Category: Recipes

Gut Flora and Stress

An imbalance in your gut flora doesn’t just affect you physically, it can affect you mentally.  Studies show that having an overgrowth of certain bacteria in the gut can trigger a systemic stress response that keeps you in fight or flight mode, which is characterized by increased heart rate, high blood pressure, increased blood glucose, difficulty focusing and slowed digestion at all times.  Staying in fight or flight long-term can cause chronic inflammation that leads to chronic diseases.  Conversely, having the “right” balance of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus can turn off the hormonal signals that cause that chronic stress response.

Importance of Probiotics

Probiotics are live cultures that provide some type of benefit to the host-you.  In the case of gut dysbiosis, probiotics help repopulate the gut with good bacteria to help restore the balance.  There are two major ways to introduce probiotics into your gut.

Fermented Foods

Fermented foods are not a new thing.  Fermented foods are those that have been preserved using a process called lacto-fermentation.  During this process, bacteria feed on the sugars and starches naturally present in the food.  Fermentation does more than increase a food’s shelf life.  It makes the food more digestible, changes flavor and texture, reduces the presence of carbohydrates known for causing gas, and synthesizes vitamins like vitamin B12.

Supplements

Continue reading “Part 4 – Healthy Digestion and Good Gut Health”

Avoiding Chemicals and Processed Foods

Our typical diet is all about convenience.  When it comes to food choices, the top three criteria for many of us are convenience, potability and taste.  Processed foods contain many artificial ingredients and chemicals that your body doesn’t recognize them as food.  When you regularly eat foods like this, your body responds by attacking the ingredients it doesn’t recognize – end result?  A damaged gut!

Don’t be fooled by buzz phrases like all-natural, gluten-free or made with natural ingredients.  These phrases are designed by manufacturers to make you think a packaged food is a healthy choice even when it’s not.  Just because a processed food doesn’t contain gluten doesn’t make it healthy.  It may be filled with other gut-damaging ingredients like soy and sugar.

Make your own meals at home whenever possible using fresh, whole ingredients.  If portability and convenience are your concerns, spend a few hours on a day that you have some time prepping and preparing meals for the week.  Cook in bulk and separate food into single-serving containers.  Cut up fruit and vegetables and put them in baggies that are easy to grab on the go.  Buy raw nuts and unsweetened dried fruit in bulk and put single servings into sandwich bags.  Keep these bags on hand wherever you think hunger might strike unexpectedly.  Put some in your desk drawer at work, leave some in the car or keep them in your purse.

Continue reading “Part 3 – Healthy Digestion and Gut Health”

  A Natural, Real-Foods Approach

Focus on filling your plate with natural, real foods.  Vegetables should take up the remaining 80 percent of your plate, while high quality proteins and fat make up the remaining 20 percent.  Fruits are full of beneficial nutrients, but should not take up a significant percentage of your plate.  You can add a piece of fruit to your balanced meal or snack.

Food Quality

Purchase organic fruit and vegetables that are free of chemicals and pesticides.  While getting organic produce from your grocery store is good, local farmers’ markets are better. 

Eat with the seasons.  If a fruit or vegetable doesn’t grow in the winter where you live, skip it at the grocery store until spring or summer, the time it naturally grows.  Your body was meant to eat with the seasons.  This helps prevent food sensitivities and ensures that you are getting a wide range of nutrients from foods that you may not normally eat.

Many conventional meats come from cows, pigs, and chickens that are fed a grain or corn rich diet.  Farmers give grain and corn to animals in an attempt to fatten them up quickly and inexpensively.  Since this isn’t the animal’s natural food source, it affects the quality of the meat.

The best meat carries three labels:  organic, grass-fed and pasture-raised.  Do your best to choose the highest quality meats while staying within your budget.

Continue reading “Part 2 – Healthy Digestion and Good Gut Health”