The liver is what stands between us and illness.  Whether we are talking about cancer, diabetes, rheumaticdiseases, heart disease, or any other disease, the liver is our #1 soldier, working for our health and survival.

What does a healthy liver do for us?  There's a 5-inch-thick medical school textbook you can order if you wish to understand the various functions of the liver.

I will attempt to save you the trouble and expense of buying that textbook by oversimplifying and abbreviating the liver's main job. It's about detoxifying the substances that go into our bodies.  Toxic agents reside in our food (yes, even organic crops grow in fields under the jet-stream), our air, our water, the plastics we drink out of, and the pans we cook with.  Even the store receipts we take with a smile are coated with estrogen disrupters - bad for men, women, and children alike. And I won't even bring up what alcohol does to the liver for folks enjoying more than one glass of wine a day.

Our liver has to figure out how to turn these toxic substances into water-soluble metabolites so we can excrete them in urine and feces.  We do not want a compromised liver.  We want a liver that stands at attention, ready to work for us 24/7.  A fatty, flabby, sluggish liver is not what we want if our goal is a long and happy life, free of disease.

What does the liver use for raw material to energize its system and provide the fuel to do this awesome garbage recycling job?  

PLANTS

Yes, the only foods the liver can use to do its work are from the plant world:  fruits, vegetables, herbs like tumeric, ginger, garlic and the like.  The liver needs every color that is found in nature.  The reds, purples, greens, yellows, whites, oranges, blues.  In fact, there are 30 - 50 primary sources in the plant world that provide over 15,000 phytonutrients (micronutrients, enzymes, vitamins, antioxidants, minerals, etc) to give the liver the raw materials it needs. 

Ancient man who wandered the planet is said to have had access to about 200 different plants over the course of the 4 seasons.  We Americans eat our favorite 3.  Seriously, most Americans when surveyed on the HAINES dietary score sheet have admitted to eating possibly 2 - 3 per day and many Americans have 1 or none, mostly eating out of fast-food places and packages.  (a package that says:  baked vegetable chips don't count as a vegetable food source.  It won't give the liver agents for detoxifying) 

Back in the "good old days" we were advised with the slogan:  "Have you had your 5 today?"  But because we now know that "more is better" the US Dept of Health and the Cancer Research center today advise us to consume between 9 - 13 servings of vegetables and fruits per day, and more if you are a serious athlete.  You cannot get what you need from a vitamin pill.  We need real food, mostly raw, and lots of it! 

I know I can't buy, chop, prepare 10 servings a day.  Can you?  A few people I know do this, and hurray for them, but sometimes my busy life gets in the way of all that food-prep.  For sure, I do get at least 5 different colors a day but I make up the difference and "fill in the gap" by consuming the trio of JuicePlus+ colors (28 different colors of fruits, vegetables, garlic, green tea, etc) plus one Complete shake a day that adds another 20 plant nutrients.  The part that makes me feel so smug about this shortcut is that there are so many studies that have proven that JuicePlus+ works as a detoxifying agent, an anti-aging agent, a liver up-regulating agent, an inflammation-lowering agent, an artery anti-spasmodic, and on and on.  

For example, the Ovarian Cancer Survivor study had higher anti-cancer blood scores and higher protein scores in the group of women who consumed the JP+ trio plus one Complete shake a day than the group of women who diligently ate 10 servings of veggies and fruit a day. 

Some people have a hard time concentrating on "lifelong good health" as a goal until that health is lost.  Don't be one of them.