You don't need another overpriced probiotic or gut shot
Kaya KozaneckaWritten on 10th January
The gut is a dynamic and intelligent system, alive with trillions of tiny inhabitants working in perfect harmony to cultivate your vitality. When balanced, it hums quietly in the background, processing food, assimilating nutrients, and housing the majority of your immune system. But when neglected, it becomes overrun, chaotic, inflamed, and overburdened, with symptoms that ripple across your entire body.
This vital organ, which is finally getting the attention it deserves, holds the key to profound health and healing when properly nurtured. But it is not the hundreds of over-marketed 'gut shots' or synthetic probiotics that are the ally.
Understanding dysbiosis
Dysbiosis, or an imbalance in your gut microbiome, is a modern day epidemic. The delicate harmony of beneficial and harmful bacteria is disrupted by stress, processed foods, antibiotics, and environmental toxins. The symptoms? Bloating, gas, irregular stools, food intolerances, and systemic issues like skin conditions, fatigue and even cognitive dysfunction.
Dysbiosis can also lead to increased intestinal permeability, often referred to as "leaky gut," where toxins and undigested food particles seep into the bloodstream, triggering systemic inflammation and immune responses.
Nourishing with simplicity
The gut craves simplicity, nourishment, and foods that support its natural processes. Traditional, nutrient-dense foods, once revered by our ancestors, act as a balm for an inflamed digestive system, providing the building blocks for repair and restoration.
What to prioritise
- Easily digestible proteins like grass-fed beef, lamb, pastured eggs, and wild-caught seafood deliver zinc, glycine, and amino acids essential for repairing the gut lining and reducing inflammation.
- Healthy fats such as butter, ghee, tallow, and coconut oil stabilise and soothe the intestinal lining while supporting microbial diversity.
- Raw milk and colostrum, packed with immunoglobulins and enzymes, bolster gut health and microbial diversity, offering profound nourishment.
What to avoid
- Processed seed oils and food additives disrupt the gut's ecosystem, driving inflammation and harming the gut lining.
- Raw vegetables, often challenging to digest for those with gut issues, can exacerbate discomfort. Opt instead for cooked vegetables and gentle starches like well-cooked potatoes or rice, which are kinder to a sensitive gut.
The gut’s elixir
Bone broth, slow-simmered and nutrient-rich, is one of the most profound gifts you can offer your gut. Its wealth of glycine, proline, and glutamine repairs the gut lining and reduces inflammation, healing from the inside out.
Sip on a warm mug of seasoned bone broth in the morning, or use it as a base for soups, stews, or grains to infuse meals with healing nutrients. Especially nutrient dense when cooked using gelatinous cuts like chicken feet or oxtail.
The insidious enemy
The gut and brain share a profound connection, woven together by the gut-brain axis, a two-way communication highway that allows emotions, thoughts, and stressors to ripple through the digestive system. Stress doesn’t just live in the mind; it settles into the body, embedding itself in the very fabric of your digestion.
When stress strikes, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis kicks into gear, flooding the body with cortisol and adrenaline. This ancient survival mechanism redirects energy away from digestion, prioritiSing muscle readiness and rapid responses over nutrient absorption.
Trauma, whether a singular event or a series of ongoing challenges, can leave an indelible mark on the nervous system. The gut, sometimes called the "second brain," becomes a silent witness to these experiences, responding to trauma in ways that can lead to long-term digestive issues.
Some soothing rituals
- Morning light: The first light of day is nature’s signal to your body that it’s safe to engage with the world. Sunlight helps anchor your circadian rhythm, calming the nervous system and regulating cortisol levels. Step outside within an hour of waking, letting the light bathe your skin and eyes. Pair this ritual with deep breathing to amplify its grounding effects.
- Magnesium: Magnesium is a powerful ally for a stressed gut. Known as nature’s relaxation mineral, it lowers cortisol, supports muscle relaxation, and enhances vagal tone, the key to activating the parasympathetic “rest and digest” response. Incorporate magnesium-rich foods like bone broth, dark chocolate, and raw milk into your evening routine, massage your belly (or other tense areas) with magnesium glycinate spray, or try an Epsom salt bath to draw its calming properties directly into your body.
- The 4-7-8 breath: When your mind races and your gut clenches, breathing is your reset button. The 4-7-8 method is simple yet profound: inhale through your nose for 4 seconds, hold the breath for 7, and exhale gently through your mouth for 8. This practice calms the amygdala, the brain’s fear centre, and signals safety to the nervous system. Just a few cycles can transition your body from a state of alarm to one of restoration.
