'YOU ARE NOT JUST WHAT YOU EAT'
The famous saying you are what you eat reminds me a little bit of an iceberg, addressing what we can see while we are missing what we can’t see underneath the surface.
I guess it begs the question of how anyone who eats reasonably healthy still struggles with things like gut issues, bloating, fatigue, hormonal issues and so on?
Because it’s not just about what we eat. Our food is hardly perfect anymore, minerally and nutritionally depleted due to our soil today. Often sprayed with chemicals, unnaturally grown, pasteurised, or modified. Food is disguised as ‘healthy’ because not everyone has the knowledge to understand every single toxic ingredient, preservative, substitute, or additive or the degree in which those might affect them. Gluten free or dairy free alternatives are often labelled as ‘healthy’ when in fact they are full of unhealthy substitutes often making them worse than the original version. Just to give you an example, the ingredient ‘natural flavours’ can be used instead of naming hundreds of different chemicals. A lot of chemicals are in fact natural, that doesn’t mean we should be ingesting them. How do food companies get away with this label? The word ‘natural’ has no formal legal definition.
What if I told you that you aren’t what you eat, you are what you absorb?
You can’t find balance within a body with an unhealthy gut. Nutrition is how food affects the health of our body. Food is essential, it provides vital nutrients for survival and helps the body function and stay healthy. Food is comprised of macronutrients including protein, carbohydrate and fat that not only offer calories to fuel the body and give it energy but play specific roles in maintaining health. Food also supplies micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals that don’t provide calorie but serve a variety of critical functions to ensure the body operates optimally.
YOU ARE WHAT YOU ABSORB. Our body runs on enzymes and those enzymes in turn need the correct mineral ratios to function properly. We need a large variety of enzymes to digest our food, break down fats, carbohydrates, and protein so our body can use them for energy. When your body can’t produce enough enzymes, issues can arise such as lactose intolerance for example.
If you don’t put the right fuel in a car, the car won’t run properly. Likewise, if you can’t absorb your nutrients your body can’t function properly.
There are about 9000 enzymes in the body, and they all work just like the cars we drive.
Key question: When was the last time you drove your car without a key?
Some believe our body runs on hormones. However, every hormone on this planet is made with enzymes. Fruits, vegetables, and other foods have natural digestive enzymes. Eating them can improve your digestion.
Honey, especially the raw kind, has amylase and protease.
Mangoes and bananas have amylase, which also helps the fruit to ripen.
Papaya has a type of protease called papain.
Avocados have the digestive enzyme lipase.
Sauerkraut, or fermented cabbage, picks up digestive enzymes during the fermentation process.
Our gut microbiome consists of microbes that are both helpful and potentially harmful.
Both inside and out, our bodies hold a huge array of micro-organisms. While bacteria are the biggest players, we also host fungi, viruses and other microbes including viruses that attack bacteria. Imbalances in the gut microbiome can trigger the body’s immune response. This results in gut inflammation and can also lead to leaky gut.
Did you know that 70% of your immune system houses in your gut?
This is why a diverse gut microbiome is so important. Both antibiotics as well as birth control pills are known to hugely affect our gut microbiome. Other medication can also affect it. Antibiotics wipe out all your good bacteria too, not just your bad ones. Replacing them with pre and probiotics is vital. Prebiotics such as onions, garlic, asparagus, bananas, and legumes consist of fibres that feed your good bacteria in your gut to help reinoculated your microbiome.
What happens if we have a poor diet which negatively affects our gut microbiome, provides us with fewer enzymes and results in a poor metabolism. We can develop a leaky gut.
Leaky gut is when the mucus layer of the gut has been broken down. This means bacteria and toxins can leak through the intestinal wall. At this point many people start developing food sensitivities, skin issues and many more conditions. More and more studies are providing an understanding to the rise in food sensitivities and allergies due to a breakdown of the mucosal barrier.
What breaks down the mucus layer? Just a few examples:
Excessive alcohol, processed foods, eating a high-fat diet, eating a lot of food additives, antibiotics, lack of sleep, stress, over-exercising, artificial sweeteners, exposure to pathogens, medication/ drug use.
What are some symptoms of an unhealthy gut? Recurrent diarrhea, constipation, or bloating, nutritional and mineral deficiencies, fatigue, headaches, anxiety and depression, skin problems, widespread inflammation, reflux, candida, hormonal imbalances, sleeping issues etc.
