Gut Healing Foods
More and more, we are starting to hear the countless ways in which gut health is linked to your overall health. No doubt you’ve heard the phrase “you are what you eat” but the health of your gut determines how what you need from your food gets where it needs to go. Your gut also has a part in keeping everything in balance, including:
Hormones
Neurotransmitters (brain chemical messengers)
Moods, memory, concentration and alertness
Metabolic, physical mental energy
Immunity
Skin, bone, muscle, joint and eye health
Detoxification
Why the gut has such a big effect on your health:
The lining that reaches from inside your mouth down to the other end, is considered to interact with the external environment. Everything that passes through comes from outside of your body, and it is only when those external contents cross through the lining that they have technically become internal within your body. This includes food, chemicals in your food but also microbes such as viruses, bacteria and parasites.
The epithelium which lines your intestines has microscopic little gaps called tight junctions between the cells. These junctions are meant to remain “tight”, but they loosen a little to let digested food particles through. Friendly bacteria help to provide protection, stopping harmful microbes from getting through and helping control the tight junctions.
The tight junctions can become too loose or leaky for a number of reasons. As they start to let bigger food particles and microbes through, these can start to reach the blood stream and your immune system can start to respond to these unwelcome objects by starting a cascade of inflammation.
Your liver has the job of detoxifying normal products of digestion and anything else that has made it into the blood stream. If it is overloaded, it will start to pump some of the toxins out to the skin to be excreted through the glands. This can result in symptoms such as skin complaints, headaches, body aches, fatigue and brain fog.
How do you heal the gut?
If you are experiencing any number of symptoms of malaise, your gut may benefit from some support. Working with a nutritional therapist can help to identify some of the causes of any compromise to the integrity of your gut. Consulting with your GP is important, and standard or private tests are sometimes helpful.
Incorporating some healing foods is a great place to start in your quest for better health. If you are on any medications, always consult with a doctor before drastically changing your diet.
My Top 10 Gut Healing Foods:
1. Turmeric: The anti-inflammatory compound, curcumin is great for your gut and is available as a supplement. But using the whole food as a root or the powder will ensure that you benefit from the synergistic effect of all the powerful active compounds together. Add liberally to food such as curries, stews, shakes, scrambled egg, or try a golden milk or turmeric latte.
2. Onions: These can get the blame for gas if your microbiome is out of balance, but they are full of mucopolysaccharides – carbohydrates which feed your good gut bacteria and soothe your gut lining. They are also packed with antioxidants and help to kill harmful microbes.
3. Oats: Full of nutrients and like onions, they are also rich in mucopolysaccharides and betaglucans which support immunity.
4. Bone broth: For centuries this food has been consumed for it’s gut-friendly effects. Gelatin, collagen, proline, chondroitin and glycine, all released from bones support our own collagen production as well as providing the building blocks to repair joints and our gut lining. You can slow cook bones left over from your Sunday roast with some water, herbs and vegetables, or buy ready to eat bone broth.
5. Cruciferous vegetables: These are rich in phytonutrients such as glucosinolates, which support liver detoxification. This allows more toxins to be safely excreted, rather than them being recirculated via your bowels. The less toxins circulating in your system, the better you will feel. Include plenty of rocket, pak choi, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, horseradish, kale, radishes, spring greens, swede, turnips, watercress and wasabi. Eat cooked rather than raw if there is any concern about your thyroid.
6. Aloe vera juice: Full of antioxidants and known to soothe acid reflux, ulcers and relieve constipation. Go for a good quality product from the whole leaf, organic if the budget allows.
7. Slippery elm food: Rich in antioxidants, mucopolysaccharides and tannins which bind to damaged tissue and have a protective effect. Consume as a drink or eat like porridge, you can find this online or in health food stores.
8. Wheatgrass: High in nutrients, digestive enzymes and alkalising, wheatgrass is great for supporting digestion and healing inflammation. Add the powder to smoothies, fresh juices, hot drinks, porridge, salad dressings or homemade ice cream!