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Healing the roots: Chronic stress often has deep roots in unresolved trauma, and healing the gut requires addressing these underlying layers. Practices like somatic therapy, which focuses on releasing stored tension from the body, or EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) can help reset the nervous system. Journaling, yoga, and meditation also offer gentle ways to process and release emotional burdens, restoring harmony to the gut brain connection.
Supporting gut motility
Gut motility, the rhythmic movement of food through the digestive tract, is essential for a balanced gut. When motility slows, food ferments, gas builds up, and harmful bacteria can overgrow, creating a cascade of inflammation and discomfort.
How to enhance motility
Foods like coffee, raw carrots, and mushrooms gently stimulate motility and help keep the digestive system on track. Lifestyle practices like daily walks, consistent sleep patterns, and vagus nerve stimulation (humming or breath-focused meditation) can also improve motility by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which governs digestion.
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Healing and sealing
The gut lining, a single-cell layer, serves as a crucial barrier between the external world and your internal systems. It meticulously selects what passes into the bloodstream, allowing nutrients to enter while keeping toxins, pathogens, and undigested food particles out. When this barrier is compromised—a condition often referred to as "leaky gut", its permeability increases, permitting harmful substances to cross over.
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Glycine: An amino acid abundant in gelatine and bone broth, it plays a pivotal role in tissue repair and anti-inflammatory processes. Glycine enhances the production of collagen, the structural protein that reinforces the gut lining, and acts as a calming agent for the immune system. Glycine’s soothing properties extend beyond the gut, reducing oxidative stress and promoting systemic healing.
Sources: Bone broth, slow-cooked meats, and gelatinous cuts like chicken feet or oxtail. -
Glutamine: is the gut lining’s preferred fuel, powering the rapid regeneration of intestinal cells. It strengthens tight junctions, the protein complexes that bind gut lining cells together, reducing permeability and preventing the translocation of harmful substances. Glutamine also supports mucosal health by fuelling the production of mucus, the first line of defence against irritants.
Sources: Grass-fed beef, pastured poultry, eggs, and bone broth. -
Zinc and selenium: two trace minerals with profound impacts on cellular repair and immune modulation, are indispensable for gut health. Zinc stabilises cell membranes, enhances wound healing, and promotes the function of intestinal enzymes critical for nutrient absorption. Selenium, a powerful antioxidant, neutralises free radicals and prevents oxidative damage to the gut lining. Together, these minerals create a resilient and functional gut barrier.
Sources: Organ meats (especially liver), shellfish, and wild-caught fish.
Rewilding the gut
After inflammation subsides, the next step is to rewild the gut, replenishing its microbial ecosystem with probiotic rich foods.
No matter where you’re from, chances are your cultural heritage holds its own fermented treasure.
In the cold winters of Eastern Europe, where fresh produce was scarce, fermented cabbage (sauerkraut) became a lifeline. Kvass, a lightly fermented drink made from rye bread, offered a probiotic rich, slightly sour beverage believed to cleanse the blood and support digestion.
Koreans have turned fermentation into an art form with kimchi, a vibrant mix of cabbage, radish, garlic, ginger, and fiery gochugaru (chili powder). Across the Middle East, laban (a fermented yogurt drink) is a refreshing antidote to scorching sun-drenched landscapes, meanwhile, jars of fermented vegetables, from turnips to cucumbers, provide tangy accompaniments to meals, preserving the harvest’s bounty.
Why not rediscover or experiment with a fermented food from your own heritage, or explore one from a different culture. Perhaps you already have one you love: a tangy yogurt, a zesty pickle, beloved sourdough bread or kombucha.
And you know how much we love raw milk, so a raw milk kefir, easily made at home, may be our Organised-approved favourite.
Your gut is a mirror reflecting the rhythm of your days, the weight of your stress, and the moments you take, or don’t take, to reconnect with the innate intelligence of your body.
Healing the gut is not a sprint toward quick fixes or the allure of overhyped products. It’s a deeply personal odyssey, one rooted in restoration and quiet balance: nourishing your body with the wisdom of traditional, time-honoured foods, embracing rituals that gently whisper calm into your nervous system, and reintroducing your gut to its ancestral companions, the vibrant microbial allies found in fermented treasures.
When you honour this process, your gut shifts from being a source of discomfort and chaos to becoming your greatest ally, a dynamic ecosystem humming in harmony, laying the groundwork for vitality, resilience, and a body that feels at ease within itself.
