• Salivation
• Digestive enzyme release
• Bile release
• The categorization of foods as nutrients or waste
• Nutrient absorption
• Bowel movements

Stress may also cause a decrease in blood flow and oxygen to the stomach, which could lead to cramping, inflammation, or an imbalance of gut bacteria.

That’s why it’s so important to be relaxed and in the parasympathetic state (the rest and digest) state as apposed to the sympathetic (fight of flight) state while you eat.

Ever feel knots in your stomach, a sinking feeling, your stools backing up, or just no appetite at all?

If you do you’ve probably noticed it most often when you are stressed!

Stress is our bodies response to perceived danger and it diverts energy and nutrients away from the digestive track into your eyes, heart, muscles, and other areas that will sharpen your reflexes, allow you to fight, flee, and hopefully survive.

For most of human history this stress response was activated in response to predators like bears and mountain lions or physical dangers like falling or drowning.

Once the danger was no longer present your body would slip back into the parasympathetic state and be able to effectively digest food and repair itself.

However now a days our bodies get a bit confused because most stress is created in our mind.

We get stressed over things we think about and sometimes this goes on for several hours or even days. During this time your body in the sympathetic mode and can’t digest food or repair your body properly.

If you eat anyways, you won’t be able to digest it properly and will likely end up bloated, gassy, in pain, and constipated!

So how do you make sure you’re in the parasympathetic state when you go to eat:

First tune into your body. If your salivating, hungry and in a good mood you’re good to go! If you aren’t hungry or know you’re stressed, wait to eat.

Do something de-stressing to help bring your body into the parasympathetic state like meditate, go for a walk, do some stretches, lay down for a few minutes, etc. and wait a bit till you feel hungry and calm.

When you go to eat:

•  Take a few deep breaths before starting
•  Eat slow
•  Chew your food thoroughly
•  Be present while eating, don’t multitask
•  Don’t talk about or think about stressful things (there’s a reason they say not to bring politics to the dinner table)
•  Sit and relax for a minimum of 10 minutes after you eat

The post How To Support Your Nervous System And Get Out Of Fight Or Flight In Order To Digest Your Food Properly appeared first on Heart to Kitchen.

Bone broth is one of the most effective gut healing foods out there. Its gut healing properties are thanks to the high content of collagen and the amino acid glycine.

Collagen helps the digestive system in many ways. Firstly, it attracts more digestive juices, enzymes, and bile to the food and increases stomach acid production.

All of these improve the breakdown of the food and therefore lead to greater nutrient absorption. Higher stomach acid also prevents acid reflux. Collagen consumption is also believed to protect against stomach ulcers.

Collagen plays a key role in maintaining the integrity and tightness of the gut lining. Collagen is comprised of several amino acids (such as glycine and glutamine) that help build the gut lining.

This makes collagen rich foods like bone broth particularly helpful for resealing and repairing the gut lining in cases like leaky gut and IBD.

Collagen also absorbs and retains water and therefore increases fluid in the intestines. This helps to encourage regular bowel movements.

Bone broth also helps to decrease intestinal inflammation due to its unique amino acid profile, containing high amounts of the anti-inflammatory amino acids alanine, hydroxyproline, proline, glutamic acid, and especially glycine.

It also lacks the amino acids cysteinre, methionine, and histidine, all of which can become pro-inflammatory in excess. On top of that excess methionine reduces glycine stores.

So if you want to heal and support your gut, I recommend you drink at least 1 cup of bone broth a day!

And if you want a good recipe for bone broth, you can find mine here!

The post Why Is Bone Broth One Of The Best Gut Healing Foods? appeared first on Heart to Kitchen.

After making it a few times and tweaking things a bit, I came up with a recipe that I really enjoy and I hope you like it too!

Please note, that this recipe is not nearly as sweet as most Thai iced teas, if you’d like a sweeter tea you can always add more sugar.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this if you decide to make it!

