Category Archives: Gut & Psychology Syndrome

What is a Healthy Gut?

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A well-functioning gut with healthy gut flora holds the roots of our health. And, like a tree with sick roots is not going to thrive, the rest of the body cannot thrive without a well functioning digestion system. The bacterial population of the gut – the gut flora – is the soil around these roots, giving them their habitat, protection, support and nourishment.
Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride

The are 400-500 different microbes in the human gut. There is a great deal of difference between the types of strains within the gut of individuals. Drug treatment, poor dietary choices, stress and disease can disturb the natural balance within the gut. The biggest factor that we control on a daily basis is the type of foods we eat. Food will change the environment of the digestive system for better or worse.

Inside and outside our body is a microscopic ecosystem. As with all ecosystems this microbial world is highly organized. Any area open to the environment, such as integumentary, digestive, respiratory and excretory systems, is inhabited by a huge number of microbes living in mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with their host.

The largest number of microbes live in our digestive system. Most of these microbes help us digest our food and also produce vitamins for our use. In fact, we cannot live without them. Like plants protect the soil from erosion, our microbes protect the walls of the gut from outside forces. Our microbes are our first line of defense from outside infectious or poisonous agents.

Before we are born, our gut is sterile. We get our gut flora from our mothers. As a baby passes through the birth canal, the baby gulps down vaginal fluid filled with the type of microbes found in the mother’s body. During breast feeding, the baby consumes more microbes from the skin of the mother’s body. Not all children are born vaginally or breast fed so some children do not get this natural, first large microbial transfer from the mother’s body.

Assuming the mother is healthy, the microbes will be well suited to the environment. If the mother has abnormal gut flora, she will pass the abnormal gut flora on to her child. This is part of the “environmental inheritance” children get from their parents. Over the first few days of life, the microbes colonize the baby’s body. This first microbial colonization is extremely important for the long term health of the child. The microbes will attach themselves to the wall of the gut and somehow communicate chemically with a vast array of neurons known as the gut brain. It is thought that our immune system is somehow interconnected with this microbial world through the gut brain. If our microbes are not doing well, we will soon be sick too.

There are three main types of gut flora:

  1. Beneficial flora, sometimes called the “good bacteria”, are found in very large numbers in healthy people. These microbes help us digest our food and produce numerous vitamins for our use. The microbes will also “sacrifice themselves” by engulfing an infectious or poisonous substance and then be excreted by the body. The main types are: Bifidobacteria, Lactobacteria, Proppioncbacteria, Peptostreptococci, Enteroccci and Escherichia.
  2. Opportunistic flora, sometimes called the “bad bacteria”, vary a lot between individuals. In a healthy person, these microbes are under the strict control of the “good bacteria” but can overgrow and cause disease in the sick person. It appears we need the “bad bacteria” too.
  3. Transitory flora come from the water and food we eat each day. These are normally gram-negative bacteria. In a healthy gut, these microbes do not harm and actually helps nourish the person, and pass out of the body in a few days.

The best way to help our gut flora is to eat nourishing traditional foods, especially fermented foods, and avoid the processed foods coming out of the Industrial Food System. For more information please read 25 Step to Eating Nourishing Traditional Food and I Got Culture!

For most people this will be enough to tip the balance toward health. More sensitive people may find health by using the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. There is a small group of people that have a profound imbalance in their gut flora usually due to long-term drug treatment, stress or environmental issues. These people may find relief with supplementing probiotics. If you would like to learn more about probiotics please read Probiotics and Intestinal Microflora by Harry Bronozian.

Industrial Food Sickness

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Use whole food from a quality source as your medicine. But even the best food doesn't agree with everyone. Additives can be a real problem for some.

All disease begins in the gut.
Hippocrates

Since my family has been eating exclusively whole, unprocessed foods for over three years, I have noticed a strange occurrence. When my girls go to birthday parties or indulge in holiday festivities such as Halloween or Easter, they don’t feel very well afterward. After eating the processed foods out of the Industrial Food System, the girls become nauseous and complain about stomach pain within a few hours. My eldest daughter has vomited a number of times after these meals. My youngest daughter is very sensitive to something in these foods. More often than not, it causes behavioral problems for a day or two after eating the processed food. My husband occasionally eats out at restaurants and complains about not feeling well after most meals. Even our cat Tabs, who has been on a raw meat diet since we got her, has become sick from getting into a friend’s processed cat food. As I observe their sickness, I notice it is like a mild flu that includes stomach upset or vomiting.

