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digestion
“It is an especially good idea to employ bacteria that manufacture healthy end-products to pre-digest our food. Mindful yoghurt manufacturers often use bacteria that produce more ‘dextrorotatory’ (right-turning) than ‘levorotatory (left-turning) lactic acids.”
“Gut” - Giulia Enders
A June 2021 study by the University of South Australia said,
"People have long had a love-hate relationship with milk, which is not surprising given the mixed messages about dairy,”
"While some reports show that high dairy and milk consumption is linked with cardio-metabolic risk factors, evidence from randomised controlled trials have been inconsistent.
"In this study, we conducted robust genetic tests to assess whether milk was associated with an increase in heart disease, and while we confirm that milk can cause an increase in body fat, we also show that it leads to lower cholesterol concentration and lower cardiovascular disease risk.
"The risk reduction could be explained by milk calcium, which has shown to increase the enzymes that break down fats within the body and thereby lower cholesterol levels.
"What this shows is that milk can be a part of a healthy balanced diet; there is no need to limit milk consumption if you're looking to improve your heart health."
A June 2021 study by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and the ICTAN (Institute of Food and Nutrition Science and Technology) of the CSIC said,
"Although this was the baseline hypothesis, we did not see any effect either on adaptation to darkness or on visual acuity measured in low light conditions (mesopic vision), either with cocoa or with berries,"
"We need to conduct certain further studies as proof of concept to confirm that the effect is real and that the results could be applied to the design of products which could help to improve visual acuity and attention in defined populations,"
A June 2021 paper by University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and colleagues said
"Our research illustrates that animal-based protein foods, such as beef, eggs and pork, and plant-based protein foods, such as kidney beans, peanut butter, tofu and mixed nuts, cannot be considered to be equivalent, or a substitute for each other, when developing healthy dietary patterns, given their unique physiological effects,"
"While it's well-established that animal proteins can more readily provide essential amino acids than plant protein foods, our study also indicates that eating animal protein foods such as beef, pork and eggs may lead to increased protein synthesis, which has been shown to have benefits such as improved satiety and lean muscle mass maintenance."
A June 2021 study by the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre said,
"While the study was conducted in mice, the results appear to explain the disparity between healthy, low-protein, high-carbohydrate diets and growing levels of obesity and co-morbidities associated with highly-processed modern-day diets which are also protein-diluted and high in refined carbohydrates,"
"We found that the molecular make-up of a carbohydrate and how it is digested shapes the behavioural and physiological response to reduced levels of protein in the diet, impacts how the liver processes nutrients and alters the gut bacteria.
"These findings could explain why consuming low protein-high carbohydrate diets that avoid high fructose corn syrup, limit readily digestible processed starch and are abundant in resistant starch (which in a human diet would be whole grains and legumes such as beans and lentils) are associated with good metabolic health."
"We found that the 50:50 mixture of glucose to fructose created the highest levels of obesity in mice, even when calorie consumption was comparable to other carbohydrates. This suggests that a calorie is not a calorie when it comes to carbohydrates, or even to different sugars and that consumption of glucose and fructose in combination promotes obesity and poor metabolic health,"
"The findings could have immense practical benefits,"
"For many people wishing to improve their diets, carbohydrates have become the enemy. Some go to extreme lengths, virtually removing them from their diets. Our results suggest this could be a mistake. Reducing certain kinds of carbohydrates, like high fructose corn syrup, would have benefits. But avoiding the digestion resistant forms, which are found in many plant foods, risks losing benefits of a nutrient that is high in the diets of the healthiest and longest-lived populations on Earth,"
"The results of this study help explain why it is best to stay away from foods such as cakes, pizzas and confectionary and supports filling your plate with wholegrains such as brown rice, oats and quinoa, legumes such as lentils, beans and chickpeas, and opt for plenty of vegetables including sweet potato, pumpkin, and beets"
A June 2021 study by Texas Woman's University said,
"These findings should remind people to choose fiber-rich foods like whole grains, fruits and vegetables to reduce their risk for heart disease,"
"Based on our findings, fewer than 1 in 10 U.S. adults meet their daily recommendations for fiber intake. For those with diabetes, it is especially important to eat enough fiber since they are at a greater risk for heart disease."
"Unlike other similar studies, our analysis estimated Americans' usual fiber intake using advanced statistical methods instead of calculating a simple average,"
"This approach is a better indicator of what a person typically eats because it can account for other factors that may influence fiber intake."
"The results of this study can be used to identify relationships between dietary fiber intake and outcomes of interest like risk factors for heart disease," said Miketinas. "In fact, our preliminary analysis suggests that higher dietary fiber intake in adults with diabetes is strongly associated with reductions in markers for heart and kidney disease."
A June 2021 study by Pennsylvania State University said,
"Although studies have consistently found that people eat more when they are served larger portions, less is known about why this happens or why some people are more responsive to the effects of large portions than others,"
"This is one of the first studies to explore whether the characteristics of eating speed and bite size have an effect on people's food consumption in response to larger portions."
