Receive our FREE E-LETTERS
with health updates from DrDeborah.
Groan. Burp. Head for the couch-or the medicine cabinet. It's not a condition anyone wants to talk about, but nearly everyone-male and female, young and old-suffers an occasional bout of indigestion.
Chances are you just ate too much or too fast; dinner was too spicy or too greasy; or you indulged in too much caffeine, alcohol, or chocolate. There may be a particular food or a certain medication your stomach doesn't tolerate well. Sometimes, an upset stomach may have nothing to do with food but is instead caused by emotional trauma or nervousness.
Many people take an ill-advised shortcut when they immediately reach for gastrointestinal (GI) medications to deal with indigestion. Often doing more harm than good, these medicines can cause numerous side effects and mask imbalances that may lead to more serious conditions. For digestive health and overall well-being, you need to address the root causes of your indigestion and not just repeatedly muffle the symptoms.
Even if you feel your indigestion occurs too frequently or lacks obvious triggers, don't let pharmaceutical advertisements scare you into concluding that you are suffering from "irritable bowel syndrome" (IBS). For more than a decade, irritable bowel syndrome has been portrayed as a disease requiring drug treatment. What may be a benign functional disorder has been reframed as a serious disease with a label and a corresponding drug. Irritable bowel is a real condition requiring treatment but not necessarily pharmaceutical drugs. It is worth investigating first if your bellyache is triggered by specific foods, eating habits, or another easily remedied cause.
As Lord Chesterfield observed, "I am convinced that a light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine morning have sometimes made a hero of the same man, who, by an indigestion, a restless night, and rainy morning, would have proved a coward." By making healthier choices, you too can face the day like a hero, without fear of gastrointestinal distress.
I understand loving the taste of grains. Now that I've spent the better part of a year without gluten, months without grains, I can still admit that I have loved grains in my life. When posed the “Name one food to have on a desert island” question, I was always torn between eggs and brown rice.
Magnesium is a chemical element that chemists refer to by the symbol Mg, but Mg never exists by itself anywhere on the planet. It is embedded in rocks, or molten in earth, or dissolved in seawater.
Magnesium is essential to life, found in every living cell and involved in every physiological process we rely on to live. Our energy currency is called ATP, and magnesium is essential for its production and utilization. Magnesium plays a vital role in the contraction and relaxation of muscles, including skeletal muscles, as well as the of the gastrointestinal tract, and muscles regulating blood flow, blood pressure and breathing passages. Our heart is a muscle, and regulation of the electrical and muscular function of the heart depends on magnesium. Optimal mental and emotional function require adequate magnesium for neurotransmitter and hormone production.
For some people it’s pain, and for others digestion just seems to be working upstream instead of downstream. It’s not a condition anyone wants to talk about, but nearly everyone—male and female, young and old—suffers an occasional bout of indigestion.
Makes 1 quart
1 quart whole milk, preferably raw but not ultra pasteurized
about 1/4 cup buttermilk culture*
This is the easiest of all the cultured milks. Place milk in a glass container, add the buttermilk culture, stir well and cover. Keep at room temperature (but not higher than 80 degrees) until themilk thickens and curdles slightly. Chill well. Reserve 1/4 - 1/2 cup in a separate jar in the refrigerator for the next culture.
Note: A similar culture from Sweden is called fil mjolk.