Now my family has not eaten unprocessed foods our whole lives. We used to eat processed foods everyday without feeling sick. (Okay, my family wasn’t the picture of health, but we weren’t vomiting after a meal either.) One would hope that eating nourishing traditional foods regularly would strengthen a person’s constitution so an occasional meal of highly processed foods would have no effect. But the reverse appears to be true. The longer my family eats nourishing traditional foods, the more sensitive we become to these processed foods.

Why are they now having industrial food sickness? Why in the past did these same processed foods not cause sickness? What has changed? I have been thinking about this question for quite some time. It is hypothesized that the healing action of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is that it changes the composition of gut flora or reverses gut dysbiosis. Gut dysbiosis is the lack of gut flora or an unhealthy gut flora imbalance which causes illness.

What if this progressive industrial food sickness is caused by changes in the gut flora community? Do the processed foods damage or kill healthy gut flora? Does the gut flora “communicate” this damage to the “gut brain” causing the feeling of sickness? The gut brain is an extensive grouping of neurons in the digestive system, which gut flora attaches to and chemically communicates with the nervous system. What if the gut flora community is causing the feeling of being sick after my family eats the processed foods?

This would explain the progressive nature of industrial food sickness and why it seems to worsen the longer my family eats nourishing traditional foods. The longer my family eats better, the stronger the population of healthy gut flora becomes. As the healthy gut flora population increases, it can send a very strong message to the nervous system that the processed food is making the gut flora’s environment poisonous to them. The reason why the processed food did not cause illness before eating nourishing traditional foods is because of gut dysbiosis. There was not enough healthy gut flora to send a strong message of dismay to the nervous system about our food choices.

One thing I notice is that it is getting easier to get my children to eat better. Every round of industrial food sickness reinforces good eating patterns. The sad part is thinking about all of the people walking around with very sick gut flora communities, too weak to send a danger warning. Most people are not aware that we are indeed “individuals” but our bodies are a vast and complex microcosm of interrelating organisms. We are in peril if we forget that we interface with the environment on a microscope level and our first line of defense is our symbiotic gut flora community.

For more information about this topic please read What is a Healthy Gut? For more information about gut dysbiosis please read Gut and Psychology Syndrome and GAPS In Our Medical Knowledge. For more information about the gut brain connection please read Breaking the Vicious Cycle.

25 Steps to Eating Nourishing Traditional Foods

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Eating well does not have to cost a fortune. Find quality sources of food and consider growing some food yourself. Cooking your own meals will save money and your health.