9. Coconut butter: As well as coconut oil, coconut butter contains coconut flesh which is used to make coconut flour and it’s full of fibre. The coconut fibre helps to feed a healthy microbiome, while the oil is anti-inflammatory. Use as an ingredient in healthy bakes, or you can melt and spread it like butter.
10. Grass fed ghee: This clarified butter has had all the lactose, casein and whey removed and is rich in Omega 3 essential fats, vitamins A, D E and K2 and is anti-inflammatory. Use to cook with, add to tea or coffee, or melt on top of vegetables. There are plenty of other healing foods to try, including ginger, garlic, artichokes, fermented foods, apple cider vinegar, pumpkin seeds and coconut oil.
The good news is that you don’t need to try everything at once. Start slowly, adding in a food at a time to fit in with your routine and take some time to test different foods out to see what works for you.
If you would like to find out more about how nutritional therapy can help with your gut health, contact me at info@victoriabellnutrition.co.uk.
Using Food to Relieve Acid Reflux
If you often experience acid reflux or heartburn, you probably know about it! However, symptoms can be vague for many people and hard to identify as being the result of acid reflux.
You may experience the following:
A burning sensation near the middle of your chest (heartburn)
Either a mildly or strongly strange or unpleasant taste in your mouth
A persistent dry cough or hiccups
Regurgitation of small amounts of food back into your mouth
Difficulty swallowing
A hoarse voice
Bloating and nausea
Bad breath
It is always worth discussing these symptoms with your doctor as a precaution. Medication such as over the counter antacids or prescription PPIs (proton pump inhibitors which stop so much acid being produced) such as omeprazole or lansoprazole may be recommended, but often these merely suppress the symptoms rather than address the causes. Find out how nutritional therapy can help with digestive health issues such as acid reflux.
What could be causing my acid reflux?
The pipe that carries food from your mouth to your stomach is called your oesophagus. At the bottom of the oesophagus, there is a valve called the Lower Oesophageal Sphincter (LOS or LES) which is designed to close after you have eaten to stop food or stomach acid from travelling back up into the mouth.
For a number of reasons, this sphincter can become lax or not close properly. Often the medical approach to resolve this has been to reduce stomach acid, but this can be problematic because if the stomach acid pH isn’t low enough or acidic enough, the LOS will not get the signal to close. Some other reasons for acid reflux include:
Inflammation
Hiatus hernia
Carbohydrate malabsorption
Underdeveloped digestive system (in babies)
Ageing
Pregnancy
Obesity
Large meals
Smoking
Medications (ibuprofen, muscle relaxers, blood pressure meds, antibiotics and aspirin)
Supplements (potassium and iron)
Helicobacter Pylori bacterial infection
Excessive exercise
Magnesium deficiency
If you frequently experience the symptoms of acid reflux, it is highly likely that you have done your homework on which foods are likely to trigger it. These may include some of the foods and drinks that you regularly consume and if you’re particularly attached to some of these, it may be unwelcome news to you that you may benefit from cutting down on them. Typical trigger foods include:
Rich, fatty, fried and processed foods
Spicy foods
Alcohol
Caffeine
Chocolate
Artificial sweeteners
Citrus
Tomatoes
Peppermint
Pickled foods
Vinegar
Many of these foods have great health benefits, so cutting them out entirely may not be ideal. Having dietary restrictions can be difficult practically, socially and can be hugely inconvenient.
Moderation is key, and as much as possible, eating a diet rich in good quality whole fresh foods including lots of water, fruits and vegetables, whole grains, eggs, dairy (if tolerated) fresh fish, poultry and small amounts of good fats and red meat.
Eating smaller meals, chewing your food properly, not bending down after eating and eating your last meal at least three hours before bed are all practical ways to minimise the effects of acid reflux. Some gentle exercise such as stretching and relaxation practices also help to reduce the stress on your gut. But also, there are some foods you could include which could really help keep the lid on acid reflux.
Here are my Top Ten Foods to Make Acid Reflux Go Away:
1. Ginger – has anti-inflammatory properties and is great for healing the gut and supporting immunity. Eat fresh or cooked in meals or add to hot water and drink as a tea.
