A healthy gut can boost the absorption of nutrients, speed up weight loss and prevent food cravings. If you think of your gut as a garden, you'll notice that whatever you put into it is ultimately going to affect your overall health and wellbeing and determine how much energy you have.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Because everything you eat and drink goes through your gut, it makes sense that it is going to affect how your body functions from day to day.
There are a number of delicious foods, herbs and spices that can assist your gut every day. One spice in particular is cumin. It's a powerful digestive aid and a good detoxifier for the kidneys and bladder. In India people make a large pot of cumin tea in the morning, which often replaces drinking water. Drinking cumin tea helps to boost your metabolic energy, which helps your body to assimilate nutrients, eliminate waste, generate warmth, and transform physical matter into energy. It is commonly consumed as a shot after main meals or after celebrations such as weddings and dinner parties where guests have indulged in heavy meals, to aid digestion.
Fresh ginger is the ultimate tummy-soothing ingredient to add to your meals. That's because ginger has powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-nausea capabilities and it's also an appetite suppressant. Ginger is calmative to the body and has muscle relaxant properties that relieve trapped gas. If you suffer from bloating or tummy cramping, ginger can help to relieve them by relaxing the muscles in your gastrointestinal tract.
In Southern India, curry leaves are crushed and made into tea and have been used for centuries to cleanse and treat the digestive system. The smell and taste of fresh curry leaves stimulate salivary secretions, which in turn set off the secretion of digestive juices. To control indigestion and flatulence, add the ginger and a spoonful of dried and ground curry leaves. Curry leaves can be purchased from your local Asian grocery store.
A very useful ingredient to set up the gut for the day is a bowl of slippery elm porridge. It's particularly helpful for constipation, haemorrhoids, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), cystitis and inflammation. Slippery elm helps to neutralise acidity and protect mucous membranes along the GI tract by coating the membrane surface. You can make a nourishing porridge easily by adding the powder to water or milk of your choice. The powder helps to soothe irritated intestines by isolating the acidic environment and coating and promoting tissue regeneration.
Some great lunch choices for a healthy gut are soups made with asparagus, green beans, bok choy, fibre-rich greens and fennel. Fennel contains an oil which stimulates your digestive and gastric juices and reduces inflammation. It also really helps you to absorb of nutrients from your food. If you've ever taken antacid medication, that's what the oil is used in. Also mash bowls made with zucchini, salmon, and sardines provide you with good fats to ease digestion and fibre to cleanse through your bowel.
Anti-inflammatory toddy is my favourite drug-free weapon of choice for combating inflammation. It's a golden-hued suit of armour in my arsenal of gut healing recipes. It features a mixture of ancient Ayurvedic Indian anti-inflammatory spices. Curcumin, a compound found in the vibrant-coloured and subtly flavoured spice turmeric, is often used in a variety of treatments for arthritis. Combining turmeric with black pepper, as I do in this recipe, will help to increase the body's ability to absorb and digest the curcumin due to its pungent piperine content.
White fish & saffron soup is a beautifully light and flavourful soup with a dose of precious saffron, which has been used as a versatile medicine since ancient times, especially for cleansing the body and getting your digestive system moving. The foundation of fish stock will offer your body an array of anti-inflammatory, gut healing essential minerals. In ancient times people drank saffron tea as an aid to gas and bloating.
Vanilla custard Traditional vanilla custard can leave your tummy tied up in knots, because of the white sugar and cream. My version supplies the exact satisfaction custard should induce but without awkward digestive complaints. Gelatin included in the custard can greatly improve the integrity of the gut lining by restoring the mucosal layer. It also absorbs water and helps to keep fluid in the digestive tract, which is needed for promoting transportation of waste and healthy bowel movements.
* Heal Your Gut: A healing protocol and step-by-step program with over 90 recipes to cleanse, restore and nourish. By Lee Holmes. Murdoch. $29.99.
* Lee Holmes holds an Advanced Certificate in Nutrition and is a certified holistic health coach, yoga teacher, wholefoods chef and author. superchargedfood.com
