Best Foods for Digestion & Gut Health: Plus Quick Tips on how to Eat them the right Way

✔️Ginger Strips before Meals

Eating ginger this way before meals helps with digestion.

how to make: drizzle fresh lemon (or lime) juice on top of a very very thin slice of ginger. sprinkle a little salt. let the ginger soak for 30-40 minutes. put the thin slice of ginger on your tongue before a meal , suck on it for a few seconds. This will activate digestive enzymes.

✔️Drink Green Tea after Meals

I love drinking tea after meals, its comforting soothing, and also aids digestion. But not all teas help with digestion. The Chinese have been drinking green tea for centuries, because green tea contains loads of healthy polyphenols.The key antioxidants in green tea that help with digestion are a group of polyphenols called catechins. The most abundant and potent of these is Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG).

Catechins help with digestion in 3 ways:

a) Reduce Inflammation: EGCG helps soothe and reduce inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract, which can ease bloating and general stomach discomfort.

b) Balancing Gut Bacteria: Green tea polyphenols act as a mild prebiotic, promoting the growth of beneficial gut bacteria while inhibiting harmful microorganisms.

c) Regulating Absorption: Catechins help your body break food down more effectively 

For the highest quality Longjing green tea grown in pure soil click here

✔️ Umeboshi Plums with Meals

Umeboshi plums are fermented plums full of probiotics. Umeboshi plums are a traditional Japanese food used to remove parasites, protect the gut from harmful bacteria, and promote a heathy gut microbioms.Natural ProbioticHow to eat it: consume 1-2 plums per day. Remove the pit, cut the plum into smaller pieces and put on bread or add to salads. These plums provide a rich, savory flavor, they add a really Umami Note to any dish Note: They are salty, so don't add too much extra salt to the dish For high quality Umeboshi Plums click here

✔️Sauerkraut with meals

Homemade Sauerkraut is a healthy Probiotic powerhouse, which aids digestion and nutrient absorption and restores healthy gut bacteria. 

Most store bought sauerkraut is heated & pasteurized to make it shelf-stable. However, the pasteurization process destroys the active & live enzymes and bacterial cultures that are beneficial for the digestive process and immune system.  Even many "raw" sauerkrauts are made using whey starters to save time.  

At Joseph's Organic Bakery , we never heat or pasteurize the final product.  We use the ancient traditional method of making sauerkraut, just sea salt, cabbage, carrots, bay leaf and peppercorn fermented to ensure a product that is rich in beneficial enzymes and probiotics.   

Click here to learn more about our Sauerkraut

✔️Fennel Seeds after Meals 

for acid reflux & digestion 

Fennel helps neutralize stomach acid and soothe the gastrointestinal tract

Chew a few fennel seeds after a meal. chewing them releases its natural oils. You don't have to swallow them afterwards, just chewing them is enough. (start with a few seeds and up to 1/4 tsp of seeds after a meal) 

✔️Do you Suspect you have Parasites?
Snack on Papaya & Papaya Seeds

Papaya seeds have anti-parasitic properties.
I love papaya. But surprisingle the seeds are really valuable, and when you eat a few along with the fruit you can help your gut.  I like to eat a few seeds as I'm eating the papaya. The seeds should be chewed very well before swallowing, alternatively, you can grind a few seeds with a mortal and pestle and add to water. Start slow and you can increase up to 10 or 15 seeds per day.  You can also sprinkle a few seeds on a salad for a peppery flavor. Dont overeat on the seeds, cause then you'll risk stomach upset. I've found that papaya including the fruit and seeds helped me with acid reflux. 

✔️Don't Eat When Stressed

This is a hard one for me because I want to eat specifically when I'm stressed, but eating when stressed is actually really bad for digestion and can trigger food allergies.

Why? If we eat when stressed our body thinks the food is causing the release of cortisol (instead of the stress). We are, in essence, training our immune system to attack the food it thinks is a stress, this triggers food allergies. Cortisol also causes the junctions in your intestinal lining to loosen (called leaky gut).  As the gut barrier weakens, partially digested food particles and bacteria can slip into the bloodstream. Your immune system identifies these foreign bodies and may launch an attack, leading to an inflammatory response.

✔️Exhale after Eating a Bite

Activate Your Parasympathetic Nervous System:

Before eating, take a few deep, slow breaths. This signals to your body that it is safe to rest and digest.  Calm yourself for a few minutes before you eat your meal. Breathe in and out, long exhales. 

Also breathe in between bites. Mindful, deliberate exhales between bites of food prevents you from rushing through a meal, which gives your brain time to register fullness and prevents overeating. It also serves to relax us, which helps lower cortisol. We don't want high cortisol during meals.