With love from my kitchen to yours,

Kayley

Thai Iced Tea

AuthorKayley O'Brien

The post Thai Iced Tea appeared first on Heart to Kitchen.

There is so much info available to us today that it can start to feel incredibly overwhelming as you reach contradiction after contraction after contradiction!

Some people say to practice intermittent fasting, only eat 3 times a day, and eat high fat low carb. While others tell you to eat within 30 mins of waking, to eat plenty of carbs, and to eat 6 times a day.

Some people say sugar, caffeine, saturated fat, meat, vegetables, salt, and practically every other food that exists are healthy while others say they’re unhealthy.

How in the world are you supposed to know who to believe?

Well I have 5 different tips for you:

1) Tune Into Your Body-

Science is only trying to figure out what your body and nature already knows. So why not consult your own body on the matter. Experiment with your own diet and see how you feel.

Your body will tell you exactly what you need as well as what’s working and what isn’t, if you’ll only get out of your head and listen to your gut!

2) Compare The Nutrition Claim To What Our Ancestors Did-

This is where Weston A Price’s work can really come in handy since he did such a great job at documenting what our ancestors ate.

One of the most interesting things his work showed was the great variation in pre-modernized people’s diets. While the Eskimos thrived on fish, seal, seal oil, fish eggs, caribou, ground nuts, kelp, cranberries, organs, and sorrel grass and flower blossoms preserved in seal oil.

The Peruvian peoples ate corn, beans, squash, seafood, quinoa, potatoes, deer, birds, guinea pig, fish, eggs, fruit, and yucca.

However there are still many commonalities between them. They all ate whole seasonal foods from nature in their most unprocessed form. They prioritized nose to tail animal foods and were always careful to prep their plant foods properly (soak, sprout, ferment, or cook).

In addition to looking at his work, you can also just go out in nature and observe what’s edible around you, it won’t take too long to start seeing the patterns of what humans would eat.

So I recommend you asses nutrition claims for how compatible they are with nature and the natural world.

For example how well does the claim that saturated fat, cholesterol, and red meat are bad for your health really hold up, when you think about how much of our ancestors diets where composed of these foods?

3) See What People You Trust Say About The Matter-

This isn’t perfect because sometimes they will say different things. But if several nutritionists who consistently put out high quality well researched content are saying the same thing, then there’s a good chance it’s true.

It’s always ideal to do more of your own research, but I realize that’s not always realistic. Besides there are some great nutritionist out there that I learn a lot from.

4) Avoid Rigidity And Black And White Answers-

Realize that things are rarely simple enough to say that they’re objectively good or bad. A lot of factors come into play when determining if a food or habit will be beneficial or harmful for you.

Factors like food quality, food preparation, what other foods it’s served with, and your current health! So step back and try to look at the larger picture.

5) Look At Studies And Assess How Good They Are-

Not all studies are equal. Generally the best studies are done on humans, have large sample sizes, control for many variables, and are experimental studies. While studies that are observational, done on animals, have small sample sizes, and don’t account for other variables should be taken with a grain of salt.

When reading original studies look for these and use your critical thinking to determine how concrete of evidence you really gain from this study.

The post 5 Ways To Determine The Truth When Facing Conflicting Nutrition Advice appeared first on Heart to Kitchen.

When you walk into your local health food store and start looking at prices for grass fed steak, raw dairy, pasture raised eggs, fermented veggies, bone broth, and other nutritious foods, your jaw probably drops (I know mine does)!

If you were to buy all these, your grocery bill would be outrageous! I mean is it even possible to afford healthy groceries without being a millionaire? I’m here to tell you that it is. Money is not the problem, healthy groceries can actually be very affordable. The secret lies in how you approach grocery shopping and meal planning.

You need to be willing to:

1) Make more stuff from scratch and do more work in the kitchen-

Buy a large hunk of meat (like top sirloin) and butcher it yourself; make your own mayo, salad dressings, and sauces; and make your own bone broth, liver pâté, and fermented veggies. If you do the work, then you don’t have to pay someone else to. If you go the extra mile and hunt, fish, garden, forage, or raise animals, you can save even more.