  1. Purchase your food as whole ingredients and as close to the original natural state as possible. Avoid processed foods. Avoid all additives, coloring, stabilizers and fillers. Avoid Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). Here is a link to the Non-GMO Shopping Guide. If you are wondering what is wrong with GMOs please see the numerous video presentations by Jeffery Smith on GMOs. Make it a point to understand the system used to process your food. If you cannot understand the process, do not eat the food.
  2. Try to source your food locally. Get to know your farmers and ranchers. Show appreciation for all the work that goes into producing your food. Look for pastured raised or organic. If you are wondering what is so great about pastured raised animals please listen to Jill Eisen, on CBC Ideas program, Have Your Meat and Eat It Too! Find the local suppliers for un-sprayed products. There are many local suppliers which are not certified organic but follow organic principles. Un-sprayed products are usually cheaper than certified organic. Use eatkamloops.org to find local farmers and ranchers. For some guidelines about assessing food quality read WAPF Shopping Guide for Canada.
  3. Eat local foods seasonally. The food has better nutrition and is cheaper. If you would like to eat these foods out of season, find a suitable storage method. Get a large deep freezer and find an area in your home for dried stores. Consider building a root cellar or cold room. For more information read Winter Storage Part I and Winter Storage Part II.
  4. When buying from non-local sources try to buy certified organic. When we can’t talk to the producers about their practices, having a third party certification is a good idea. If certified organic foods are not in the budget, read about The Dirty Dozen and avoid foods with the most contamination.
  5. Consider growing your own food. Use container gardening on small properties or a big garden on larger lots. If labor is an issue, you might be able to trade garden space for labor. Depending on your zoning, you might be able to have laying hens for eggs or a miniature goat for raw milk.
  6. Start a grease bucket. Save all your drippings and fat from roasted meat and fowl. Use the grease for any high heat frying or roasting. For more information read The Grease Bucket – Something from Nothing.
  7. If you eat industrial vegetable oils or foods containing industrial vegetable oil, stop now. For cooking, replace these industrial vegetable oils with your grease bucket, butter, or coconut oil. Save your extra virgin olive oil for salads and uncooked foods. Other cold-pressed oils may be used occasionally in very small amounts. If you have any condition involving inflammation, removing even quality cold-pressed oils may improve your condition.
  8. Make bone broth. Save all your bones from meals and store in the freezer until you have a pot full. Cover the bones with water and add 4T cider vinegar and simmer for 6-24 hours. For more information read Beautiful Bone Broth.
  9. Eat some fermented foods each day or with each meal. Fermented foods improve our digestion. Fermentation can remove anti-nutrients from our food and increase nutrient availability. Fermented foods are not commonly available in the Industrial Food System and must be made at home. For more information read Wild Fermentation.
  10. Start making some fermented foods at home. A good place to start is making yoghurt or kefir. If you do not consume dairy, try making lacto-fermented vegetables or use sourdough for breads and biscuits. Contact eatkamloops.org for free starter cultures. For more information about what starters we have read I Got Culture!
  11. If you eat grains, beans, and legumes, soak them overnight in water, salt and fresh lemon juice before cooking. This soaking will remove the anti-nutrients from the food and make it easier to digest. Use bone broth when appropriate for the recipe in place of water. This will improve your digestion of these foods. If you are wondering why you need to soak grains read Be Kind to Your Grains. Here are FAQ about traditional food processing of grains, nuts, seeds and beans.
  12. Purchase all of your grains whole. If you are making flour, grind it yourself, and use it within four days. Flour is very perishable and will go rancid very quickly. Freshly ground flour can be stored in the freezer for later use.
  13. If you eat nuts and seeds, soak them overnight in water and salt. Nuts and seeds can be then dried and consumed uncooked. These store well in the freezer for quick use.
  14. Look for a local supply of grains, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds. There are many local varieties which will be fresher. Look for un-sprayed or organically grown.
  15. If you eat rice, buy organic brown rice. Since this is not a local product, buy certified organic. Brown rice does not need to be soaked overnight but cooking in bone broth will help with digestion and improve flavor. If you would like to try fermenting rice to improve mineral availability read A New Way to Soak Brown Rice.
  16. Buy your meat by the whole animal. This allows you to have a variety of cuts, offal, fat and bones. The butcher will package the meats in sizes that are best for your family. Get all the products from the animal even parts you do not know how to cook. They can always be used to make bone broth. For more information read Cooking with Grass-Fed Meat and Fowl and Visit to the Killing Floor at Kam Lake View Meat.
  17. If you consume dairy, find a source of raw milk or raw milk products. This will involve having your own cow, goat or sheep or being a member of a herd share program. If you are wondering what is so great about pastured raw milk please read Let’s Talk about Raw Milk Safety. For more information about herd share programs in the province read Birdsong Farm – Cow Share Program.
  18. If you are concerned that you have a deficiency in your diet and want to take a supplement, consider using whole foods, sometimes called superfoods. Examples of superfoods are: fermented cod liver oil, high vitamin butter, liver, spring and fall butter, raw milk products, bone broth and fermented foods. Other superfoods are related to the health problem of the person such as: various fresh or dried glands, kelp, assorted clays, probiotics, assorted high vitamin berries and herbs. For more information about superfoods read Supplement or Superfoods.
  19. Look at your cosmetics and decide if you would eat them. If you would not like to eat them, consider stopping use. Our skin is far more porous than was once believed. The use of coconut oil can be a excellent moisturizer. Consider making your own soap or buying brands with very few ingredients. A good source of information about the safety of your cosmetics can be found on Skin Deep: Cosmetic Safety Database. If you would like recipes for making cosmetics, cleaners and simple medicines please read Healthy Household: Staying Clean Safely and Saving Money.
  20. Look through your medicine chest and decide if you can do without most of your medication. Many medications mask symptoms while the condition worsens. It is better to feel the pain and make fundamental changes in our lives, rather than masking symptoms while the condition gets worse. Think about the other drugs you take on a daily basis. Assess if these drugs might be adding to your health problems.
  21. Think about food preparation in the home and how the task can be done efficiently. The job of running a traditional household is more work than eating convenience foods. This means someone must be willing to allot time for this important work. Some people use one day a week where they spend a morning in the kitchen producing meals for the whole week. Others cook larger meals and consume the leftovers.
  22. Remove all plastics from your kitchen and replace with glass containers. Remove Teflon and aluminum from your kitchen and use stainless steel, glass, cast iron or enameled cast iron. Stop using a microwave for cooking or reheating foods.
  23. If you are thinking about having a child, start thinking about what you eat before you conceive. All traditional populations had a special feeding schedule for mothers and fathers to be. For more information read Thinking about Motherhood.
  24. If you continue to have health problems after changing over to a nourishing traditional diet, consider looking at the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. This diet is also known as Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS). This diet is for very sick people. For more information about SCD and GAPS please read Specific Carbohydrate Diet. Please read this very good article by Dr Ron Schmid called Diet and Recovery from Chronic Disease.
  25. Continue getting educated about health. eatkamloops.org has donated a number of books to the Kamloops Public Library. For a list of donated books read Recommended Reading List. Look through the WAPF Shopping Guide for tips on assessing the quality of your food choices.