2. Pineapple – contains bromelain which helps with digestion and it also reduces inflammation and pain. Enjoy on it’s own, in a fruit salad or in a smoothie.
3. Fermented foods such as sauerkraut and kombucha – these are rich in probiotic (friendly) bacteria which pass through the digestive tract, displacing harmful bacteria on the way. These foods may also feed the resident gut flora and calm inflammation.
4. Apples – high in fibre and packed full of quercetin – another anti-inflammatory food.
5. Coconut Oil – is known to have antimicrobial compounds in it which can help to reduce infections in the digestive tract. It is also known to be soothing for the nervous system and the gut. Use in small amounts in cooking or try having a teaspoon of it when reflux hits.
6. Wild salmon – contains an antioxidant compound called astaxanthin which has been shown to relieve reflux symptoms and a useful nutrient to use with a H Pylori infection. Enjoy 1-3 portions per week. Fresh is best but you can also use good quality tinned wild salmon.
7. Almond butter – a great swap for peanut butter which can be another trigger of acid reflux. Almond butter is lower in saturated fat, and much higher in vitamin E and magnesium. Great eaten with fruit, oatcakes or vegetable sticks, or add to your porridge.
8. Celery – you either love it or hate it, but this food is rich in antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds. It is alkalising and full of water – great for hydration. Eat as a snack or use as an ingredient in salads, stews or soups.
9. Spinach – full of B vitamins and fibre – both great for digestion. Spinach also contains compounds which are naturally alkalising, helping to minimise acid reflux. Best eaten raw because heating does make the spinach a little acidic. Enjoy in a salad or thrown into a green smoothie.
10. Sunflower seeds – high in vitamin E which helps reduce acid reflux and repair damage of the lining of the gut. Great sprinkled on breakfast, salads or eaten as a snack.
There are so many other healing foods that you could add to your arsenal, including chamomile, watermelon, oats, turmeric, bone broth, artichokes, papaya, kefir, apple cider vinegar, green leafy vegetables, artichokes, asparagus, cucumbers, pumpkin & other squash, small amounts of healthy fats and raw honey. Give some a go and see how you feel!
If you would like to understand how nutritional therapy can help you to resolve your digestive health symptoms, feel free to contact me at info@victoriabellnutrition.co.uk.
Foods to Improve Digestion
Food. We need it, we can’t live without it.
But if our digestion isn’t great, food can feel like an adversary.
Some foods we might fear, or want to avoid. Perhaps we know that the foods we crave so much are making us feel below par. It can be a constant distraction, something we feel the need to plan for, control, measure or restrict.
We’re all unique and so food may make us all feel differently. But many people might experience some of the following:
constant tummy trouble
indigestion
acid reflux
trapped wind
bloating
constipation
feeling like food hangs around way too long so you feel sluggish all day
But what if we flip our view of food on its head? See food as a medicine, rather than making us reach out for the over the counter medicines?
Over two thousand years ago, the ancient Greek philosopher Hippocrates was quoted as saying “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.”
Well before modern science, medicine and technology, it was known that our bodies are built to naturally maintain balance in health, and that nature provided everything we needed for our bodies to thrive and heal from illness and injury.
Although food may trigger uncomfortable symptoms, and it may be partly down to what has been done to the food before it reaches our plates (think chemicals, pollution, processing, radiation and GMO, for example), this is only part of the whole picture. A whole host of lifestyle and environmental factors influence your digestive health, and narrowing the causes down to work out what do can be equally complicated.
While you may suspect a food intolerance or some other underlying health issue that may take some time to identify, there are plenty of healing foods you can try NOW to help relieve some discomfort.
My Top 10 Foods to Improve Digestion (rather than using over the counter medications to dampen your symptoms!):
1. Bitter foods, including rocket, kale, radicchio, dill, dandelion greens and citrus: These encourage the production in the stomach of a substance called gastrin, which stimulates the production of:
stomach acid and digestive enzymes which help break your food down
and bile which helps you to digest fats
Use these at the beginning of a meal, to prepare your gut for digestion. A bitter greens salad dressed with some olive, hemp, or cold pressed rapeseed oil is ideal.
