do two things:
- Go back to the “few and far between” thinking on meals. Three meals a day is fine, but if you’re full, then just don’t eat.
- And, when you do eat a meal, make sure you’re satiated so you don’t continue to eat afterwards. It doesn’t help your metabolism and could clog your liver.
