Holistic Nutrition Bytes

Green Drinks!

admin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:08:43 +0000

In honor of St. Patty’s day and the color green, let’s talk about what you should be drinking tonight instead of green beer. Let’s talk about how great green drinks are, how many options you have in creating said drinks, and how wonderfully alkalinizing they are for the body.

Step away from the Lucky Charms and the Guinness. Well, Guinness isn’t too bad occasionally. It’s (somewhat) high in iron, and its dark color means it has some antioxidants. But too much refined sugar, flour, and alcohol can cause the body to become quite acidic, and this leads to inflammation and opens the door for illness, imbalance, and degenerative disease. Green drinks to the rescue! No food coloring needed. Do you have a juicer? Try any of the following combinations. They are especially high in minerals and good with breakfast (have a balancing effect if you’ve been out drinking green beer the night before).
-cucumber, parsley, spinach, green apple
-spinach, romaine, green apple
-carrot, celery, spinach, parsley
-celery, carrot, spinach, green apple
-spinach, ginger, green apple, cucumber
-green apple, carrot, spinach

You get the idea – the main ingredients to use are cucumber, celery, parsley, and spinach; then add green apple or carrot as needed to sweeten. When juicing, use 1-2 apples, 3 carrots, 1 cucumber, handful spinach, handful parsley, 2-3 stalks celery. Get creative!

Don’t have a juicer? No problem. Make yourself a smoothie with seasonal fresh fruit and throw in a handful spinach and a tablespoon of supergreens powder. I love these booster foods–they contain spirulina, chlorella, wheatgrass, and other varieties of green foods like kale, broccoli, spinach, etc. I like the VitaMineral Greens brand. These superfood supplements are great additions to smoothies and are high in minerals, something so lacking in our diets, and very cleansing for the liver. They cleanse and alkalinize the blood. Try it blended with banana, coconut milk, spinach, and berries. It’s great–promise! Or try a creamy green smoothie in the blender, made with romaine, avocado, green apple, celery, and cilantro (optional).

Cheers to health promoting green drinks!

Tips & Treats

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:23:09 +0000

Consulting with people is an interesting insight into human behavior, physiology, and habits. Obviously the heart of my work is nutrition and wellness, but much of this work involves coaching, support, and being able to relate to people and their concerns. Being accessible. Here are a few things I’ve learned over the past six years of my career as a nutritionist:

-everyone loves cheese
-most people drink coffee
-about half of you crave salty and half crave sweet, a pretty even split
-most people do some kind of exercise
-most common complaints: insomnia, fatigue (interesting correlation there), digestive issues
-it takes about a month to change a habit. If you’ve gone 3, you’re pretty much golden. It takes the brain that amount of time to ditch one behavior and fully develop another.
-it takes about 5 days for sugar cravings to disappear once you cut it out of your diet
-everyone benefits from cutting out gluten, dairy, and soy for a couple of months, regardless of whether or not they are sensitive to these foods
-most common food sensitivities: eggs, dairy, gluten
-we’re not getting nearly enough minerals like magnesium & potassium, essential for cardio & blood pressure regulation, muscle contraction and nervous system regulation
-there is so much info out there that it’s easy to get confused. Like Michael Pollan says, “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.” Eat real food. Stay away from boxed crap that is “low fat,” “sugar free,” whatever.
-the body really thrives on routine. Try it for a week: get up and go to bed at the same time, and eat at regular intervals every day.
-everyone has a pretty hefty amount of stress to handle. It’s your ability to cope that will dictate your level of wellness. I’ve learned the stress really is the “gateway” to illness–the first step to imbalance. Learn to identify, handle, and let go of stressors.
-the human body is incredibly resilient.
-being healthy and well is as much in the mind as the body
-a lot of people really don’t like nuts. What gives?
-practicing some kind of spirituality–anything you identify with–is a necessary part of the wellness model, along with diet, exercise, and stress relief
-most common addiction: sugar
-every single person i’ve ever tested has had some kind of parasite or bacterial overgrowth in their digestive tract, even if they don’t have pronounced digestive symptoms. These can create real problems, like IBS, Crohn’s, or even hormonal imbalance/infertility. Shocking, huh?
-people really love their chocolate (myself included)
-the majority fare better and are more successful making a huge sweeping change all at once versus a little at a time (e.g. cutting out a food cold turkey vs phasing it out slowly)
-sometimes it’s hard for me to take my own advice
-rest is as essential to health restoration as anything. We work way too much. Spend more time with your family & friends, and take naps. Famous last words: “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” I think not.