2. Dandelion tea and peppermint tea: also bitter, teas can also be used as a digestive after eating. Peppermint has been shown to calm down the involuntary spasms that some people experience after eating as a wave of cramp-like feelings in the abdomen. For some people the effect is comparable to prescription anti-spasmodics used for irritable bowel syndrome.
3. Oats: a gluten free grain, great for slow release energy, containing fibre which can improve bowel movements and beta glucans which help calm the immune system. But their star quality is that they help to coat and protect the gut lining, giving it a chance to repair itself. Some people prefer gluten free oats, grown and processed in environments which ensure they can’t come into residue from other crops, such as wheat. But the protein avenin can be too similar to gluten for people with coeliac disease.
4. Bananas: these are high in potassium which helps peristalsis, the wave of muscle spasms in the gut which push food through. Full of pectin which aids digestion, insoluble fibre which bulks out your stool (a good thing!) and soluble fibre which forms a gel in your stomach, making you feel full for longer and slowing down energy release. The fibre also feeds your good gut bacteria and may also stop harmful bacteria from sticking to the gut lining.
5. Kefir: available in dairy, coconut or water form, home made or shop bought, kefir is full of probiotic (friendly) bacteria. These bacteria may not take up residence in the gut for long, but as they pass through, they can displace and move the less friendly bacteria on. People who have an overgrowth of gut bacteria may experience some gurgling or bloating at first, so it is worth trying over a few days or weeks to see if this settles down. Kefir made from dairy has already had most of the lactose broken down by bacteria, making it digestible for lactose intolerance.
6. Water: it almost always appears somewhere on every list! Water is needed for lots of chemical reactions in the body, including those that break foods down and release energy and nutrients for them. And of course, it hydrates the stool so that it can pass through easily. Aim for two litres a day, mostly between meals.
7. Chia seeds and Ground Flax Seeds: high in fibre and Omega 3 essential fats, these are great for relieving constipation. Try adding to porridge, muesli, smoothies, or as a chia pudding.
8. Fennel: used therapeutically for respiratory and other infections, it is also very soothing for the gut and stimulates digestion. Enjoy cooked, added to a salad, or use the seeds to make a tea. Shop bought fennel tea is also available.
9. Apple cider vinegar: anecdotally, most people who use it to improve digestion find that it does help. But if you have too much stomach acid, this might not be for you. You can either add it to a glass of water before a meal, starting with a teaspoon and working your way up to a tablespoon, or you could mix it with some oil and dress your bitter greens salad above.
10. Lots of plant foods: increasing the quantity and variety of fruits and vegetables is one of the best things you can do for your health, and there are so many to choose from! Diversity in your diet, paired with a gradual increase in fibre, will help to balance your microbiome.
If you would like to find out how nutritional can help with your digestive health, contact me at info@victoriabellnutrition.co.uk
How to Get Rid of Bloating
Bloating is no fun. It can interfere with what you do and how you enjoy (or don’t enjoy) life. Can you relate to the following?
You cannot sit through a day at work without being uncomfortable
You avoid eating before a big night out to fit into your clothes
Your favourite foods cause your tummy to swell
You spend most of your time feeling uncomfortable and the last thing you feel like is exercise
If so, bloating has started to interfere with the choices that you make and how you live your life.
Finding out what is causing your bloating is often not a quick fix. Over the counter and prescription medications may help in the short term, but they do not deal with the root cause. Similarly, working out your trigger foods can help you to reduce the bloating, but living with dietary restrictions longer term is also not the answer.
Gut Bacteria and Micriobiome
It helps to understand what might be causing the bloating. Often the balance of your gut bacteria or microbiome, may be involved. Most of your gut bacteria normally lives in your colon, or lower intestine. Further up in the small intestine, there should be a lot less bacteria and even less in the stomach.
