The advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition.

Hello, I'm Kimberly King, and welcome to the mother's market radio show, a show dedicated to the Truth, Beauty and Goodness of the human condition. On today's show, we get a unique perspective on digestion, listen, close, so you can keep your digestive system flowing freely, bless later. We'll tell you what's going on around town.

But first step, Caroline VO is a certified health coach and has had training in education from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition based out of New York City. Caroline is passionate about helping motivated individuals make changes to their dietary and lifestyle choices with a focus on digestive wellness because it affects body from the inside out, and we welcome her to the mother's market radio show. Caroline, how are you?

I'm doing well, how are you? I'm fine, thanks. Why don't you fill our audience in a little bit on your mission and your work before we get to the show's topic, my mission is to educate as many people as possible about digestive wellness. It is a source of 90% of chronic diseases. So what you're feeding into your body is gonna be harming it or helping it.

Well, today we're talking about how we can improve our overall health through digestion, so let's start by asking you why is digesting important to good help?

Well, 70% to 80% of the immune system resides in the gut, neurotransmitters are produced in the gut, and they include the feel good hormones, there's a gut and brain connection, and the gut is referred to as the second brain. So if you're eating something that isn't helping you, it's gonna cause certain symptoms like mood swings and fatigue, and the neurotransmitters, our brain chemicals that communicate between the brain and the body. They tell the heart to beat. The lungs to breathe. And the body to digest.

Well, what role does elimination and detoxing play?

Our gastrointestinal tract is 30 feet long. That's about three car lengths. So what we wanna do is when we're consuming the foods, we wanna take the vitamins and the minerals, the water, the energy from the food and eliminate the waste as quickly as possible, because toxins will re-circulate if not eliminated.Transit time is between 24 to 72 hours, and slow transit time is gonna allow fecal matter to stay in the large intestine and promote growth of the bad bacteria, there's about between two to five pounds of bacteria in the body, so you wanna keep a balance between the good and the bad bacteria.

It's interesting when you put it that way, that spells out a whole new image in my mind, what illnesses and diseases are affected by digesting... Well, like I was saying before, 90% of chronic disease stems from poor gut functioning that includes autism, cancer, celiac disease, leaky gut syndrome, Candida, Zane, redness and the skin, diabetes crosses the... A whole list of diseases... And what are the most common symptoms?

The most common symptoms are IBS, IBD. So irritable bowl syndrome, like gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, as reflux, leaky, gut, distended, belly fatigue, brain fog, migraines, and also food intolerance and allergies, and the difference between those two is that an allergy will elicit an immediate response, so if you think of mosquito bites or best things you're gonna see something come about immediately, also, another one that's common as peanuts, where some people are definitely allergic to peanuts, so they'll go into anaphylactic shock and their throat constrict and they're not able to breathe with food intolerance, it's not a life-threatening consequence, but it is something that you need to pay attention to your body because your body is saying, Hey, there's this gas and bloating and constipation because what you're doing to your body isn't working and over a long period of time, it's an accumulated thing and that will result in disease and sickness, it seems to me the peanut allergies have become a little bit more prevalent these past or maybe just... We've become aware of these peanut allergies.

More so now than it was before.

I think I skipped the question. I wanted to bring up what are the causes of impaired digestion?

It'll start off with, like you said, peanut allergies seem to be more prevalent now, and I'm not... If that's because we're paying more attention to it, but one of the factors is C-section birthing, with that if the baby is not going through the birth canal, the baby isn't getting the good bacteria from the mother's body, so the good bacteria that you get from that is gonna strengthen your immune system, same thing with bottle feeding, if the baby is in breastfed, you're not getting that good bacteria to the immune system.

Another thing that'll definitely affect digestion is medication, so people who are taking medication on long-term basis, especially like antibiotics or birth control, that's gonna kill the good bacteria and give your gut flora and imbalance.

Another one is dehydration. If you're not properly hydrated, the waste isn't properly moving through your body and it's gonna be a slow transit time, so the compacted fecal matter that stays in the body is gonna promote the bad bacteria to grow, and that'll affect digestion as well.

The more common ones are eating habits, like not doing well enough, or eating too fast or overeating, all of those things, if you're not chewing well enough, you're not breaking down the foods properly, and when it gets your stomach, you're taxing your gut health, and it has to break it down more there, whereas if you're chewing the food properly, you're mixing it with the saliva and saliva is 995% water, the rest is Emily's and analysis, the enzyme that breaks on the carbohydrates before it gets to the stage and into the stomach.

