How to Enhance Your Meals With Natural Probiotics
Enjoy natural ways to enhance the population and beneficial activity of your intestinal flora. Probiotic foods are a great way to make your gut garden grow.
We are constantly reminded to consume natural foods and especially fruit and vegetables for all our nutrients, our medicine and our sustenance. Today we mostly depend on yoghurt and probiotic supplements to replace what antibiotics take out of us. The tell-tale itchy white growths on the vagina or mouth indicate we need to control yeast-based infections like candidiasis.
But these supplements do not only encourage favourable strains of microbes. It all depends on the terrain , according to the experts. If the gut is either too acidic or too alkaline in certain places then levels of benign yeasts or harmful E. coli, Helicobacter pylori, giardia, etc. can still breed excessively. The mouth saliva is slightly acidic, the oesophagus is alkaline, the stomach is intensely acidic at a PH of 2 so it can kill microbes.
The correct diet helps to control these variations within the gut to prevent yeast from developing into a harmful form of fungus or mould. Sugar and refined carbohydrates accelerate the fermentation of yeast and cause extreme acidity within the small intestine which should be predominantly alkaline. The large intestine is slightly acidic so that gut flora can thrive.
The leaky gut and irritable bowel syndromes are often aggravated by parasites and other organisms that burrow through the mucous linings of the gut and escape into the rest of the body. These and other undigested particles trigger off the immune system. Antibiotics are used to fight back but they wipe out the good guys, so we take more probiotics to try and equalize the situation. We keep eating food we cannot digest and we fail to control bacteria and parasites.
When yeast infections are under control, one notices a considerable reduction of the swollen, bloated waistline.
Natural Mechanisms That Destroy Bacteria
We are well equipped to handle invasive bacteria we ingest from food. Stomach acid; when it is sufficiently acidic and functioning at 40 degrees Centigrade can obliterate e-coli and Helicobacter pylori. In addition to this, we have a backup in the bloodstream if our reserves of iodine are adequate. Every 17 minutes blood flows over the thyroid gland to zap the invaders. Don’t tell me: you have had your thyroid gland removed? You are afraid to top up on iodine? What a pity!
Beneficial gut bacteria tracks down, absorbs and removes heavy metal particles. They help to control blood pressure and cholesterol levels – without any help from stain drugs and have no harmful side effects like insomnia, memory loss, constipation or reducing your libido. They keep candidasis in check, so you don’t suffer from bloating, depression, mood swings, itchy white patches in hidden places or other “headaches”!
Few people know that these foods are a rich source of vitamin C. When they went sailing around the world and suffered from scurvy they should have made sauerkraut like the Germans do! Probiotics also facilitate the break down of pre-cancerous oestrogen: 17- methoxyestradiol into the cancer fighting: 2-methoxyestradiol.
Natural antibiotics like garlic, golden seal, oregano oil, propolis and cloves may also reduce our beneficial gut bacteria if they are taken in repeated, large quantities. Over 100,000 billion bacteria from 500 species live in the human gut; collectively called the intestinal or gut flora. Over 60% of our bowel movement is made up out of bacteria. We think that fibre is the bulking factor but it only provides a “prebiotic”; a substance on which they feed.
Prebiotic foods have indigestible components that create the growth medium for probiotics. They are found in bananas, onions, leeks, barley, wheat, tomatoes, Jerusalem artichokes or chicory root. Fructooligosaccharides. Just eat them! Consuming insoluble fibre like wheat bran or husky supplements is no way to commence a bowel movement. A lot of seed coatings contain phytic acid that robs you of calcium along the way.
Traditionally people ate fermented food. They remained healthy and were never constipated.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is for educational purposes only and should not be used for diagnosis or to guide treatment without the opinion of a health professional. Any reader who is concerned about his or her health should contact a doctor for advice.
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