What to Do When You Want To Drink … and Remedies for the Morning After

If you are going to drink alcohol socially:

Avoid saturated fats and fried foods which puts stress on the liver.

Avoid refined sugar or anything that contains it.

Eat protein.

Skip alcohol during meals and have them afterwards instead.

For Social Drinking, nutrition to think about:

Calcium – alcohol interferes with absorption of calcium.

Vitamin C – Alcohol seems to destroy Vitamin C, check out a whole food vitamin that your body uses here – Vitamin C

Vitamin A – Alcohol metabolism promotes excretion of vitamin A in the bile. However, taking Vitamin A is tricky as too much is also toxic to the liver. So do not take vitamin A as a supplement unless under the care of a nutritionist. You can eat foods that provide vitamin A.

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THE MORNING AFTER REMEDIES

Hangover Remedies

Hair of the Dog Drinking more alcohol. No that just makes it seem less but the reasons for the hangover, the toxins, will still be there.

Burnt toast – The carbon in the charred bread acts like a filter in the body attracting the impurities released during alcohol metabolism. Emergency rooms use a carbon mixture when there is alcohol poisoning and the success of over the counter remedies for hangovers have carbon as their main ingredient.

Black coffee – The caffeine in coffee is a stimulant and helps combat fatigue, however, when it wears off you may be even more tired. The caffeine also restricts the size of blood vessels which counteracts the effect of alcohol. However, caffeine is also a diuretic like alcohol which can make the dehydration even worse. (For more info see article Caffeine and Coffee)

Fried or Fatty Foods – Eating this after drinking can only irritate your stomach further, eating them before drinking can actually help. Putting anything into your stomach helps prevent a hangover, but fatty foods stick to the stomach lining longer and slows down the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream. It gives the body more time to process the byproducts of alcohol consumption. Of course, all these fats create an extra burden on the liver as the liver needs to deal with these as well. Eating protein is a better idea.

Eggs – Eggs provides energy and also contain a substance (Cysteine) that breaks done toxins that cause hangovers.

Bananas – Provides lost electrolytes and especially provides the potassium lost due to alcohol’s diuretic effect.

Water – since you body is dehydrated drinking water after a night of drinking is a good idea. It will also help dilute the leftover byproducts in the stomach. As a preventive measure, drinking a glass of water for every alcoholic beverage helps the body deal with the alcohol. Drinking a few glasses of water before bed also helps. See Your need for Water.

Fruit juice – the fruit sugar helps to naturally increase you energy and it also increases the rate at which your body gets rid of the toxins that are left over from alcohol metabolism. It also helps the body replaces vitamins and minerals depleted during this metabolism.

Pain-killers – we wouldn’t recommend them, they come with a host of other metabolic problems. See aspirin. We recommend Ibuprofen if you must take a pain killer. The other “brands” of pain killer will delete the “glutathione” that your body needs to get rid of toxins. Glutathione is the body’s master anti-oxidant.

Hangover Remedies – They contain dietary supplements and the filtering effect of carbon which help the body deal with the toxins of alcohol. The water you take to ingest them also helps.

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What does Alcohol does to your health?