Another factor of impaired digestion is food choices, so I grew up on the SAD diet, which is the standard American diet of highly processed foods, fried foods, sodium sugars, and that'll definitely hinder like all the fried foods. Yeah. That's definitely bad for you. And the last one is stress, when you're stressed, your body tenses up, and again, there's that connection with the gut and the brain, if you're feeling nervous or anxious or stressed, most people don't feel like eating because your body is tense, and if you recall, like the reference to the gut, you know, having butterflies in your stomach or having that gut feeling, it's because your body is tense, it's not relaxed enough to absorb the nutrients, we... That's a great way to explain that. So how does stress affect overall health?

Stress can affect mind, your mind. So memory, short-term memory. Your focus and concentration.

Also, when you're in a stressful situation, what happens is multiple things happen in your body, the peoples dilate, your breathing shortens, you're able to run faster and throw farther and jump higher, and that's because stress can be a good thing where that's eliciting the fight or flight response in the hunter gatherer days, we needed that surround from predators and to catch our food nowadays, we're not really running from lions and tigers and all that, but we have our modern day stresses of sitting in traffic, paying the bills, and whether our phone hasn't run out of battery, but regardless, we're exposed to chronic stress, and with stress, the chemicals that are secreted in the body are cortisol and adrenaline, which allows your body to do those things to improve bodily performance, but chronic stress, exposure to those chemicals chronically, are it's gonna suppress the immune system, and it's gonna make you weaker, and what happens is, what results is adrenal fatigue and adrenal fatigue will also affect the thyroid, so people who have Byron issues, if you clear up the stress levels in your life, the adrenals will level out in the thyroid as well. I think that's castanea, your suggestion be to get your thyroid checked out or what you're talking about, and then obviously eliminate your stress. Right.

Do we do stress? First thing you can do is just become aware, become aware of... First of all, that you're stressed, the then start paying attention to your breathing because a lot of times when I were stressed, we hold our breath, and so first thing is become aware, pay attention to your breathing and focus on belly breathing, 'cause we're born and as infants we're breathing through the valley, but as we grow up and we're learning about stress and fear, it's breathing through the chest, so if you stop and you do some belly breathing, that will also promote digestion, and those of you other things like it's easier to... Had been done, but leave the circumstance of getting out of the stressful situation, emotional expression is important too, because the organs will hold in fear and anger and grief, and another one I think is really, really important is to change your perception of it, like for example, if you are running late to a meeting and you leave something at home and you're running back, it's like, Well... It is what it is, if you're gonna go back. You're gonna go back. There's no point. And being stressed about it.

So to change your perception about that is, I think is really important, our bodies work better in a relaxed state because the blood and lymphatic system are able to move freely, so stress is a huge factor in overall health, and you mentioned a little something about the mind, for getting... Or you mentioned something in the very beginning about the state or... Yeah, focusing.

See the good, I'm already going, I must be stressed. So what does that do to our mind is at the rotor is that is stressing, that affects the brain cells, so that's why the focus and concentration is affected with stress, I better get my tech... Well, that's great advice too. What would you recommend to someone with impaired digesting... There's five things that I think are important is the first is to assess what's not working for you, and when I explained the difference, Staten and allergy and intolerance, is that a lot of people have in tolerances that they're not aware of because they're kind of the kind of grown accustomed to these symptoms, but the first thing is to assess what foods might not be serving you, and it could be really common things that you are otherwise healthy. I'm at a woman who is intolerant to garlic, the more common ones are like gluten and dairy, there was like a 74% rate that people are intolerant to gluten. Dairy is at 54%, and with Asians and African-Americans, that's like 90%. So the first thing is to assess, and that's through... You can do it through food journaling or elimination diet, that'll take more time and effort, but you can also take an intolerance test, you can also get muscle tested as well to Kinesiology.