Food for Thought: High Fructose Corn Syrup

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:42:40 +0000

Have you guys seen that commercial where the guy and girl are about to share a popsicle, and he’s like, “wait, doesn’t that have high fructose corn syrup in it?” and she’s like, “yeah, so?” and he can’t come up with a reason it’s bad, but he thinks he remembers hearing something about why he should avoid it, and she’s all, “It’s nutritionally the same as sugar and is fine in moderation!” And then the tagline appears, and the ad is sponsored by the Corn Refiners Association’s “Sweet Surprise” campaign (SHOCKER), wherein they encourage you to visit their website and find out the facts! You’ll be in for a sweet surprise!

So this guy should listen to his gut. Yes, high fructose corn syrup is bad. It’s in nearly every processed candy or soda or junk food, because it’s sweeter and cheaper and easier to process than real sugar, and corn is subsidized by the government. Yes, it’s linked to diabetes and obesity. You probably know all that. But this ad is annoying, because they’re saying that it “has the same number of calories as sugar and is handled similarly by the body.” Yes, it has the same calories as sugar, and yes, it will jack your body’s natural blood sugar levels the same as sugar, but what they’re leaving out is that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is highly processed and that much of the corn we grow here in the US is genetically modified. It’s not even close to being a real food. Of course, much of the sugar we consume in junk food is refined as well (it doesn’t start out crystalline white), but not nearly to the effect that HFCS is processed. Also, HCFS hits the bloodstream faster than sugar because of its chemical structure, and studies show it raises triglyceride levels (fats in the bloodstream) more than sugar.

Additionally, there is concern about the fact that nearly every processed food contains some kind of corn: your McDonald’s beef comes from corn-fed cows, your potato chips were fried in corn oil, your soda contains HFCS, and your bun has corn starch or corn flour. So much corn in everything you eat can lead to food allergies from a homogenous diet. We thrive on variety. I talk more about this in my post on the Cornification of America.

The wesbite (http://www.sweetsurprise.com) says that “High fructose corn syrup provides many consumer benefits.” Like what, diabetes? Look, I’m not going to going into excruciating detail about why HFCS is the devil. The fact is, the food industry puts this stuff in processed food because it’s cheap to produce, it’s cheap to process, it makes things sweet, adds structure to food and baked goods, makes sodas sweeter than sugar, etc. And yes, it is up to the consumer to take charge of his/her health and practice moderation, but this stuff is in everything. It’s everywhere. Kids are drinking this in juice, getting it in cereal, ketchup, fast food products. Here is a surprising list of foods in which you’ll find corn syrup or HFCS:
salad dressings
stove top stuffing
capri sun juice drinks
breads (like Pepperidge Farm’s line of 100% whole grain breads)
tons of cereal, mostly Kellogg’s
Eggo breakfast stuff
pop tarts (no surprise there)
nutrigrain cereal bars
crackers
cottage cheese & yogurt
ben & jerry’s ice cream
Oscar Mayer Lunchables
soups

The issue is that this ingredient is everywhere, and yes, it does lead to obesity because it causes high levels of insulin to be released in the bloodstream, and insulin triggers fat storage. It also sets you on a cycle to crave more sugar or sweets. In a perfect world, we’d all be eating whole foods that aren’t processed, but in the meantime, the food industry could stop poisoning us with highly processed chemicals that cause myriad health issues.

The website even has a section where nutritionists and dieticians state that HCFS is the same as sugar and blah blah blah the body can’t distinguish it from sugar and it’s fine in moderation. This is just irresponsible. As a holistic nutritionist, I would never advise anyone to eat HFCS — in moderation or otherwise. Look, avoid this junk. Really. If you want something sweet, choose foods that are naturally sweetened with honey, raw sugar, or stevia. Make your own desserts so that you know what goes into them. Don’t poison yourself with this crap and don’t feed it to your family. This is what’s wrong with our food supply: the majority of it isn’t even real food. It’s been manufactured in a lab to artificially flavor foods or increase the shelf life, as is the case with hydrogenated fats. When did we get to a world of foods with corn syrup and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils? Because it’s acceptable to choose cheap food production over our own health? Let’s stop the obesity and diabetes epidemic not by “moderation” but by avoidance of all non-foods.

One Size Does Not Fit All

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:14:59 +0000

So here’s an interesting study:
http://bit.ly/d0guzy

“In the long-running debate over diets—low-fat or low-carb—Stanford University researchers reported Wednesday that a genetic test can help people choose which one works best for them.