Most of the bacteria is commensal, meaning that it has important jobs to do for you, including:
protecting you from invading organisms such as viruses, parasites and harmful bacteria
helping you to digest foods such as carbohydrates, including the lactose in dairy
an active role in absorbing some nutrients and synthesising vitamin B12
Your commensal bacteria especially likes to feed on carbohydrates by fermenting them. As a by-product, gas is produced which you don’t tend to notice with a balanced microbiome. Some carbohydrates are much quicker to break down, which makes them more accessible to your gut bacteria.
If you eat a lot of sugary foods and refined carbohydrates such as white flour products, bacteria can overgrow but so can yeast such as candida and the more harmful bacteria! Even an overgrowth of commensal bacteria can contribute to bloating, especially if that bacteria has travelled up into the small intestine.
Lifestyle can also affect your microbial balance. Lack of sleep, poor stress tolerance and lack of exercise can all tip the balance so you not only start to experience tummy troubles, but can become more susceptible to illness.
If you’ve seen your doctor about your symptoms and ruled out any more concerning reasons for them, working with a nutritional therapist can help you to settle your digestive system so that bloating no longer blights your daily life.
My top 10 tips for getting rid of bloating:
1. Stay hydrated by aiming for two litres a day of fluids, ideally mostly water. Tea, coffee, herbal teas, and watery soups all help towards your intake. But…
2. Keep drinks away from your meals, because large quantities of liquid dilute your stomach acid and give your body a much harder job to digest your food. Tea especially can slow digestion down, because the tannins in the tea bind to pepsin which is an enzyme you need to break down protein.
3. Slow your eating down, chew your food as much as possible which makes the most of the digestive enzymes in your saliva. If you can eat as many of your meals as possible in a relaxed environment and with less distractions, you will be priming your digestive system to do it’s job.
4. Eat 2-4 regular small meals and keep snacks to a minimum – 1-2 per day if needed rather than grazing throughout the day. The period of fasting in between meals allows something called your Migrating Motor Complex (MMC) to activate. The MMC is an automatic wave of muscle contractions throughout your intestines, which not only helps push food down, but bacteria which belongs lower down in the colon. Given the chance, bacteria can travel up into the small intestine and wreak havoc.
5. Keep a food diary and record the timing of your meals and when your bloating happens. If you tend to have lots of foods together in each meal, try having less different foods in one sitting so that you have a better chance of identifying your trigger foods.
6. Another option is to try eliminating dairy or gluten for a week and noting your symptoms throughout the week and when you reintroduce the food. Give yourself three or more days before trying the other food to eliminate and go through the same process.
7. Carbohydrate rich foods, even the healthier plant-based ones may cause bloating. Stick to complex carbohydrates such as brown rice, whole grains (if they don’t add to the bloating), sweet potato, celeriac, and wholegrain pastas. Sourdough which has already been fermented may also produce less bloating than regular wheat-based bread.
8. Keep sugary snacks and drinks to a minimum and swap where possible for protein-based snacks such as nuts, nut butter, eggs or fish. A small banana, fresh berries or an apple with nuts or nut butter is a good combination.
9. Get up every hour or so from your desk and aim to include some walking, stretching or other physical activity every day.
10. Prioritise sleep and take steps to improve your sleep quality with a calm uncluttered bedroom, turning off screens an hour before bed and avoiding sugar, caffeine and alcohol in the evenings.
There are plenty more measures you can take to work on your bloating, too many to fit into one blog! Adopting as many as possible of the above steps will get you on the right path to resolving your symptoms.
If you would like to understand how nutritional therapy can help you to resolve your bloating, feel free to contact me at info@victoriabellnutrition.co.uk.
Managing Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Discussing something as personal as your bowel movements or constant bloating and discomfort can be embarrassing for many. So it may not be a surprise that people often self-diagnose IBS or avoid seeking medical attention for months or years. But IBS is the most common functional gastrointestinal disorder in the developed world, affecting up to 1 in 5. It is more common in women than men, with typical onset in the teen years and twenties but it can also affect children.