2) Be content with simpler meals and foods-

Is ground beef the most exciting food on the planet, no. But is 1 lb of local grass fed ground beef around $7 per lb, yes! Opt for cheaper yet still equally as healthy foods, don’t use an excessive amount of different ingredients, give up or limit eating out, alcohol, and extravagant expensive foods.

3) Eat with the seasons-

Seasonal produce is more plentiful locally and therefore since supply is high, prices are lower. Out of season foods like strawberries in winter have to be shipped from far away (since the local supply is often nonexistent) driving costs up.

4) Eat nose to tail-

Most people don’t want liver, shank, heart, chicken feet and other odd parts, therefore they’re typically pretty cheap! You can often get grass fed local beef liver for $7 per lb! Also if you eat these regularly you don’t need any supplements so you can cut costs there too!

5) Bargain hunt-

You don’t have to go to the fancy health food store (at least not for everything)! I go to Sprouts (a grocery store in some US states, there’s a lot here in CA) for most of my groceries because it sells a lot of the exact same things the local health food stores sell, but for about 3/4 of the price!

Other helpful tips are to go to multiple grocery stores, take advantage of discount days (student, senior, and veterans discounts are common), take advantage of discounts, and go to farmers markets or farms.

6) Find a good price quality balance-

Everyone’s balance is gonna be a bit different, it mostly depends on your financial state and your desire for fancier foods. Mess around with this to figure out what’s best for you.

I for example don’t buy everything at absolute top quality (not all my meat is grass fed, not all my dairy is raw, though a good chunk of it is). I also have a few treats that I know are more expensive and am willing to spend that money (certain fruits, my raw butter, and the occasional fancier cut of meat). You don’t have to be absolutely perfect, just do the best you can and figure out what works for you!

7) Plan ahead and don’t waste food-

If you don’t want to waste money on food, don’t throw away food! I’ve found the best way to do this is to plan ahead. Figure out what you’re gonna eat first and then buy the right amount of food for these meals. Also if you have extra of certain foods, try to make a meal around that so you can use the extra.

If you implement these 7 tips into your grocery shopping routine, I think you’ll find that eating healthy can actually be very affordable!

The post Healthy Food Doesn’t Have To Be Expensive! appeared first on Heart to Kitchen.

More people and animals alike are drawn out. Mountains and lands that were covered by snow in the winter, are now easily accessible! Food is plentiful, especially juicy ripe fruits!

It’s a time to enjoy campfires; feasts; BBQs; trips; going to the beach, river, or lake to cool off in the water; and laying in the sun.

As summer progresses we see an increase of the qualities of summer (heat, light, intensity, fieriness, and dryness) in ourselves.

If these qualities become too dominant they can lead to imbalances/symptoms such as red skin, inflammation, acid reflux, irritability, loose stools, pimples, rashes, swelling/puffiness, and/or headaches.

While this is pretty typical of summer, it should be noted that the qualities of the seasons vary based on where you live so make adjustments to these recommendations as it’s relevant to you and your environment.

It should also be noted that not all of us are affected equally by the same seasons. Ever wonder why some people can’t wait for the summer heat, while others dread it? It’s because it has to do with what imbalances we are prone to and currently dealing with, and in Ayurveda this is linked with your dosha (if you are the pitta dosha you will likely feel the effects of summer more).

So What Are Some Things You Can Do To Restore/Maintain Balance?

The main overarching goal here is to balance the qualities of summer by bringing more of the opposite qualities into our daily lives. Those qualities are: cool, calm, movement, moisture, and light. We can do this by doing the following things:

1) Be More Active

Summer is a great time to increase your activity and/or the intensity of your training! If you’ve been wanting to up your training now’s the time! The warmth of summer helps to keep your body warm and prevent injury and unlike the winter which is a time to slow down and rest, summer is the season for picking up the pace and staying active!

