Why do they say your liver is pickled.....?

Question

if you drink loads, surely when you pickle things it is to preserve them not damage? Does that mean you can say "cheers, Im preserving my liver" when you have a beer?

PS - I know its bad for you and all that, and know what it does to ya, just wondered where the saying came from!

Answer 1

because alcohol was traditionally used in the form of vinigar to pickle food stuff

Answer 2

You are right, pickling is a way of preserving ..... dead things.....

Drinking too much causes cirrhosis of the liver and saying it is 'pickled' is a jocular way of saying it is ruined. Cirrhosis is irreversible and liver damage is permanent. Do not overindulge or it will kill you eventually. I had a friend who ignored warnings and died in his mid forties as a result. be warned.

Answer 3

Have you ever seen the liver of a cadaver that was a drunk? It looks all wrinkled and dimpled like a pickled cucumber. It is seriously gross not good.

Answer 4

You are confusing preserving with pickling.To pickle you age.

Answer 5

It only preserves them [organs]when in a jar on the shelf at the local morgue.

Answer 6

Pickling organs is often done to dead ones...

Answer 7

alcohol breakdown into formaldehyde in your body and at that point of cirrohsis the toxins sit in you and are not filtered out

Answer 8

Well perserved.