The second thing is to detoxify, and there are seven ways of elimination or cleansing, the third thing is to replace... So if you're trying to eat a healthier diet or live a healthier lifestyle, you wanna take out what's not serving you and replace it with something else that is... For example, if you're trying to cut out the bad fats and you wanna put in the good fats, you don't wanna cut out fat completely, the fourth is to accelerate healing, so with somebody who has impaired digestion, you wanna supplement with things like enzymes, probiotics, hydrochloric acid, and even super foods like coconut oil has healing benefits, fermented foods are really important because they have both probiotics and ensigns, and so that includes kimchi, sarod and combos, a personal favorite of mine, and the loss is to maintain and troubleshoot to prevent any future problems. So you want to incorporate proper food combining, there's certain rules with that, like having fruits away from everything else because it requires a different environment, for example, fruits can digest quicker than anything else, so if you're combining it with something like meat that takes hours to digest the fruit I can pass through the body, but if it's mixed in with the meat, it's just gonna future fine permit, and that's where the gas and the bloating will result. Also, food rotation is good because if you're eating the same foods every day, you can create an intolerance that way, so yeah, proper food combining and rotation as part of preventing any future problems, and that's really very interesting and we're stay with this, but right now we need to take a quick break, but there is more information with Caroline VO in a moment, so don't go away, we will be right back for... And welcome back to the mother's market radio show. And we wanna remind you that if you missed any portion of today's show, you can find us on iTunes by searching mother's market or download the show from our website, mother's market dot com and click on the link for radio and listen to past shows. Plus download our Healthy Recipes and money savings coupons, all available at mother's market dot com. And now back to our interview with certified health coach Care Line boom, we're talking about healthy living through digestion. So Caroline, what are the seven forms of elimination?

With elimination, there's seven ways the body will detox or eliminate, and there's the blood, the kidneys, the lungs, the liver, the lymphatic system, the colon and the skin with the blood, the blood is made up of 83% water and... So it's important to stay hydrated.

You can use things like both purifies the blood, and something like Kyoto, those who have impaired digestion, you might wanna stay away from the client 'cause that could irritate the cut lining, you could take digestive enzymes between meals and before bed and dark green veggies will help with that the kidneys is the other method, and with that, we detoxify through urine, so what you're looking for is to have... The color of your urine should be light, yellow should kind of look like a light beer... Sorry for the reference.

And so, again, adequate fluids, and a good guideline is If you drink half your body weight in ounces, so if a person is 100 pounds, you should shoot for 50 ounces of water, and that's very individually-based, whether you're physically active, whether you're consuming raw fruits and vegetables those foods will have water in them, and with the kidneys, you wanna avoid diuretics like coffee and tea, 'cause they do make you go urinate, so then that'll take away from the water in your body and to eat raw foods, another thing is that emotions play a role in the organs and the kidneys hold fear. And the lungs as well. The lungs hold grief, and with the lungs, the method of detoxification is respiration, so exercises will help work the lungs and with breathing exercises like Kundalini yoga will incorporate a lot of... It's focused primarily on breathing exercises with the liver, again, you wanna drink adequate fluids, eat raw foods, and the liver actually holds an anger, so that's the other way that the organs are affected by emotions and you wanna avoid alcohol.

Now with skin, the method of elimination is perspiration, and of course, you can do that through exercise because you're sweating, you could also do skin brushing and using SAN and steam room will get the toxins out of the body because the skin is the largest organ. So you wanna get the toxins out every which way you can, including the skin, the sixth way is the lymphatic system, and that has to do with circulation and through exercise, you can work the lymphatic system, the lymphatic system is interesting because there's no organ to keep it going... Like the heart pumps the blood, so you'll have to do that through movement and something like a massage and drinking adequate fluids, but with exercise, that's really important, and it seems like that seems to be a big challenge for people to incorporate exercise in their daily life, so... If a lot of people are at home or in the office, you can have a small mini-rebounder and you can do that for 15-20 minutes a day, and that'll get things going, you can do it while you're on a phone call or watching TV.