One thing to remember though is that it’s easy to overheat training in the summer time. This could lead you to getting light headed, nauseous, dehydrated, or exhausted. So if you live in a hot place and train outside, the morning or evening is generally the best time to train.

2) Rise Earlier

Your body syncs with the cycles and rhythms of nature. For instance, in the absence of artificial lights, you’ll typically get tired not too long after sunset and will naturally rise around the time the sun rises. Since the sun rises earlier in the summer and there’s more day light, we actually thrive waking up earlier and require less sleep during the summer time compared to winter.

3) Get Outside And Explore!

One of my absolute favorite parts of summer is that the snow melts in the mountains (my favorite place ever) and tons of lakes, rivers, waterfalls, and beautiful areas become easy to explore!

While the cold and snow of winter draws us into our warm homes, the warmth of summer draws us out into the wild! I think this is very instinctual because our ancestors had to take advantage of this time to gather food and resources for the winter.

4) Avoid Sun Burns

While time in the sun is amazing for your health, sunburns are not!

Heat causes fat to oxidative so essentially sunburns mean the sun is oxidizing your fat (creating unstable free radicals just like what’s in vegetable oils)! Burns also increases heat and inflammation in the body. Not to mention they hurt!

Sunscreen is probably the most common way to prevent burns, but the vast majority of them are very toxic to the body! They also prevent you for getting all the benefits of the sun (like vitamin D synthesis).

So what is one to do when the summer roles around and your chances of burning increase?

1) Don’t Consume Seed Oils- Seed oils are very chemically unstable and prone to oxidation and if you consume them that’s what your fat is gonna be made up of. This will greatly increase your chance of being burned because your fat will be extra susceptible to oxidation!

2) Instead Eat Saturated Fat + Vitamin A- As you probably already know saturated fat is much more stable and less prone to oxidation. Therefore if your fat is made up of saturated fat (from your diet) then you’ll be a lot less likely to burn! Also be sure to get plenty of vitamin A from foods like liver, kidney, cod liver oil, sea urchin, salmon roe, tuna, butter, eggs, eel, mackerel, and cheese. Vitamin A is protective against sunburns!

3) Gradually Increase Sun Exposure- It’s best if you can spend several hours outside every day through out the year. This way your tan will gradually increase as summer draws near and you likely won’t get burned at all. However, I know a lot of people find it difficult to make that a priority so if that’s the case, just increase your exposure gradually. At the beginning of summer you probably only want to lay out in the sun for about 45 mins midday, not 2+ hours. Gradually increase this and in a month or 2 you’ll have a tan that makes it easy to lay out in the sun for 2 hrs without getting burned

4) Cover Up + Go In The Shade- To piggy back off the last tip, if you’ve been in the sun for close to your max amount of time before burning, then cover up or go in the shade.

5) Avoid Wearing Sunglasses- Our bodies are smart and the sun hitting our eyes is a way to let our body know that we’re being exposed to the sun and to prep accordingly to prevent burns. However when we cover our eyes with sunglasses this inhibits that communication with our body and can actually increase your chances of burning. So try to only used your sunglasses when you really need them like when reading a book in the sun, otherwise try to go sunglassless more often!

6) Factor In Elevation, Time, Clouds, And Water- Certain things increase the amount of sun you’re getting like being in higher elevation, being out midday, or being in the water. Also being in the water or out on an overcast day can make it difficult to feel the burn coming on, compared to laying out in the sun dry on a hot day. Remember these to try to get a better idea of how much sun exposure you’re actually getting.

7) Use Natural Non-Toxic Sun Screen As A Last Resort- If you are going to be in a situation where you aren’t tan enough to deal with the sun exposure you’ll be getting and there’s no option for going in the shade, covering up, etc. Then get a good quality non-toxic sunscreen to use. In these situations, I think it’s a lot better than getting burned. (If you know of any good non-toxic brands, please share in the comments, idk of any and I’m sure other people would appreciate it!)

Also if you do get burned, it happens no one’s perfect, aloe gel is very soothing and healing to put on burns!