In a study involving 133 overweight women, those with a genetic predisposition to benefit from a low-carbohydrate diet lost 2 1/2 times as much weight as those on the same diet without the predisposition. Similarly, women with a genetic makeup that favored a low-fat diet lost substantially more weight than women who curbed fat calories without low-fat genes. The women were followed for a year.”

So here’s the thing: this study proves that we are all biochemically different, and we all require different ratios of carbs, protein, and fat. This is metabolic or nutritional typing, a practice I use with my clients. Read more about it here. No genetic testing required! I don’t advocate “low fat” or “low carb” diets per se, but sure, some folks need more carbs to thrive than others. By doing metabolic typing testing with my clients, I know if they are protein types (the kinds that LOVE to eat, are always thinking about food, and could “eat like a horse”); carb types (would rather not have to even think about food, eat sporadically, can go long periods without eating); or mixed types (somewhere between the two). That way, I design meal plans for them that contain the proper ratios of proteins, carbs, and fats, and teach them to do the same. Read more about the science behind this philosophy in the book The Metabolic Typing Diet, by researcher William Wolcott.

Am I eating too many carbs?

The larger point here is that “diets” don’t work, folks. Sure, you could probably drop some pounds doing South Beach, eating in “The Zone,” Atkins, or even Weight Watchers, but until you get a grip on how to properly feed yourself, you’ll gain the weight back, feel dissatisfied, tired, cranky, moody, whatever. It’s not about counting calories or complicated ratios; it’s about a lifestyle change. This isn’t a diet: it’s a plan you use for life to nourish yourself. That’s an important distinction: diets aren’t something you go on or off; your diet should be right for your physiology, and once your discover that, you won’t have cravings, energy dips, or problems with weight gain. Everything will magically fall into place with sunshine, rainbows, and gold. Seriously though, if you struggle with cravings, constant hunger, or yo-yo dieting, you’re not eating according to your metabolic typing. Eat for health and make it a lifestyle change!

The Nutrition Divas Step Out!

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 06:10:18 +0000

Exciting announcement! My business partner, certified nutritionist Karen Diggs, and I have officially launched our holistic wellness workshop & coaching business here in San Francisco. Visit www.nutritiondivas.com for info on our upcoming classes, workshops, free teleseminars, tips, and MORE TREATS!

If you are in San Francisco, we are having an open house on Saturday, April 3. We’ll be giving a brief informative talk on holistic cleansing & detox, along with plenty of tips, and we’ll have delicious apps and drinks prepared by chef Karen.

If you are not in San Francisco, we will be offering our workshops via webinar, so you can participate from anywhere in the world!

Three Breakfasts

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:24:55 +0000

You’ve heard it before: “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!” This is true, sure, but also: what are you eating for breakfast? Let’s imagine you are beyond eating pastries and coffee for breakfast and are making an effort to eat better. You can eat a great, organic, nutrient-dense meal for breakfast, but if you’re not eating according to your nutritional type, you may not be feeling your best.

I do a lot of nutritional (also known as metabolic) typing with clients. We are all biochemically and metabolically different, and we have different nutritional requirements. This is why one diet does not always fit everyone! The basic premise of nutritional typing is that there are three “types:” protein, carb, and mixed types, and each require different amounts of carbs & protein. (Read more about how to determine your type here.) Obviously, protein types need more protein and would crash on a vegetarian diet (if you are a vegetarian who has gained weight or is feeling crappy since making the switch, you are eating wrong for your type), and carb types are fine with more carbs (veggies, grains, fruits) and less protein. Mixed types are a good balance between the two.

So if you are a protein type and you’re eating oatmeal first thing in the AM, which is a high carb breakfast, you’re going to feel lethargic and foggy all day. Here are three ideal breakfasts for each of the three types.

Protein type: Smoked Salmon (Lox), which you ideally finish completely before moving on to a salad made with organic baby spinach leaves & shiitake mushrooms mixed with an Olive Oil or flax oil-based dressing. OR have some leftover seared flank steak, with a wilted spinach salad with avocado, olives, and pumpkin seeds. Use olive or flax oil-based dressing. As you can see, protein types often need to think outside the breakfast box. These are folks who crash and burn on the typical American sugar cereal or bread-based breakfast.

Mixed type: Fruit smoothie with whey or rice protein powder (preferably whey, but if you do not tolerate dairy, use rice powder). Blend together a banana, handful strawberries, spirulina/chlorella or superfood green powder, flaxseeds, coconut milk, and protein powder. OR try an egg scramble with pastured eggs, goat cheese, spinach, and a chicken sausage.

