Heal your gut, heal your body

Do you get a lot of headaches, aches or pains? Are you lacking energy and motivation to do anything? Are you depressed or grumpy, stressed and tired-out? Do you suffer from anxiety, ulcers, joint pain, asthma, rashes, bronchitis, hay fever, insomnia, diabetes, diarrhoea, chronic fatigue, acne, sore throats or pretty much any illness you can think of? If you're anything like me, you may not have linked it to a possible food intolerance and ultimately a problem with your gut and digestive system.

A few weeks after my son was born I decided to find out whether I had any food intolerances. According to Wallace (2012, p. 32), food allergies and sensitivities are behind most of the health issues in children today. As I was breast feeding I decided I should get myself checked out just in case it could somehow affect my son, Sam. To be honest I didn't think I had any intolerances, so it was quite a shock to find out I had intolerances to grains (wheat, rice, corn, etc), baker's yeast and tomatoes. And so, my grain free journey began, but also my interest in the gut and the digestive system.

After a few weeks of discovering just how many things have grains as ingredients I was left with a diet of salad, vegetables, meat, eggs, nuts and seeds and anything I baked for myself with grain-free flours and ingredients. At the same time I was becoming more alert, less tired, and experiencing hardly any headaches. I used to get quite a lot, which I had usually put down to stress. Turns out it was food intolerances.

I then discovered this interview with Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride (2013):

This was a real eye-opener and confirmed a lot of things I had been recently discovering. It's 49 minutes long but I would recommend that everyone watch it. Some of the main highlights are:

• Food is the most powerful way of dealing with and treating disease.
• 85% of the immune system is located in the digestive track, in the gut wall. The digestive system is the biggest and most important immune organ in the body.
• Digestive disorders are causing neurological conditions and autoimmune diseases.
• Children with learning difficulties and behavioural issues have damaged gut flora.
• Antibiotics are the number one destroyer of gut flora

You can either nourish your body with real, natural food or pollute it with processed rubbish. The latter will destroy the delicate balance of good and bad bacteria in your gut and digestive tract which will in turn make you sick. See the above list of potential problems!

I will write more posts on this topic as I gather more and more information. I'm quickly discovering a huge community of mothers on the Internet making the same journey as I am and I'm so very thankful for all the recipes and articles I'm coming across to make the journey easier.

References
Wallace, Hayley, N.D 2012, Infant Health, The Print Group, QLD, Australia.
PasturePromise 2013, Food is the Best Medicine: Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride, video, 4 March 2013, viewed 9 January 2014, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cONYR7vAD-A&sns=em