The condition is classified into several types; IBS-C (predominantly constipation), IBS-D (predominantly diarrhoea), IBS-M (mixed) and IBS-A (alternating). As well as diarrhoea and constipation, other common symptoms include feeling like you haven’t been able to empty your bowels fully, abdominal cramps and bloating. Other symptoms may include anxiety, depression, tiredness, nausea, heartburn, frequent urination, headaches and muscle pains. IBS can have a big impact on daily life, including work, exercise, enjoying eating and sleep.
It is advisable to seek a diagnosis of IBS with your doctor, and there are certain symptoms that should always be investigated as soon as possible. These include bleeding from the rectum, unexplained weight loss, persistent fever and malaise, an ongoing change of bowel habit for no obvious reason and sudden changes in digestive symptoms over the age of 50. Investigation of these and the symptoms above is vital to rule out any other conditions.
There is no one known cause of IBS and it is considered to be a chronic disease, without a cure. Many factors can contribute to it including genetics, diet, stress, poor sleep, trauma, gastroenteritis and antibiotics. Many medications may be offered to address symptoms such as antispasmodics, laxatives, antidepressants and sleeping tablets, but often resolution of one symptom may result in a new side effect.
It is however possible to take natural measures to calm and control the symptoms of IBS and significantly improve quality of life. The first step is to look at what the underlying causes of the symptoms may be and where possible, remove triggers. Nutritional therapists are trained to help work through this process with their clients and support them with a nutritional protocol. There are many steps individuals can take, such as the following:
· Identify any dietary triggers of IBS symptoms. For some this may be a case of eliminating dairy and/or gluten, or it may involve lots of different foods such as those high in FODMAPs (fermentable carbohydrates). An elimination diet may be required to identify which foods trigger symptoms and by following many of the other steps it may be possible to reintroduce some of these foods later on or build up a degree of tolerance.
· Involve some daily movement such as walking or gentle yoga and aim to introduce some more intensive exercise one to three times per week. Exercise that is enjoyable is best, and it is important not to exercise excessively as this can exert stress on the body and exacerbate symptoms.
· Load up on lots of fresh vegetables and some fruit each day, although if you are experiencing severe bowel symptoms you may wish to build up gradually. A good guide is to fill half of your plate for lunch and dinner with vegetables in a range of colours and include 1-3 portions of fruit (great choices are apples, stone fruits and berries) daily.
· Consider the health of your microbiome (gut bacteria) by introducing a good quality probiotic. We need to feed the good bacteria with lots of good quality plant foods (see above) and weed out the bad by limiting sugar, refined or trans fats and processed foods. If budget allows, a diagnostic stool test can also be useful in identifying pathogens, parasites, low levels of commensal bacteria or insufficient digestive enzymes.
· Use bitter foods to stimulate digestion such as rocket, watercress, artichoke, or apple cider vinegar. Chew food slowly and sip water with meals rather than drinking lots as it dilutes stomach acid. Drink tea and coffee away from meals as they can bind to certain proteins and minerals and contribute to acid reflux.
· Drink lots of water, aiming for 2 litres per day including teas. Drink an extra glass of water for every cup of coffee.
· Consider aspects of your life which are causing you stress, if possible implement some new strategies to prevent overload such as asking for help, letting go of commitments that no longer work for you and finding moments in your day to rest or do something enjoyable. Time spent outdoors, hobbies, massages and meditation or breathing exercises are all great choices.
· Spend time with friends and family and if you would like to, consider joining local groups or a class to connect with people.
· If you feel that it would help you, consider other therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), emotional freedom tapping (EFT), counselling, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, massage, reflexology, homeopathy or aromatherapy.
IBS can be quite hard to come to terms with if the diagnosis is fairly recent, but with 20% of the population affected by it you are not alone. With lots of time focussed on your self care, you can work towards regaining your energy and getting back to enjoying life.
If you would like to know more about how nutritional therapy could help you, contact me at info@victoriabellnutrition.co.uk 07873 121616.