Carb type: Fresh vegetable juice of your choice (I like parsley-carrot-beet-ginger or green juice with any combo you like: spinach, green apple, parsley, cucumber, celery, etc) with oatmeal topped with raw cream (if you tolerate dairy) and cinnamon. OR a veggie egg scramble with goat cheese and a small seasonal fruit salad.

The Herbal Pharmacy/First Aid

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:17:09 +0000

Who needs Pepto or Tums when you have botanicals to help you recover and support you through illness, without the harmful side effects? Think about it next time you have a hay fever attack and are sneezy and snotty and you pop an anti-histamine: whatever the offending agent is, your body is coating it with mucous in order to expel it from your body, hence all the snot and runny nose. Same with diarrhea: whatever it is (parasite? pathogen?), your stomach acid didn’t kill it, so it’s causing a problem and needs to be expelled. Of course, no one wants to be on the pot all day, but certain herbs can help stop you up and reduce intestinal inflammation AND kill the offending pathogen. Can your Pepto do that? Here are my picks for the healthy family’s herbal pharmacy (alphabetized!).

Allergies: allergies can be complex. You may think you are reacting to a substance like pollen, but you’re reacting to the chemicals (histamines) released by your body in reaction to the pollen. For the sake of brevity, I’ll give you some suggestions to mitigate your symptoms, but if you have seasonal allergies (and are they getting worse with time?), it’s actually your digestive tract and detox system that need attention. But that’s a different post to come for spring. My fave herb to recommend for allergies is stinging nettles, especially good for coughs, runny nose, chest congestion, even asthma. Get the dried leaves from your natural foods store, or in bulk, or in tea bags. Make a tea and drink liberally. High in iron, too. Vitamin C with bioflavonoids (its natural co-factor, which means it helps your body utilize it) is a natural anti-histamine. Take up to 1,000 grams a couple times a day.

Burns: aloe relieves the pain immediately and speeds healing. Ideally, you have an aloe plant in your house and you can snap off a leaf. Seriously, get an aloe plant. So pretty and useful and doesn’t contain those nasty chemical preservatives from that green aloe gel you buy at Walgreen’s (aloe is naturally clear), and plants clean the air. Honey is a superior healing agent: it’s antibacterial and has beneficial enzymes. Use liberally. Also, lavender oil is surprisingly effective for burns, and you’ll smell good, too.

Colds: keep the ingredients for this concoction on hand at all times; it is my tried and true cold and general sickness fighter. Drink first thing in the AM & in PM right before bed. Equal parts elderberry, yarrow, and peppermint. Place in pot, cover with water, simmer for about 20 minutes, strain, and drink. Best used as soon as you think you’re getting sick.

Constipation: Everyone gets a little plugged up from time to time, but if it’s happening regularly, it’s a sign you’re not getting enough fiber or that there is a digestive issue. But for occasional diarrhea, there are many good herbal tea formulas on the market that work great. Tradition Medicinals has one: Smooth Move. It contains senna, which is the best herb to relieve constipation. Also, aloe vera juice helps: make sure you get the juice intended for consumption. Aloe helps regularity and is very good and soothing for the digestive tract.

Cramps: See my previous post on relieving menstrual cramps. The bark of the white willow tree contains salicin, a chemical similar to aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid). Back in the days of yore, people chewed on the bark to reduce fever and pain. It really works! You should be able to find a tincture or capsule form. Also try ginger tea and 500mg magnesium daily for cramping.

Diarrhea: You might be able to find herbal tinctures to keep on hand with any of the following combinations: ginger, red raspberry, peppermint, fenugreek, meadowsweet, marshmallow, and/or slippery elm. If not, any combination of the aforementioned will do, but try for ginger/peppermint and slippery elm or marshmallow. The ginger and peppermint are anti-spasmodic and the slippery elm and marshmallow are demulcent and soothing to your GI tract. They reduce inflammation. Oregano oil, one of my favorites, is useful here, too: it is antibacterial, antiviral, and antipathogenic, so it’ll kill the bugs that ail you. Get an oregano oil tincture with 70% carvacrol (the active constituent). Also, try mixing carob powder with a nut butter or coconut milk if you can stomach any food (it’s quite tasty): carob powder is extremely useful for stopping diarrhea and is good for the gut. Finally, keep a good quality probiotic on hand, and take one every hour during the day until bed to halt diarrhea.

