Spring-clean your system

If you struggle with tummy troubles, Primrose Matheson, founder of Primrose’s Kitchen, explains how to spring-clean your system to give your body a fresh start.

As spring approaches, we attempt to be more conscious about what we are putting into our bodies in order to feel our best – a healthy spring-clean, if you like. For a lot of people, a short cleanse works wonders. This is where the body is given a breather from heavier, harder-to-digest foods in favour of more nutrient-rich and highly digestible juices and soups.

We can achieve this by including superfoods such as barley grass, chlorella, triphala and wheatgrass in our diet, as found in Primrose’s Kitchen’s Cleanse Juice and Smoothie Boost Powder. During a cleanse, the energy usually used for digestion can now be deployed elsewhere, so it’s beneficial for repair and renewal processes.

But if we don’t allow these breaks and spend years following a toxic lifestyle – eating highly processed foods and carrying around heavy emotions and stress – our bodies cannot repair themselves as they should. Problems might start as little niggling pains or bloating, often diagnosed by doctors as irritable bowel syndrome or IBS, and these symptoms can range from mild to severe. If left unchecked, it can lead to more serious problems such as diverticulitis and Crohn’s disease.

Gut reactions
We often talk about a ‘gut feeling’ or an ‘inner knowing’ – this might have something to do with the 100 million or so neurons found in our gut (more than the number found in the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system), which is why it’s often referred to as our second brain. These neurons allow your stomach to keep in touch with the brain via vagus nerves, which often influence our emotional state.

This reminds us how important it is to reduce stress from your life for healthy digestion. Sit down and eat meals slowly rather than eating on the run: this will ensure your body has the maximum oxygen, blood supply and energy required for digestion, making the process less of a strain. Also, try to have a positive relationship with your food. Eat foods you enjoy and imagine the good it will be doing you. If you feel intense anger or sadness before a meal because you have just had an argument, spend five minutes doing some gentle breathing exercises to let the stresses go, so your body doesn’t have to deal with too much at once.

Emotional and environmental stress and toxicity can set up sensitivity in the gut that can lead to leaks or inflammation. This means over time, or sometimes quite quickly in the case of trauma, you can find yourself not able to eat what you once could without discomfort. This is because your body is no longer strong and resilient enough to tolerate the chemicals or toxins in those foods. Common examples include gluten or dairy.

Make your system happy
Firstly, you need to eliminate stress from your life, or adapt your techniques for managing it. Then eliminate high-allergy ingredients such as gluten, dairy, yeast, wheat and sugar for three months to take the burden off your system. In addition, try the following three tips:

1. Graze over the day rather than eating three large meals.
2. Support your gut with a smoothie (recipe below) in the place of a solid meal.
3. Before each meal, add a teaspoon of slippery elm powder to a glass of water and drink – this coats inflamed membranes and acts as an anti-inflammatory.

You could also try supplementing with L-glutamine powder – take this in the same way as the slippery elm before meals – and chewing on dried fennel seeds after meals will help increase your body’s ability to digest effectively. It’s important to think of digestion in terms of not just physical food but also the digesting and releasing any emotions or tensions we could be holding on to from the day. Let them all go…

And listen to those gut feelings in your life: they are trying to tell you something about the decision you are making or the person you are with. Trust them – when you can trust in yourself and your natural instincts, you will feel empowered and not need to look to others for advice or direction. We have everything we need… we just don’t realise it a lot of the time. Here’s to a happy gut!

Happy-tummy smoothie
1 peeled cooked beetroot
1 kiwi
Handful of frozen berries
Half an apple
Handful of spinach leaves
4 tbsp water or unpasteurised coconut water
1tsp aloe vera powder (cooling and healing)
1tsp marshmallow powder (creates a sticky substance to coat membranes and reduce inflammation)

Place everything in a blender until smooth and drink!

For recipes and products from Primrose’s Kitchen, visit primroseskitchen.com