How did food get so confusing?
There are so many different diets these days. The alkaline diet, FODMAPs, gluten, dairy and sugar free, low salicylates, low amines and the list goes on. These diets were not needed 100 years ago so what happened?
Over the last century several changes have occurred. Our new fast paced lifestyles create great strains on the way we digest our food and while the inventions of modern science has done much to improve our quality of life such cars and the internet, it has created some quite unhealthy changes to some foods.
When our nervous systems are in overdrive which occurs both when we are stressed and can occur during a fun adrenaline surging experience such when on a rollercoaster or after drinking too much coffee our bodies go into fight and flight mode and prepare us to run or fight. In this situation we shunt blood from unnecessary organs such as the intestine, liver and skin and redirect this to the brain and skeletal muscles.
This means that we reduce the nutrients required to keep the immune system strong in the intestine and produce enzymes to digest food hence can result in the overgrowth of acid producing bacteria and digestive problems where the more difficult to digest large proteins such as gluten, dairy and salicylates when not digested into smaller amino acids can irritate the immune system in the gut and cause an inflammatory response. This can be remedied by working on reducing stress levels and by taking supportive supplements such as fermented papaya that provide digestive enzymes and probiotics that assist in the digestive process.
Science in the desire to make food easier, tastier and increase profits created pre-prepared food when they introduced taste altering chemicals such as MSG, hydrogenated oils and preservatives. These foreign and often quite large molecules had never been seen by our immune system in our intestines and through various means can create inflammatory responses.
As it is now understood that the gut and brain are connected it is quite common now especially in the case of children to observe mental agitation and hyperactivity after consuming MSG. Inflammation builds up and with each new chemical addition to our food the load of inflammation grows. As Inflammation is the foundation of all chronic diseases it is no wonder that anti-inflammatory herbs such as turmeric are becoming increasingly popular. I find that the fermented liquid forms of turmeric are even more potent as they provide both added probiotics and enzymes and allow for more easy absorption of curcumin, the active anti-inflammatory ingredient in turmeric