5) Stay Hydrated

In the summer we often sweat a lot, which is awesome for lymphatic and skin detox! But we need to remember to replenish the water and electrolytes we lose through sweat. Some great hydrating beverages are:

• filtered water with a pinch of good quality mineral salt
• apple cider vinegar in water with salt, cinnamon, and ginger (recipe here)
• sparkling limeade (recipe here)
• coconut water
• juice
• bone broth (recipe here)
• whole raw milk

6) Jump In Cool Water + Take Cold Showers

This brings a very refreshing and revitalizing coolness to contrast the intense summer heat.

7) Eat A Lighter Seasonal Diet

Summer is a great time to enjoy lighter foods as well as sweet, juicy, refreshing foods like peaches, tomatoes, and a variety of fresh fruit.

Our digestion (or agni) often weakens in the summer time and it’s common to not be as hungry in the summer. Therefore lighter foods like grilled steak with salad can be quite nice this time of year. Also if you’re looking to lose some weight, now’s a great time. Since your appetite is naturally lower, it makes it a lot easier.

In summer, it’s best to prioritize the flavors sweet, bitter, and astringent as they help to balance the heat of summer.

Below are some common examples of summer foods and if you want to check out some of my favorite summer recipes click here!

Also note that these food lists are based on what’s seasonal in California where I live. However, what’s in season where you live may look a little different. It’s best to go by what’s in season for you because that will best balance your body in relation to your climate. Remember the seasons look a little different everywhere as well.

Ideal Summer Foods:

Animal Products:

Fruits:

Vegetables:

Herbs And Spices:

Other Foods:

Works Cited

1. “Summer Guide Maximize Your Summer Health.” Banyan Botanicals. Accessed 16 June 2022. https://www.banyanbotanicals.com/info/ayurvedic-living/living-ayurveda/seasonal-guides/summer-guide/

2. O’Donnell, Kate. “The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook.” Colorado: Shambhala Publishing. 2015. Print

3. Seasonal Food Guide. Accessed 16 June 2022. https://www.seasonalfoodguide.org/

The post How To Balance The Effects Of Summer appeared first on Heart to Kitchen.

Since the tongue is a muscle, it actually taste pretty darn similar to other slow cooked tough cuts of meat like chuck and brisket. Though tongue is a bit softer. If you’re newer to nose to tail eating, tongue is a great place to start since it doesn’t have a strong flavor like organ meats do.

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When I first set out to try tongue, I went with the classic dish of tongue tacos. They turned out so good that I would have them 5 nights in a row and then be sad the next night when I was out of the ingredients for more!

For my tacos I use corn tortillas, slow cooked tongue, avocado tomatillo salsa, sour cream, cotija cheese, and cilantro! A note about picking out good quality corn tortillas: corn is a crop that’s typically genetically modified and then doused with round up (a weed killer known to cause leaky gut, gut damage, and a long list of other health problems).

Therefore it’s important that you pick out organic corn tortillas. And since corn is a grain, it’s also important that it’s prepared properly to reduce the anti-nutrient content. It’s best to get traditionally made tortillas where the corn is first sprouted and then made into tortillas with water, lime juice, and salt.

(These are the tortillas I like to get)

Without further ado, here’s my tongue taco recipe! I hope you and your family enjoy it!

With love from my kitchen to yours,

Kayley

Beef Tongue Tacos

AuthorKayley O'Brien

Nutrition

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Notes:

• Nutrition is based on the products I use. I provide a nutrition table so that you can quickly check to see if your food products match or so that you can easily calculate the nutrition for any changes you want to make to the recipe. I think this helps if you have very specific diet goals and/or fitness and/or health goals. I also wanted you to be able to see exactly where I get the numbers for my nutrition facts so that you can see that they are reliable and learn more about macro breakdowns of food.

Works Cited

1. Nutrition Data Self. Accessed 30 April 2022. https://nutritiondata.self.com/

The post Beef Tongue Tacos appeared first on Heart to Kitchen.

