Extraordinary Health Magazine EH Magazine VOl 33_Final | Page 53

Clearly, these are good tenants.
What about the bad renters? Well, let’s just say that they’re
not going to get their security deposit back after having left
the place damaged! When you’ve allowed these bad renters
in, they tend to produce a great deal of gas, bloating,
constipation, painful stools, diarrhea and—well—it goes
downhill from there.
Your goal, at all times, should be to evict the bad renters
and to make more space available for the good ones—
restoring a healthy flora balance. This goal is much easier
to understand than it is to achieve, however. Why? Well, you
knew this was coming: our diet and lifestyle often cater
to the opportunistic bad guys and leave less rental space
for the good tenants. For example, our environment has
changed to such a profound degree with chlorinated water,
refined sugar and antibiotics—to name just a few—and our
“rental property” wasn’t designed for these conditions.
What makes matters worse is that these bad critters are
persistent, relentless, sneaky and innumerable. So, balance
is a constant daily issue, and it’s never going away.
So, what can you do to improve the neighborhood
inside of your gut? Well, start with the basics—good
bacteria; probiotics; eat to live. Good bacteria’s favorite
food is fiber, especially soluble and fermentable fiber,
and they especially love to feast on the fiber found in
raw organic vegetables, fruits, seeds, whole grains and
legumes. This is one of the reasons that folks who eat
fruits and vegetables live longer and have healthier
immune systems. †
While you’re at it, make sure your diet includes plenty of
probiotic-rich fermented foods such as kefir and yogurt,
kimchi and homemade pickles. These foods are known to help
correct dysbiosis—an imbalance in digestive flora. Throughout
history, our ancestors ate these foods virtually every day with
no antibiotics or pesticides in their food or water. We need
probiotics more than our ancestors did, yet we consume less
of them.
What are the bad guys’ favorite munchies? Unsurprisingly,
they thrive on predominately refined grains, along with
processed foods and refined sugars. For many people,
these items make up the majority of their calories every
day! It’s your mission to limit these in your diet if you want
to achieve a healthy balance of internal flora.
In addition to watching your diet, you should strongly
consider a daily probiotic supplement. If you do, then you
should look for a raw, whole food probiotic supplement
that is designed for your exact needs.
† These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug
Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or
prevent any disease.
WHY RAW?
Well, to be blunt—heat kills.
Heat is one of the ways to kill
bacteria, both good and bad.
Consider again that your gut is
now home to millions of renters.
And you are on a mission to
improve the property values
“down under” by evicting the bad
guys and replacing them with
good renters. Obviously, it is important for the new tenants
to be alive and intact when they show up, rather than sick,
depressed—or worse. So, if you are trying to introduce new,
beneficial bacteria into your digestive system to help achieve
and maintain balanced flora, then start by looking in the store
cooler. Look for a product that is carefully manufactured in a
climate- and humidity-controlled environment, stored in a cool
warehouse, shipped cold and kept in the store’s cooler rather
than on the store’s shelf. After all, you want high-quality, healthy,
“living” renters paying daily for their space in your gut.
What’s so important about whole foods? Whole foods such
as kefir, yogurt, fruits and vegetables naturally contain an
enormous diversity of beneficial probiotics that have been
present throughout human history. We are talking about
diversity of species and strains, not just a few isolated
probiotic strains in a laboratory. Whole foods typically
contain dozens of beneficial probiotic organisms peacefully
coexisting and offering tremendous benefits for your health.
In addition to the probiotic diversity, whole foods are full of
enzymes, naturally occurring and probiotic-created vitamins
and minerals as well as wholesome beneficial food co-
factors such as CoQ10 and glutathione. By contrast, isolated
probiotics represent the modern pharmacological approach.
They contain very few strains and provide zero vitamins and
minerals. So, don’t miss out on all of this extra good stuff found
only in whole foods!
Now a word about enzymes. You may recall from Biology 101
that enzymes are the working factories inside of your cells.
Many books point out that everything is really a building
block—protein, minerals, even vitamins—they’re all building
blocks, but it’s the enzymes that do all the work in the body.
In fact, there are thousands of enzymes that drive trillions of
chemical reactions every second. They are fragile, and just
like with probiotics, heat snuffs them out pretty quickly. But
when you take care of them, you find an amazingly powerful
workhorse in the enzyme kingdom. Enzymes actually live and
work inside of every living cell, including the cells that make up
beneficial bacteria—probiotics. Some experts suggest that the
bewildering array of proven benefits is due largely to enzymes
that probiotics manufacture. They cause probiotics to grow,
reproduce and create energy.
What would your probiotic be without an enzyme? It would be
like trying to take a Maserati for a spin without the engine—it
may look good, but it’s not getting you anywhere.
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