As a nutritionist I believe that all disease begins in the “gut”. So much is affected in the rest of the body if the digestive system does not work efficiently. Poor diet and stress are the main contributors.
By understanding a little of how the digestive system actually digests the food you eat is important. You will be told that body digests food, this is NOT so… it is the micro-organisms contained within the body that do the job, the good bacteria and some of the bad guys, along with our own body chemicals too.
The body is an environmental package for bacteria to proliferate. The food we consume will determine the kind of bacteria that will grow or be destroyed. A balance of the correct food, water and heat will keep the acid and alkaline situation balanced so that the digestive system works efficiently without giving its host any problems. The good and bad guys are aided by the body’s own chemicals, fat disolvers and digestive enzymes.
These microforms are called the friendly bacteria, they multiply through digestion of nutrients. These guys help, along with our enzymes, to breakdown the foods we eat into vitamins, minerals, amino acids (proteins), carbohydrates, fatty acids and so on.
But what about the bad guys, the unfriendly bacteria, they like the same environment as the good guys but when these unfriendly bacteria breed they cause fermentation or putrefaction which gives off a different chemical composition causing toxins to be present, this is the bi-product of the bad guys. You get a bloated abdomen and other symptoms such as foggy thinking, spacey heads, headaches, nausea and so on, which will lead on to disease in its many forms.
There should be a massive 80% of good bacteria to a 20% of bad for the digestive system to work efficiently. Most people have spent a long time eating the foods which love to increase the bad guys ending up with the balance the other way round, ill health will ensue.
Which foods cause us to increase the good bacteria ? fresh raw vegetables, fruits in the correct combination, if you refer to my books you will see the “hunter/gatherer idea and how our complex digestive system was designed to work with these foods.
Foods that are high in what is termed as simple sugars or fast release carbohydrates which means taken up in the body very quickly i.e. white sugar, honey maltose, lactose etc will encourage fermentation, even some fruits such as melon and bananas and dried fruits will cause fermentation, particularly where there is already a problem with too many of the bad guys (bacteria) The high protein foods such as meat will encourage putrefacation. The organisation of food types, if kept simple will assist digestion, the more complex food combining (I mean junk type food) will lead to a massive fight inside the body causing in-digestion. Certain chemical/enzymatic changes take place in the process of digestion, under normal circumstances. Each part of the digestive tract has a job to do for delivery of the correct nutrients in their broken down state to be delivered to the necessary systems, if this does not happen you end up with a toxic system due to the bi-products of the waste/purtrefication.
So…. To ensure you have a healthy gut eat plenty of raw vegetables and fruits, if you already have a problem with your gut then start taking a good quality, organic probiotic as this will help the spread of good bacteria as well as changing your diet.