With IBS, we typical see an overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria, sluggish digestion, and damage to the gut which manifests as symptoms like bloating, gas, abdominal pain and cramps, constipation and/or diarrhea, acid reflux, food sensitivities, candida overgrowth, and low appetite.

Therefore if you truly want to heal your IBS for good, it’s crucial that your diet takes these factors into account! In this article I’m going to do just that and share 5 things that are essential in a IBS healing diet.

1) Limit Your Plant Intake-

Grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds contain many plant toxins like lectins that can damage your gut lining if consumed in excess!

Since your gut lining is already damaged in IBS, you want to take extra care to keep your consumption of these foods very limited (in some cases you may want to fully eliminate them) and any that you do consume, prepare properly (soak, sprout, ferment) to reduce the anti-nutrients and make them more digestible.

On top of that, fiber in plants feeds your gut bacteria, when you have excess pathogenic bacteria, fiber is feeding the bad guys too! This leads to excess gas production, bloating, pain, constipation, and/or diarrhea! So that means go easy on the veggies too!

2) Eliminate Processed Foods, Seed Oils, And Your Trigger Foods-

It probably goes without saying that you should eliminate unhealthy foods like processed foods and seed oils, but there’s a few more things you should probably eliminate/limit.

And that’s your trigger foods, these exact foods will vary for everyone so the best way to identify what they are is to keep a log of your food and symptoms. If you notice certain foods seem to be causing symptoms it’s typically best to limit or eliminate these foods temporarily.

3) Center Your Diet Around High Quality Animal Foods And Include Lots Of Collagen-

As you probably already know, animal foods are the most nutritious foods and they are also very kind to our digestive system! Collagen rich foods (like bone broth, bone marrow, oxtail, shank, bone-in skin-on poultry, slow cooked tough cuts of meat, and pork rinds) in particular are very healing! They decrease inflammation and help repair the gut lining!

4) Get All Your Nutrients In And In The Right Portions-

Nutrients are key for making enzymes and stomach acid for proper digestion, healing your gut, and so many other things! Eating nose to tail is one of the best ways to maximize your nutrient intake, so make sure you eat those organs!

Another tip here: if you can’t tolerate dairy at the moment (which is relatively common in people with gut issues) get plenty of seafood, especially good quality shellfish! Seafood and dairy are rich in similar nutrients, so this will help you to balance your nutrient intake!

5) Prioritize Warm, Soft, Easy To Digest Foods-

Things like soups, eggs, slow cooked meats, tea, a mug of warm bone broth, and roasted root veggies will be much easier to digest! On the flip side I recommend you avoid raw, cold, and heavy foods.

* If you want more info on exactly how to overcome your gut and digestive issues step by step (whether that’s bloating and gas, constipation, diarrhea, digestive cramps and pain, food intolerance/sensitivities, low appetite, skin issues, hormonal issues, or other symptoms) then click here to book a free discovery call with me! Helping people heal their gut and optimize their health is something I’m very passionate about since my own 10 year struggle with chronic constipation and IBS is what got me into the health and nutrition realm in the first place. I was able to fully overcame my gut issues and I’ve helped dozens of other too as well so I know you can too!

The post Diet To Heal IBS appeared first on Heart to Kitchen.

• Bloating
• Gas
• Abdominal pain
• Constipation
• Diarrhea
• Low energy
• Brain fog
• Skin issues
• Hormonal issues (like low fertility, painful heavy periods, or low libido)
• Autoimmune disease
• Joint pain
• Food sensitivities

I’m willing to bet the answer is yes! In fact you probably know a lot of people that struggle with these. And if you haven’t guessed already, every single one of those (and many other conditions) are a gut issue at root!

Knowing how ridiculously common these symptoms are, you can probably imagine how many people are walking around with gut issues and many not even realizing it!

In order to understand how to heal your gut and therefore overcome symptoms like those listed above, it’s important to first realize why the heck gut issues are so common now a days. So in this article I’m gonna share with you the 6 main reasons why gut issues are so common.