Fever: Use a tincture of feverfew until fever breaks. Elderberry is great, too. You can take an elderberry tincture, or boil up the dried berries you already have for the cold formula above, strain, and drink.

Gas: Oregano oil works GREAT and quickly for gas and bloating/indigestion. Place 4 drops on your tongue and chase with water: it is strong and can sting. Repeat every 5 minutes or so . If you have fennel seeds around, chew on some of those. They work pretty well too. Ginger tea and peppermint tea also work great.

Heartburn: if you have heartburn regularly, it could be a sign of food allergies, or you could have h pylori, a nasty bacteria that causes ulcers and heartburn. Occasional heartburn is best treated with licorice root. Get a tincture and use as needed until it goes away. Do not use if you have high blood pressure. Use DGL licorice instead (you can find in capsule form). Peppermint works too, as does fennel.

Nausea: Ginger tea is superb for nausea and can be used during pregnancy. Works great for hangovers too. Grate some fresh ginger in a mug and pour hot water over it. Peppermint tea is another good choice. Same combo works for indigestion.

Pain/headache: White Willow bark works really well for headaches and general body ache (see cramps, above). Kava kava is another choice; it is a mild (and legal) narcotic, has anxiety-relieving properties, and can be found as a tea.

Sore throat: I like the Traditional Medicinals Throat Coat formula. It contains the demulcent herbs like licorice, slippery elm, and marshmallow.

I didn’t include this one at the beginning, but anxiety is a a condition from which so many suffer. It’s another one where the underlying issue needs to be addressed: what is causing it? High cortisol? Low neurotransmitters like serotonin or dopamine? If you have chronic anxiety, consult with a practitioner to figure out why. Step away from the xanax, which only depletes your natural feel-good chemicals over time. Use Rescue Remedy, a homeopathic tincture, valerian (works very well), or kava kava. Ashwagandha, lemon balm, chamomile. Again, there are some really good anti-anxiety herbal tinctures on the market.

Sugar Detox Wrap-Up

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:08:03 +0000

How did you do? I emerged fine, with a little chocolate slip-up, but the entire process was very enlightening not only for myself, but for what I can now bring to my clients: a better understanding of how powerfully trigger foods work on our physiology. Trigger foods are foods that cause you to lose control and binge, or exacerbate the cravings cycle. This could be sugar, white flour, dairy, chocolate, even corn, or any food you might be allergic to. I’ve explained before that you often crave or binge on foods to which you are intolerant/allergic, because the body sends an endorphin rush to counteract the inflammatory effects the food has on the body when you eat it. This endorphin rush gives you a “high,” causing you to crave or binge on that food, but the internal inflammation is causing great stress inside the body. You may feel a drugged or pleasurable feeling. It often happens with white flour refined foods or sugar, but any food could be a trigger food.

Discover and remove your trigger foods or the foods to which you’re allergic/intolerant, especially if weight loss is your goal–unknown food allergies are a main reason people have trouble losing weight. On another note, if you crave sugar, you may have candida (yeast) overgrowth, and removing sugar from the diet starves out of the yeast. Sugar feeds yeast, so sugar cravings are a main signal of candida overgrowth, and consuming sugar exacerbates the candida. If it goes unchecked, candida can wreak havoc on your health, causing major gut problems, weight gain, foggy thinking, hormonal issues, and yeast infections.

Back to the sugar detox. Removing sugar can have so many beneficial effects on your life, especially if you are sugar sensitive, as I’ve mentioned before. If you lose control and tend to binge on sugar or alcohol or white flour foods, or if you have a tendency toward hypoglycemia, you would most benefit from a long period of time without sugar. Can you go longer than 21 days? How about 3 months? 6 months? You may be surprised by the profound effects on your life. It’s like removing a drug from your life. You are able to get in tune with your authentic self–your true energy levels and feelings when not affected by the drug-like effects of sugar. Not to mention the health benefits! Sugar (and white flour, which breaks down and acts like sugar in the body) is one of the greatest health destroyers.

If you suffer from regular sugar cravings, consider a sugar-free anti-fungal diet to starve off any candida that could be exacerbating the cravings, and make sure to get good high quality protein at each meal to keep blood sugar balanced. This means no fruit, fruit juice, white rice/flour, sugar of any kind, or mushrooms (fungus). There are a number of anti-candida supplements to assist this cleanse. Contact me for an evaluation to get specific recs for this.

