i’m video chatting with two friends, one of whom has postviral fatigue that we hope does not become cfids (which i have). she’s sharing what she’s learned about healthy gut. maybe i will get links to the papers she’s been reading later, but this is just a brain dump now.
prebiotics are a class of things that are the stuff that your happy bacteria eat. fermented foods like saurkraut, kimchi, kefir, yogurt. if you don’t have these, taking the probiotics isn’t that helpful.
probiotics are literally the happy bacteria. there are all these different strains of probiotics. you do these strains for a while then you stop doing those then you do these different ones etc. there’s a whole science to which ones
friend in lifetime recovery from lyme says: if it’s not at least 50 billion, then it’s not helpful for you lol
this person in a support group has 500 billion in 12 strains. sent to doc to get her advice about which ones are good. because they’re fairly expensive (especially if you’re gonna do this forever).
generally, probiotics are okay (not like antibiotics) because you generally poop them out if they’re not working.
there’s kvass. you can make it from rye (so basically it’s beer) or beets. she’s made the beet kind. salt and water is basically what we do for lacto-fermentation, one of the most common forms of fermentation in the world (saurkraut, kimchi, probiotic pickles (not vinegar pickles)). kabass is really great because beets (which she doesn’t like generally lol) are ridiculously healthy for you. they lower your blood pressure. my chiropractor says beets and radishes which i don’t really like but my friend makes a killer radish salad that is to die for so i eat radishes every other day now. kavass is great because you get the beneefits of beet juice AND probiotics as well that are in it. for someone who doesn’t love the taste of beets yet (tho they’re growing on me), it’s not the most delicious drink (yet), but it’s growing on me. kvass is how to spell it. is it alcoholic? all fermentation has a little bit of alcohol in it.
she’s heard that rye kvass is for drinking to get drunk lol, but beet kvass is for beets.
she grows sunchokes aka jerusalem artichokes. you can roast them. it takes a little bit of effort. if you’ve never had em before you should start with a little bit, because some people hvae trouble digesting them, likely because of the large amount of inulin found in them. inulin is a prebiotic. it’s one of the things you can easily grow that has a lot of prebiotics in it. in fact, once you get them started, it’s hard for them to not grow. so i have them in pots, becuase otherwise they’ll take over patches of land like bamboo. their stalks are really tall and they’re related to sunflowers, they look like tiny sunflowers. the nice thing about gerowing them is if you start in spring with 1 plant, by the time you harvest (at first frost), you might have 50 pounds of sunchokes! lol! they’re super-prolific! it’s super easy to grow, they’ll grow in anything. is it a root? yeah, a root vegetable, a tuber. you might be able to find a gardening situation near you where they are growing them already (not that it would do you any good). easy to take care of. really healthy for you. so if you can tolerate eating them, they’re relaly good. not everyone can tolerate eating them.
Inulin (a prebiotic fiber): Health benefits and risks.
chicory is really good but i don’t know how often you see it. (and people recommend it as a coffee substitute, has the texture of drinking coffee that people like! oh however, you might )
dandelions are good but out of season. what are they good for? dandelion greens are good for PREbiotics. there are also dandelion greens that are cultivated (that are different from ones you can get in your yard) that are different and might be available from markets now?
onions leeks garlic are good. chicken soup is good. been making chicken soup every week. eggs sometimes.
there’s a meat csa. sometimes eggs. there’s also a salmon one.
spanish omelette or spanish tortilla. a dozen eggs and potatoes, a big frittata kind of thing. you can make it with cauliflower instead of potatoes. sometimes if we get a bounty of eggs and potatoes and cauliflower, she’ll make two.
another thing with inulin are oats. the types of oats i want aren’t easy to get? i’ve never had an oat groat. an oat what? oat grote? Groat (grain) - Wikipedia
something about steelcut or rolled oats? judy is unclear on this part like which is good or whatever
overnight oats are a thing that people do, put like blueberries in them, or plain. monkfruit instead of sugar to sweeten them, because no sugar. was trying to avoid sugar.
before i tried . after not having sugar for a year, i tried it again, and it was too sweet! that’s in my vocabulary now!
at vitacost, they have canned and sliced beets
“judy you should join a csa”
there’s one place where they sell a whole bunch of beets. i can get you $10 of beets which would be 7 bunches of beets which would be a lot of beets. you could eat beets for a week. you probably don’t want to do that.