1) Poor Diet-

Sadly the vast majority of people don’t eat a gut supportive nourishing diet. Many fall for the convenience of eating out and/or the standard American diet. Which means a very high intake of inflammatory vegetable oils, processed foods, pesticides, food additives/preservatives, refined carbs, refined sugar, often times alcohol, and other gut damaging foods/substances.

On the flip side many people with a good intention to be healthy, get lead astray by the whole eat tons of plants, avoid animal products bs! I’ll tell you from experience (both my own and the experience of several others I’ve talked too), eating tons of whole grains and veggies while avoiding animal foods will most likely wreak havoc on your gut and overall health!

A plant heavy diet means an excessive intake of plant toxins (like lectins, oxalates, phytic acid, and polyphenols) as well as a very high fiber intake. While our body can handle some anti-nutrients and we actually benefit from some fiber, too much can scrape and damage our gut lining, puncture holes in our gut lining (causing leaky gut), increase gas production and bloating, cause kidney stones, decrease nutrient absorption, slow down the whole digestive system, cause constipation, and overtime can even lead to autoimmune conditions and other serious conditions like IBD.

2) Malnourishment-

To piggy back off the first point, malnourishment (aka nutrient deficiencies) is also extremely common. Both examples I gave (the standard American diet and the more plant based diet) lead to malnourishment.

Nutrients are needed for every system in our body to function properly and that includes the digestive system! Without adequate nutrients we can’t produce enough enzymes to help us breakdown our food properly which in turn can lead to decreased nutrient absorption, increased gas production, bloating, constipation, digestive pain, and more! Nutrients are also needed to repair our gut lining and maintain a tight sealed healthy intestinal barrier.

3) Toxins And Antibiotics-

We are exposed to so many toxins now a days and many of them have a pretty nasty affect on our gut health! Some of the big ones are the weedkiller Glyphosate (aka Round Up) and antibiotics.

Glyphosate is used on 70% of crops and 9 billion kg of it is sprayed globally each year! This weed killer has a long list of side affects, a few of which are leaky gut, gut dysbiosis (an imbalance of good to pathogenic bacteria in the gut microbiome), autoimmunity, neurodegeneration (it opens the blood brain barrier after all), liver disease, infertility, depression, and anxiety!

Antibiotics simply kill bacteria, but they’re not selective about which ones they kill, so beneficial bacteria die right along side the pathogenic bacteria. This can severely disrupt the gut microbiome and lead to gut dysbiosis.

It’s also been shown that antibiotics cause microbes to mutate into more harmful substances that cause many issues in our bodies. It should be noted that taking antibiotics isn’t the only way, we’re exposed to them. We can also be exposed by eating meat from animals that have been given antibiotics, drinking water contaminated with antibiotics, or if we use antibacterial soaps. Over the counter pain relievers can also disrupt our gut microbiome in a similar though not quite as severe way.

4) Over-sanitation-

Now a days there’s a big obsession with cleanliness. However the more determined we are to kill pathogenic bacteria with things like hand sanitizers, bleach, and other harsh cleaning products, the more good bacteria will die as well.

Most of the time the good bacteria probably already had a good handle on the situation and were preventing the pathogenic ones from taking over. But when you kill off a bunch of both good and pathogenic bacteria, you leave a gap in the population which may be replaced by good bacteria or may be by pathogenic ones.

So ironically, over-sanitation gives pathogens a better chance at winning the bacteria war. Most of the time you’re better of doing things to support a healthy diverse population of good bacteria.

5) The Exponential Generational Affect-

I may have given this point a complicated name so let me explain. We pass our gut microbiome onto our children during childbirth. When the baby passes through it gets both the mother and fathers microbiome (It gets the fathers because he leaves part of his microbiome in the women when he spends time in there).

Anyways, if both parents don’t have a healthy microbiome (or if the child is delivered via Cesarean section), their child will start of life at a disadvantage gut and overall health wise. If this child never heals their microbiome, they will pass on a subpar microbiome to their children and so on.