There are a couple options for a life without sugar: totally sugar free with no honey, stevia, natural sugars of any kind, save for fruit, or just natural sugars. What would a life without sugar look like for you?

Delicate & Delicious

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:16:34 +0000

Want a dish to boost up your immune health? Add more antioxidants to your meal with this dish I made tonight. The fish is high in omega 3 fatty acids and is poached in green tea, which is very high in antioxidants. It would be perfect to cook for your sweetie on Valentine’s Day. It is very delicate, fancy, and really delicious. I adapted this recipe from Chef Jennifer Una, who is a Natural Chef. I served it over spinach, but you could use pea shoots or chard.

Green Tea Poached Cod
Serves: 6
POACHING LIQUID INGREDIENTS:
5 cups water
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
5 bags green tea
1 onion, diced
4 tsp. minced garlic
1 1/2 lb black cod (sablefish) or other white fish
2/3 tsp. minced ginger
Salt and pepper

Vinaigrette Ingredients
1 Tbsp. rice vinegar
1 Tbsp sesame oil, toasted
4 tsp. grated ginger
2 tsp. tamari soy sauce
1 tsp miso

DIRECTIONS:
• Heat 5 cups of water in a saucepan until it begins to simmer. Turn off the heat and add the green tea bags. Cover and steep for 5 minutes and then remove the tea bags.
• In a deep skillet, add the green tea, ginger, garlic and onion. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.
• In the meantime, prepare the fish, removing any bones and cutting into desired pieces. Season with salt and pepper.
• Add sesame oil to poaching liquid and place the fish gently in the liquid. Make sure the liquid is at a gentle simmer and cook the fish 8-10 minutes or until translucent.
• In the meantime, whisk together the ingredients for the vinaigrette and prepare the greens. Heat wok on medium heat and add sesame oil. Add the greens and the garlic and sauté, tossing gently with tongs for about a minute until the greens wilt slightly. Make sure the garlic does not burn. Remove to a platter.
• Remove the fish from the poaching liquid when finished cooking and lay on top of the greens on the platter.
• Drizzle with the vinaigrette and sprinkle with the scallions.
Serve.

How This Little Issue Can Ruin Your Digestion

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:14:31 +0000

Hypochlorhydria. It’s a fancy way of saying you have low stomach acid: not enough of it, or the PH of your stomach acid is too high (the higher the PH, the less acidic and closer to neutral), so your food is not properly broken down. You see, your stomach is a very acidic environment, with a PH of about 2, more acidic than battery acid. This is good and necessary because an acidic environment is needed to properly break down food and kill bacteria and pathogens that may be present in your food.

Causes of low stomach acid are most commonly aging, but too much alcohol, the presence of H. Pylori (bacteria that causes ulcers & reflux), poor diet over time, and not chewing thoroughly can also contribute. You’ll know you have it if you see undigested food fibers in your stool (that’s right, have a look–it can give you significant clues about your health), if you’re gassy and belch a lot after meals, or if you are prone to eczema, acne, or heartburn/reflux.

Low stomach acid can be problematic because if you’re not properly digesting your food, your body isn’t absorbing the nutrients your food provides, so deficiencies develop over time. Not to mention the waste of money! If you’re buying and eating great organic meals and taking high quality vitamins but not absorbing them, it’s a waste! That’s right, this undigested food is just excreted by the body and you don’t absorb it. This can cause iron or calcium deficiency over time, or if you are not breaking down proteins, you have no raw material for tissue repair and neurotransmitter manufacture. Neurotransmitters are the feel good chemicals in the brain like serotonin and dopamine. Deficiencies can cause depression, cravings, poor sex drive, weight gain, insomnia, and anxiety.

Even worse, hypochlorhydria can contribute to leaky gut syndrome and dysbiosis over time. Dysbiosis means the bad bacteria has overtaken the good bacteria in the gut, and this can cause all sorts of unsavory digestive issues such as inflammation, constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating, and leaky gut. Leaky gut is a condition that develops over time as food particles leak through the permeable intestinal membrane into the blood stream and are attacked by the body’s immune system. This can create a lot of system-wide problems like allergies, cravings, malabsorption, and auto-immune issues.

SO. What to do? Chew thoroughly. Try a spoonful of apple cider vinegar to simulate stomach acid production, or drink ginger tea before meals for the same effect. Take a digestive enzyme with betaine hydrochloride. Try swedish bitters or a bitter herb combo before or after meals. Probiotics help, too. Digestion is a cornerstone of good health. Does yours need a tune-up?