The gut, otherwise known as the second brain influences our judgment, and much more known as the Enteric Nervous System (ENS) – enteric meaning ‘to do with intestines’. It’s an extensive network of brain-like neurons and neurotransmitters wrapped in and around our gut.
Your gut is a complex, but often sensitive machine. Every time you eat, drink, and function each day, your gut might be involved. What you choose to eat, as well as the nutrients you get, all make a difference in the gut microbiome and how well balanced your gut is.
If you have recently been dealing with some issues with your gut, bone broth can be a great option for you.
Why Bone Broth for your Gut and what is it?
Bone broth is derived from simmering animal or fish cartilage, tendons and bones for hours at a time. It is widely used in many cultures around the world to aid in restoring or strengthening overall health. One particular health benefit of bone broth is its role in gut health.
Why Gut Health is Important
It is becoming more evident now that a healthy gut is essential to overall health. Signs of a healthy gut include healthy stools, regularity, abundance of energy and healthy skin tone. Likewise, poor gut health will lead to lack of nutrient absorption, constipation, diarrhea, insomnia, bad breath, and blotchy, uneven skin.
What you might not realize is that gut health can also affect your mental and behavioral health, from making stress and anxiety worse, to leading to brain fog, poor memory, lack of focus and concentration, and low energy. This is why it is so important to find ways to improve your gut health and bone broth is one of those ways!
Get Those Nutrients
Bones contain a number of minerals including zinc, calcium, iron, copper, magnesium, manganese, potassium, phosphorus and sodium. In addition to minerals, bone broth also contains collagen, gelatin, glycine and seventeen different types of amino acids.
When simmered at low heat for a lengthened amount of time, these nutrients seep into the water and create "liquid gold."
Anti-inflammatory Properties
The amino acids, gelatin, glycine, and nutrients in bone broth help to strengthen the mucus layer and intestinal barrier within the gut while also altering the gut microbiota composition. Furthermore, these nutrients aid in reducing inflammation. No wonder
many people and cultures around the world eat bone broth when they are ill!
Aids in Digestion
While rich in nutrients and minerals, bone broth can also do wonders for digestion. As mentioned above, this liquid gold assist in altering the gut microbiota; a strong, diverse gut microbiota is essential to break down food by-products for proper absorption.
Furthermore, the broth itself helps to hydrate the body thus, promote better digestion for healthy, regular stools. Drinking bone broth is great, but adding vegetables and herbs to the bone broth is even better as this will increase nutrient content and further aid in digestion.
Ultimately, bone broth has many beneficial components including an abundance of nutrients, minerals and amino acids. Such nutrients aid in protecting the gut, providing anti-inflammatory properties, and overall, promoting better digestion.
How to Improve Your Gut Health
Restoring your gut health should always be top priority. Having indigestion problems might not just be from the foods you are eating, but from bacteria and microbiome issues in your gut, which affects your overall health.
Here are some tips for helping to restore your gut health.
Take Your Probiotics
Everyone should be including more probiotics into their diet, but especially if you are dealing with gut health issues. Probiotics come in the form of supplements you can take daily, or in the foods you eat. Depending on the issues you have and their severity, you might want to introduce both of them for a while. Some foods with probiotics include fermented foods like kombucha, certain types of yogurt, kefir and sauerkraut.
Examine Your Diet
Aside from adding in more probiotic foods, it is also a good idea to remove some of the unhealthy foods in your diet. Eating a well-balanced diet is crucial if you want to restore your gut health. Start by removing processed and refined foods from your diet which
are typically packaged foods. Try to eat more whole, clean and fresh foods and cooking more meals at home.
Removing dairy from your diet is often recommended for better gut health, which means no more butter, milk, cream or cheese. Some people can have a modified dairy-free diet where you switch to ghee instead of butter and can have some types of cheese.
It is also good to add in healthier fats to your diet which provide excellent omega 3 fatty acids which are great for your gut health. Think about coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil as good fats.
Consider Intermittent Fasting
The next lifestyle change you can make that will help to restore your gut health is to try intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting changes when you eat during the day. You will typically reduce your eating period each day to a certain number of hours, then the remainder of the day will be in a fasted state. Many people start by fasting for 16 hours, including overnight, then eat for 8 hours during the day.
Why intermittent fasting?
Studies have shown that when you reduce how often you eat,
you are able to reduce inflammation and increase the good gut bacteria in your body.
Bone broth has become a staple in my home. I use it as a replacement for coffee or as an afternoon drink, and also use it in all my soup recipes. How will you start using bone broth?
To your health & happiness
xoxo
Amy
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