How to prep your digestive system for eating large meals
American Thanksgiving is right around the corner, along with Solstice, Christmas, New Years, and all the other winter traditions. I love cooking for these big feast days. But I don't always love how I feel afterwards. So you might be wondering how can I improve my digestion?
Gas, bloating, cramping, stomach aches, diarrhea, and constipation and the dreaded heart burn are all signs that something is not right in your digestive tract. Your digestive system like other systems of the body, has many working parts and they all need to be functioning properly for easy digestion to happen. There are things you can do, and plants that you can use in advance to prep your digestive system for eating these larger meals, so you don't get post meal sluggishness and a grumpy gut from so many different foods.
Note: I am not a medical professional. The information below is for educational purposes only.
Easy Tips to Prep your Digestive System for Large Meals
Before a Meal
Hydrate (Drink water in the morning after waking up before other beverages. Then drink a glass of water 30 minutes before a meal. Digestion starts in the mouth with chewing and saliva. If you are dehydrated it maybe hard for your mouth to create enough saliva to swallow well, think eating a dry bagel without water... Also hydrating before a meals allows your stomach time to increase it's production of hydrochloric acid. Drinking a lot of water with your meal can lower your stomach ph making it harder for your stomach to break down foods.
Prep your liver for eating (Taking a 15-30 drops of a bitter tincture will help. If you aren't sure what bitters are, I have a recipe for nectarine bitters. Bitters are leaves, flowers or roots with properties in them that make them taste bitter. Dandelion, gentian, yellow dock even chamomile is a bitter. Bitters wake up your liver telling it to start producing more bile which aids in fat digestion. If you don't have tinctures on hand you can make some long steeped chamomile tea ( it goes from sweet to bitter when decocted for ten minutes), or dandelion root or chicory root tea like Dandy Tea or Pero as well.
During a Meal
Chew your food well and slowly. Even the most acidic stomach will have trouble breaking down big pieces of food. When you swallow big pieces of food you also swallow air. This is where stomach aches and cramps and bloating start. If you don't burp that air out, it goes down into your intestines making digestion very uncomfortable.
Start with a protein to keep your blood sugar levels from spiking.
After a Meal
Take an easy walk. Instead of lying down or setting yourself up on the couch. Take an easy 10 minute walk around the block. Walking stimulates the digestive system and has been studied to help lower blood sugar spikes.
Keep fennel handy. In case you do get some gas, cramps or bloating have a carminative like fennel seeds on hand. Simply chew up 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds until they are a pulp consistency and then swallow. You can also make a spiced tea with ginger, cardamom and fennel and chamomile.
Have Milk Thistle Tea in the morning to support your liver. Digesting big meals is a lot of work, especially if lots of fat, sugar and alcohol are involved. Your liver needs a extra support and stimulation to keep making bile to digest fats and break down alcohol.
Read More About Herbs
There is so much more to the world of digestive herbs. This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you'd like to know more or have specific questions leave a comment down below!