"Based on our findings, being aware of portion size, slowing down when you eat and taking smaller bites of food could help avoid overconsumption,"
"Also, since people eat more when served more, overconsumption of calories from large portions can be reduced by choosing foods that have less calories per bite. This lets you eat the same filling portions of foods while consuming fewer calories."
A July 2021 study by the DNRF Centre of Excellence, Copenhagen Center for Glycomics said
“We have developed a method for producing the important information found in human mucus, also called mucins, with their important sugars. Now, we show that it is possible to artificially produce it in the same way as we produce other therapeutic biologics today, such as antibodies and other biological medicine.”
“It is the body's way of selecting the good bacteria and deselecting those that cause diseases. And it is precisely the sugars in the mucus that we are now able to design as needed”
“We have found a small molecule from bacteria - which we call X409 - that binds to the intestine, and that is precisely one of the many possibilities we are now working on”
“An incredible number of diseases have a connection to the intestinal flora, but we still know very little about how we can control the intestinal flora in the treatment of diseases. This is where synthetic mucins could open up new treatment options”
“Ultimately, one can imagine using mucins as a pre-biotic material, that is, as molecules that help the good bacteria in the body””
“We imagine that instead of using antibiotics, you might produce for example eye drops with the mucin that normally removes the bacteria in the treatment of eye infections. In concrete terms, this means that mucin can dissolve the so-called biofilm of bacteria, which is often pathogenic"
“We also show that mucins are very important for the way in which the common flu virus infects our mucous membranes in competition with mucins which inhibit the infection and flush out the virus”
An April 2021 study by Georgia State University said,
"We observed that feeding mice a Western-style diet, rather than standard rodent grain-based chow, altered the dynamics of Citrobacter infection, reducing initial colonization and inflammation, which was surprising. However, mice consuming the Western-style diet frequently developed persistent infection that was associated with low-grade inflammation and insulin resistance,"
”These studies demonstrate potential of altering microbiota and their metabolites by diet to impact the course and consequence of infection following exposure to a gut pathogen."
"We speculate that reshaping gut microbiota by nutrients that promote beneficial bacteria that out-compete pathogens may be a means of broadly promoting health,"
Another study regarding the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII).
A 2019 study by concluded
“The data suggest that a pro-inflammatory diet, as indicated by increasing E-DII score, is associated with schizophrenia. This is the first study to examine the association between the DII and schizophrenia in a Middle Eastern population. Although these results are consistent with findings from research conducted in depression, additional studies are required before generalizing the findings to other populations.”
Jahrami H, Faris MA, Ghazzawi HA, Saif Z, Habib L, Shivappa N, Hébert JR. Increased Dietary Inflammatory Index Is Associated with Schizophrenia: Results of a Case-Control Study from Bahrain. Nutrients. 2019 Aug 11;11(8):1867. doi: 10.3390/nu11081867. PMID: 31405205; PMCID: PMC6722742.
An April 2021 study by University of South Florida said,
“… being able to see a food item before smelling it helps in processing the scent cue with greater ease, which in turn enhances the food taste perception,"
"Basically, scents play a very critical role in influencing taste perceptions; however, interestingly, people can process a scent better in their brains when the scent is preceded by a corresponding visual cue, such as color."
"We tested this to get a better understanding of how the human sensory processing system evaluates a sequence of visual and scent-related cues,"
We make up a large mixture of the following ground spices. We sprinkle a full table spoon or two of the mixture on the daily porridge in the morning and sometimes add it to the daily glass of kefir in the evening.
Fennel
Ginger
Coriander
Cumin
Cardamom
We had a teaspoon each of two ground seeds to the porridge.
Blackseed
Chia Seed
According to the British Nutrition Foundation, “fibre rich foods include:
Wholegrain breakfast cereals, wholewheat pasta, wholegrain bread and oats, barley and rye
Fruit such as berries, pears, melon and oranges
Vegetables such as broccoli, carrots and sweetcorn
Peas, beans and pulses
Nuts and seeds
Potatoes with skin”
The NHS say, “Government guidelines published in July 2015 say our dietary fibre intake should increase to 30g a day, as part of a healthy balanced diet. As most adults are only eating an average of about 18g day, we need to find ways of increasing our intake.”
What does 30g of fibre look like?
They say,
“Fibre in your daily diet
Listed below is the fibre content of some example meals.
Two thick slices of wholemeal toasted bread (6.5g of fibre) topped with one sliced banana (1.4g) and a small glass of fruit smoothie drink (1.5g) will give you around 9.4g of fibre.
A baked jacket potato with the skin on (2.6g) with a 200g portion of reduced-sugar and reduced-salt baked beans in tomato sauce (9.8g) followed by an apple (1.2g) will give you around 13.6g of fibre.
Mixed vegetable tomato-based curry cooked with onion and spices (3.3g) with wholegrain rice (2.8g) followed by a lower fat fruit yoghurt (0.4g) will give you around 6.5g of fibre. Bear in mind that fruit yoghurts can sometimes be high in added sugars, so check the label and try to choose lower-sugar versions.
A small handful of nuts can have up to 3g of fibre. Make sure you choose unsalted nuts, such as plain almonds, without added sugars.
Total: Around 32.5g of fibre”
A March 2021 study by the University of California, Irvine found,
"The lack of fiber intake in the industrialized world is starving our gut microbes, with important health consequences that may be associated with increases in colorectal cancer, auto-immune diseases and even decreased vaccine efficacy and response to cancer immunotherapy,"
"We were amazed to find how high in fiber berries and avocados are and exchanged ideas for how to prepare beans and lentils,”
"I think this experience will have a life-long impact on how we all look at nutrition labels."
"The students came to class very excited to discuss what they had eaten and could not wait to analyze the microbiome sequencing information to make data-driven conclusions. The study had an interesting and educational impact,”
"Our education research showed that the experience increased student's interest in science and heightened the awareness of their diet habits."
"Students raised their fiber intake by an average of 25 grams per day, but the variability of pre-intervention fiber intake was substantial,”
"A few students had to go from nearly zero to 50 grams daily by the end of the study. We all became a little obsessed with how much fiber was in the food we were eating."
A March 2021 study by Edith Cowan University found that,
“… diets high in nitrate-rich vegetables may bolster your muscle strength independently of any physical activity,"
"Nevertheless, to optimise muscle function we propose that a balanced diet rich in green leafy vegetables in combination with regular exercise, including weight training, is ideal."
"We should be eating a variety of vegetables every day, with at least one of those serves being leafy greens to gain a range of positive health benefits for the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular system."
"It's also better to eat nitrate-rich vegetables as part of a healthy diet rather than taking supplements. Green leafy vegetables provide a whole range of essential vitamins and minerals critical for health."
A March 2021 report by the University of Surrey and the European Food Information Council found that,
“food processing and the degree of processing used are interpreted in different ways by different classification systems. It is concerning that there are no clear agreements on what features make food more or less processed, and how this relates to healthy eating advice, which may make it more difficult for consumers to make informed choices consistently."
"What is needed is clarification of the underlying methods, meanings and rationales of food classification systems so that foodstuffs can be classified consistently. This will help inform public health and ensure we eat a more balanced diet."
A May 2021 study the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya's (UOC) Faculty of Health Sciences and the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS) said,
"Not only are sardines reasonably priced and easy to find, but they are safe and help to prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes. This is a huge scientific discovery. It is easy to recommend this food during medical check-ups, and it is widely accepted by the population”
"As we get older, restrictive diets (in terms of calories or food groups) can help to prevent the onset of diabetes. However, the cost-benefit ratio is not always positive, as we found in other studies"
"However, the results lead us to believe that we could obtain an equally significant preventive effect in the younger population."
"Nutrients can play an essential role in the prevention and treatment of many different pathologies, but their effect is usually caused by the synergy that exists between them and the food that they are contained in. Sardines will therefore have a protective element because they are rich in the aforementioned nutrients, whereas nutrients taken in isolation in the form of supplements won't work to the same extent”
“Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), also termed bacterial overgrowths, or small bowel bacterial overgrowth syndrome (SBBOS), is a disorder of excessive bacterial growth in the small intestine. Unlike the colon (or large bowel), which is rich with bacteria, the small bowel usually has fewer than 10,000 organisms per millilitre. Patients with bacterial overgrowth typically develop symptoms including nausea, bloating, vomiting, diarrhea, malnutrition, weight loss and malabsorption, which is caused by a number of mechanisms.” {Source: Wikipedia}
A March 2021 study by the Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association and the Experimental and Clinical Research Center run by the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin found that,
"Switching to a healthy diet has a positive effect on blood pressure,"
"If the diet is preceded by a fast, this effect is intensified."
"The innate immune system remains stable during the fast, whereas the adaptive immune system shuts down,"
"Body mass index, blood pressure and the need for antihypertensive medication remained lower in the long term among volunteers who started the healthy diet with a five-day fast,"
"We were able to isolate the influence of the medication and observe that whether someone responds well to a change of diet or not depends on the individual immune response and the gut microbiome,"
"Those who have [low healthy gut bacteria] often feel that it is not worth the effort and go back to their old habits,"
"Fasting acts as a catalyst for protective microorganisms in the gut. Health clearly improves very quickly and patients can cut back on their medication or even often stop taking tablets altogether."
Apple Cider Vinegar
Fermented Vegetables
Kefir Milk
Kefir Yoghurt
Kimchi, halal
Natto, halal
Raw Milk
Rejuvelac
Tempeh
Sauerkraut
Sourdough Bread
Vaalia Innergy
Vinegar
Yakult
Yoghurt with cultures
Always double check the ingredients on all products.