With toxin exposure increasing and peoples diets getting worsening worse, we are seeing an exponential affect off poor microbiome health from generation to generation!

6) Living Stressful Fast Paced Lives-

In modern society so many of us have become obsessed with productivity. This often leads us to live fast pace lives and to easily become stressed! This is a major problem because if we are always in this mode (the sympathetic mode) we aren’t giving our body a chance to rest, repair, and digest (all of which happen in the more relaxed parasympathetic mode).

Stress can also make our gut leaky, impair proper digestion, and impart our bodies ability to repair damage in the gut.

* If you want more info on exactly how to overcome your gut and digestive issues step by step (whether that’s bloating and gas, constipation, diarrhea, digestive cramps and pain, food intolerance/sensitivities, low appetite, skin issues, hormonal issues, or other symptoms) then click here to book a free discovery call with me! Helping people heal their gut and optimize their health is something I’m very passionate about since my own 10 year struggle with chronic constipation and IBS is what got me into the health and nutrition realm in the first place. I was able to fully overcame my gut issues and I’ve helped dozens of other too as well so I know you can too!

The post Why Are Gut Issues So Common Now A Days? appeared first on Heart to Kitchen.

While these are commonly portrayed as things that just happen as you get older, they don’t have to be! In fact these are relatively new problems that our primal ancestors rarely dealt with in old age.

And side note they did live well past 30! That commonly stated number is an average lifespan which is skewed by the high incidences of infant and childhood mortality. Back in the day if you made it past childhood you’d likely live into your 80s.

And not just live into your 80s, but thrive with lots of energy; a mobile and athletic body; sharp mind, vision, and hearing; great overall health; and no diseases or illnesses!

So how can you get that too?

1) Nourish Yourself Properly-

Nutrient deficiencies are one of the main causes of health problems. Nutrients are needed for every single tissue and system in your body to function properly. Without adequate nutrient intake your body catabolizes (breaks down) less important tissues in order to keep your vitals supplied with nutrients.

For example, if you’re calcium deficient your body will take calcium out of your bones so that your heart and nerves can still function. This often leads to osteoporosis and weak bones that break easily.

Learning how to get all your nutrients in the right proportions and balance your meals is therefore key for preventing your body from degenerating!

2) Detox-

We are exposed to so many toxins now a days and many people’s detoxification systems (like lymph, liver, and colon) aren’t functioning optimally which means more toxins are being stored in your body!

The accumulation of these toxins leads to many health problems like cancer; reproductive and hormonal issues; weight gain; skin issues; bacterial, yeast, and fungal overgrowth; chronic fatigue; allergies; headaches; chronic digestive issues; autoimmune issues; and much more!

Therefore reducing your toxin exposure, optimizing the function of your bodies detoxification systems, and doing biyearly cleanses drastically improves your health!

3) Heal Your Gut-

Health really begins in your gut! It’s essential that you have a strong digestion to properly breakdown your food and be able to absorb the nutrients you eat!

A healthy sealed gut lining and regular bowel movements are also essential to keep pathogens and toxins out of your body.

And a healthy microbiome is essential for hormone production, preventing pathogen (bacteria, yeast, and fungal) overgrowth, a good mood, immune function, brain health, maintaining a healthy weight, and so much more!

4) Listen To Your Body-

Our bodies are constantly talking to us. They communicate with us through symptoms (like bloating, constipation, fatigue, etc.) to let us know the changes we need to make to restore balance to our health.

If we ignore what our bodies tell us, symptoms snowball and can eventually lead to disease if not corrected. Therefore learning to tune into your body and how to correct imbalances is another key part of disease prevention.

* These 4 things are so important to your health that they’re actually the main focus of my program: Ancestral Gut Healing! If you want help getting to the root of your health problems, nourishing your body properly detoxing, healing your gut, and learning to tune into your body in order to optimize your current and future health, I can help you with that! If you’re interested and want to know more, click here to set up a free discovery call with me!

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