Food Intolerance Test: What NOT to Do

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As mentioned earlier, coffee substitutes are not allowed on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. In theory, over time the SCD heals a person’s system and allows the reintroduction of problem foods. I have done a number of food intolerance tests over the years. In the past, the only food I have reintroduced successfully has been raw dairy products. I have tried reintroducing spelt and rye without success. Some beans may be okay in very small amounts.

Food intolerance testing can be done with expensive lab testing, which will not be covered here. Some simple testing methods you can do at home are: The Elimination Diet, Food Intolerance Test and Coca Pulse Test. The Elimination Diet is a trial and error method to assess which foods can be consumed without negative reactions. The biggest problem with this diet is that it takes a long time to do. The Food Intolerance Test or Challenge Test requires the reintroduction of a food and then waiting for up to 72 hours for any old symptoms to come back. Sometimes, as a person becomes healthier, the person can safely eat a problem food up to a certain threshold. After that point is reached, the food will cause a massive reaction. The Coca Pulse Test is one method commonly used. If the person eats a food which will cause a reaction, there will be an increase of pulse rate after a few minutes. For more information about this test method please read The Pulse Test: The Secret of Building Your Basic Health by Dr Arthur Coca.

I decided to do a food intolerance test with the coffee substitutes. Normally, I would try one at a time but I was doing a taste test which requires trying a number at the same time! This was my first mistake. I normally do not use the Coca Pulse Test but after consuming the coffee substitute I noticed a warming of my body and a noticeable increase in my pulse rate. Ignoring this body warming and increase of pulse rate was my second mistake.

After the taste test, I decided I liked both the Krakus and Nutrimax blends. I continued to compare the two over the next few days. What I thought was research on which was the better of the two substitutes, I think was actually compulsive consumption. Normally, food cravings are a sign that something is wrong. This was my third mistake.

By the afternoon of the third day I was very sick. I had a full blown migraine. I was nauseous and shaking. I slept for nearly 18 hours and woke up in the morning with a shadow of a headache and staggered to the bathroom. I was slightly nauseous and had a notable shaking in my hands. My hands were stiff but not numb.

I can safely say now that coffee substitutes are not on the menu. A normal protocol would be to try the food again in about six months. Hopefully, in six months I will be off coffee and I will not need to try this experiment again!

Updated July 6, 2014: I have found a modification of the Coca Pulse Test that works really well for me. It requires knowing your resting heart rate and testing your resting heart rate the morning after eating a suspected food. If a food increases your resting heart rate by 10-15 beats a minute, you are likely reacting to the suspected food. For example, my resting heart rate is normally about 50 beats a minute. When I eat popcorn the night before my resting heart rate will be elevated to 80 beats a minute. I’m reacting to the popcorn and shouldn’t eat that food.

Coffee Substitute Taste Test

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I have been trying to get off coffee for a few years now. I stop then start again, hoping I can just have a cup once or twice a week. This never happens for me. I start again, and I am up to 4-6 shots of espresso each day within a few weeks. There are a number of reasons why I want to get off coffee permanently. My biggest reason is the fear of complete adrenal exhaustion. If you would like to learn more about adrenal fatigue and adrenal exhaustion please read Adrenal Fatigue: The 21st Century Stress Syndrome by James L. Wilson.

This week I decided to stop coffee. I wanted to have a taste test of a number of coffee substitutes available in Kamloops. I found three brands at Nutter’s health food store. Just as a warning for people on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, these coffee substitutes are “illegal” and not allowed on the diet. The reason is because of reactions to chicory root which has large amounts of fructooligosaccharides. Please go to the Breaking the Vicious Cycle website for a Legal and Illegal Food List.

I taste tested with my children three coffee substitutes:
1. Krakus Instant Coffee Substitute: At $5.99 for 250g it was the cheapest substitute. One teaspoon of the product is added to hot water. My children liked this substitute the best. I found it very good too.
2. Nutrimax Instant Dandelion Blend: At $7.99 for 80g it was the second cheapest substitute. One half teaspoon of this product is added to hot water. I liked the taste of this substitute best, but only marginally more than the Krakus. For the extra cost, I was on the fence as to my preference.
3. Teeccino Herbal Coffee Alternative: At $12.99 for 240g it was the most expensive. It uses standard coffee preparation methods, so if the ritual of coffee making is part of your enjoyment, you might like this product more. It requires one half tablespoon of product to make a cup, which makes this product very expensive. My children and I both didn’t like the aftertaste of this product.