And the last one is through the colon, again with exercise, water and exercise are really key, and you wanna make sure that you have enough fiber in the diet, then there's insoluble fiber as well as soluble fiber, fruits will have the soluble fiber and that will bulk up the stool, the vegetables will have insoluble fiber and that's a little bit more, I guess abrasive, it's not really abrasive, but it doesn't move of the scrub IAC ion to the body to take out and get rid of the waste. And again, adequate fluids. A good practice to do is have a colonic or Animas done every now and again, and it's kind of like a water irrigation system for the large intestine... It's kind of like going to the dentist for a cleaning. You should do it. I think it's every six months. And again, this is very individually-based because the cleaner you're eating, the more hydrated you are, the less you're gonna have to detox to this form, but that's one method of detoxifying through the COL, and you wanna keep the intestines like moving, so exercise is rolling on your back and working, the intestines and it's ideal to eliminate after each meal, like 20 to 30 minutes after each meal, I don't think that's very common, but you can incorporate things like all that'll help with regularity as well as flax with flocked, you wanna grind that up because the whole form is indigestible, so you wanna grind that up forehand and you can use gasses as well, be sure to soak that up before you use that, some people will sprinkle it on to their cereals or yogurt, but you wanna soak that in at least 15 minutes beforehand, because if you're consuming it just dry, it's gonna be soaking in the water that's in your body and produce will help, and what you're looking for is a soft consistency, so if you're going to the restroom and you're eliminating and it's hard and it's in your training then you're not properly hydrated, you're kind of looking for... And sorry for the comparison again, but kind of like a consistency of peanut butter where it's light and color, and it's soft and it's easy to pass.

Well, there you go.

And it's nice to talk to you though about it because now you've made it clear for people that are wondering what is normal, and so it is... It's a good data to know what is normal, and we appreciate that, and I think it's fascinating, these seven forms of elimination, I've never heard the emotional part of all of this.

Yeah, I think that's fascinating. So we think about that.

What are the benefits of optimal digestion? It's a full range of affecting the mind, so you're gonna have more focus and clarity to weight loss, and it's gonna affect your mood, you're not gonna have mood swings, but you can see it in a person's skin, so you'll have clearer skin. Okay, what else? Supports digestion and elimination.

I recommend detoxing seasonally, and you can do that through herbal cleanses as well, to cleanse out the organs, I deliver the kidney, the coal in the blood, and also look into metal detoxification. Fasting is, I think if you do that intermittently, for example, if you're just having a longer period in between meals that'll allow your body to rest because what happens is when you eat, the blood goes to your stomach to help digest the food, so that's why after a meal, you tend to feel tired, but if you take the burden off of your body once in a while and have easier to digest foods or just a longer period in between meals, that'll help and that kind of eases up, like what's going into the body and what's going out. So if you're listening what's going into the body, you're allowing your body to do other things as opposed to digesting the foods, and stress, I think is really a really important factor to think about and minimize because it's such a common thing for people to be dealing on a daily basis, and I think we kind of look at it as just a commonality of everyday life when I don't really think a lot of the stresses that we have are necessary, but you can do little things like with water, for example, besides consuming enough water, you wanna have it at the right temperature, so when you go to restaurants, it's common practice for them to give you a big glass of ice water, but what happens with food when you refrigerated, like let's say chicken or some sort of oil, it's gonna solidify. And so you wanna promote everything to be flowing your body, so if you're gonna be consuming liquids, they should be at room temperature or warm or even hot, so if you notice the Chinese have a bit of tea with their meal, and that makes the most sense because if you're having water with your meal, you're diluting your digestive enzymes, so a good practice is if you can have water habit 30 minutes before, during just a bit to wash the food down, but after a meal weight about an hour and a half before you have water again, with eating, you wanna Cowell so that the food is broken down properly and you're not taxing the gut, it's easier for your body to absorb the nutrients and to prevent gas and bloating 'cause if you're eating too fast or taking in a lot of hair too.

Even if you're having juice, which is really healthy, really healthy way to get the nutrients into your body, you wanna chew, you wanna have that chewing action 'cause that'll stimulate the digestive process to work even though there's not much to you, but doing that action helps. And eat slowly because it takes about 20 minutes for your brain to signal to your body that you're full, so there's two hormones that come into play, it's leptin and grain, so leptin is gonna signal fullness and rollin controls the signals that tell your body that you're hungry so if you eat slowly enough, you'll reach the point of being satisfied and you won't be over-eating, another good practice is to eat just enough, so instead of waiting until you're eating in your full... Because 10, 20 minutes later, you're really gonna feel full, but stop before you feel out before you get to that point. And the last tip for good eating practices is to soak your beans, rice and nuts, because soaking will release the enzyme inhibitors and it'll make it put it into a more digestible form.

Thanks again for your time, Caroline, and we look forward to having you on again. You can get more great tips on the mother's market website. Thanks again, Caroline, thank you for having me. Yours.

Thanks for listening to the mother's market radio show. And for shopping at mother's market, the advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen.

Mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition,