Golden Naturopathic Clinic, LLC

What About Gluten Free?

Growing up in Boulder, Colorado, I was exposed to much that has gone through the world of “health food” in the past 35 years. From the days of the small local co-op (the smell of comingled bulk grains, greens, and patchouli still feels like home to me), through the advent of larger stores such as Wild Oats and Alfalfa’s (where the milk is dairy free!), and into the more recent years of much larger, corporate, sparkly beautiful and expensive stores where you can find just about anything under the sun, there has clearly been a revolution in how we view and value natural foods in this country.

One of the most beautiful aspects of this revolution is that those foods that used to be an adventure to locate are now coming home to my local conventional grocery store. When I started naturopathic medical school in 1999, gluten free grains such as quinoa, millet, and buckwheat were relegated to the bulk bin at the co-op, and gf bread was usually a sort of dense brick-like affair that required many condiments to choke down and crumbled into dust within a few hours of purchase. I had several celiac patients who flat out refused to change their diet because they just couldn’t live with the thought of eating that way for the rest of their lives, regardless of how bad they felt. Today, there are so many good tasting gluten free alternatives, ranging from pastas to breads to pizzas, cookies and more, most of which are easily located at my local supermarket (I’m in Golden, CO now, but this is true in much of the country).

Food Introduction for Infants

During the springtime we focus on setting the stage for good absorption and low inflammation. For kids and adults, much of this will include some sort of spring cleaning. However, for infants, we focus simply on developing a healthy digestive tract and giving optimal nutrition. Many parents ask me for information about when to start infants on different types of foods. The needs of each infant will vary somewhat; however, the following is a guideline for food introduction and timing.

A good rule of thumb is to wait until baby seems very interested in what you’re eating—reaches for the spoon or food etc. Baby spends his or her last months in the womb storing iron to use in the first few months of life because milk is a poor source of iron. For this reason, many of the first foods listed are higher in iron. Rice cereal is often recommended as a first food; this is not necessarily a problem but it tends to be somewhat lower in nutrients and can be quite constipating so in this chart isn’t recommended until 7-8 months. Remember, at the beginning foods are more something to explore rather than a source of nutrition; let baby experiment and see what he or she likes.

At first, food should of course be pureed—a stick blender is a wonderful tool for this job! Over time, though, baby may start to prefer food cut in small pieces (and soft!) that he or she can feed herself. Some babies will quickly tire of the texture of pureed food. Baby food in jars can be very handy in a pinch, but it is much more economical (and tastes better!) to make your own and freeze it in larger quantities. When choosing jarred food, keep in mind whether you would want to eat it yourself—if the food is a nice color and tastes like the food (aka carrots should taste like carrots and be orange!) then baby is more likely to enjoy it.

Figuring Out Food Allergies and Sensitivities

I also have this posted on my and Chef Lilly Allison Steirer's blog Health from the Hearth, but I thought it might be useful to have this here as well!

In my 12 years of seeing patients, it seems that the frequency of food intolerances has increased exponentially in all age categories. I think this is perhaps due to a combination of increased sensitivity to foods as well as greater awareness of our bodies and the potential role food sensitivities can play in various ailments. During the springtime, we focus on helping the body eliminate wastes more effectively by optimizing the function of our liver and large intestine. One of the most powerful ways we can do this is to avoid any foods to which we are sensitive. This will decrease inflammation in the digestive tract and throughout the body and improve our ability to properly utilize the nutrients in our food.

What is the difference between an allergy and a sensitivity?
I like to make this distinction because there are clear differences between different types of food reactions. This is because our immune system makes different types of antibodies. Antibodies are “flags” made by our immune cells; when these cells recognize a foreign protein in the body (from a bacteria, a virus, or an allergen like pollen or a food), antibodies are released which tells the body to make inflammation.

Artichokes Support Springtime Health

Oh, my favorite inexplicably delicious vegetable. When I was growing up, my mom would steam each of us an artichoke, whip up a batch of hollandaise, and we’d sit down and get to work making a giant pile of finished leaves in the middle of the table. In my memory, that was the whole meal, though I’m guessing I’m just forgetting whatever else might have been served because I just loved the painstaking process of dismembering the choke leaf by leaf. You had to finish because otherwise you wouldn’t get to scrape out the middle and eat the real treat at the end. These days, I usually make a dip with greek yogurt, garlic, and italian herbs, or a little olive oil with lemon juice rather than the hollandaise to lighten things up a bit, but it’s still an event here on artichoke night.

Artichokes are a wonderful springtime treat not only because they are in season, delicious, and a fun activity that keeps everyone focused on dinner, but because they also support our body’s specific health needs during this season. They are high in inulin, the mysterious fructooligosaccharide I spoke about in my article about Jerusalem Artichokes. This means they support the health of the large intestine which will promote the removal of wastes from the body.

Decreasing Inflammation and Improving Digestion with Sprouts

When I lived in Alaska, I had a patient who was a Slow Food diva. Not only did she bake all her breads from scratch, she started from whole grains, then sprouted them, low-temperature oven dried them, and ground them into flour before turning them into delicious treats. Even though we all can’t be this dedicated to our food all the time, there is real value to putting this type of intention into nourishing our family. Especially during these first weeks of spring, I can’t think of anything more appropriate or seasonal to eat than sprouted foods. So in honor of all the teeny radish sprouts poking up in my garden, let’s talk about the health benefits of sprouts.

So, why is it worthwhile to eat sprouted foods? Two of the primary goals for our eating during the spring are to improve digestion and absorption of food and decrease inflammation in the body. Sprouts and sprouted foods are a wonderful way to work towards all of these goals. This is both because of how foods are transformed during sprouting as well as the health benefits of the sprouts themselves.

Eating sprouted nuts, grains, and legumes can improve their digestibility and absorption. This is because in their whole form, all of these contain a chemical called phytate. Phytate is the storage form of phosphorus, but it is indigestible, and can prevent the absorption of calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, and the B vitamin niacin. Soaking and sprouting these foods, however, will degrade phytate and increase bioavailability of these nutrients. Having high levels of lactobacillus (acidophilus) in our large intestine will help with the breakdown of phytate and improve absorption, so it is possible to absorb these nutrient from unsprouted nuts, grains, and seeds. However, sprouting will make utilizing these nutrients much easier.

Restoring Digestive Health with Cabbage

The sun has returned to Colorado! I spent this morning in my garden with the girls, turning over the sun-warmed dirt and finding a few of last year’s carrots and onions lingering in the soil; perfect for us to share in our lunch.

As we head towards warmer weather, we will soon be getting to enjoy the first delicious foods of spring: greens, asparagus, and peas are all just around the corner. While these foods are delicious and a welcome nutritional boost after the storage foods of winter, it can be a big transition for our digestive tract to bring in all these fresh new foods. Now is the time to tune up our digestion to make sure we are ready to break down and properly absorb the fresh foods of spring.

So how can we utilize the foods of winter to help support our digestion? One of the best options out there is the humble cabbage. Cabbage has long been used as a folk remedy for ulcers as well as generally restoring the lining of the stomach and intestines. A traditional naturopathic remedy for stomach flu and ulcers is to chop up cabbage, cover it with water in the blender, blend it and let it sit for a couple of days before drinking. This may not sound like the yummiest of concoctions, but it works well enough to look into why it is effective.

Cauliflower and Cancer Prevention

I am generally not a great advocate of the “superfood” craze: the thought that there is one magical food out there just waiting to be discovered that will cure all our ills is just plain silly. We are multidimensional beings and the more we achieve balance on all planes: mental, emotional, and physical, including a balanced diet full of a variety of healthy (but not necessarily fancy) foods the better our health will be.

That said, there has been some interesting research done in the past few years about cauliflower and the other vegetables in the crucifer family and their potential role in cancer prevention. These vegetables all contain a family of compounds called glucosinolates. These are sulfur-containing compounds that when broken down in the body seem to induce cancer-preventing enzymes to function in the digestive tract and liver. These enzymes help the body break down and excrete chemicals that can cause cancer in the body before they cause damage to cells that can lead to cancer.

This chemoprotective effect from increased metabolism and excretion has been seen for a number of different carcinogenic compounds. Some of these include: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a family of compounds that are released from the burning of fossil fuels and coal. Nitrosamines, which can be found in high amounts in tobacco, nitrate-preserved foods, latex, and many cosmetics and pesticides, and heterocyclic amines, which are found in well-done or burned meat. All of these chemicals can cause damage when they come into contact with the cells of the body; glucosinolates from these vegetables help the body get rid of them before that damage can occur.

Seaweed and Thyroid Health

During the winter months, as I have mentioned a few times, we want to support our own internal sources of energy production. One of our primary hormone producing centers in the body is the thyroid. Generally speaking, the thyroid helps to regulate how “fast” the body runs. A good way to illustrate this is to talk about what happens when the thyroid gets out of balance: too much thyroid hormone will make the heart beat too quickly and cause weight loss from increased metabolism. Too little thyroid hormone will cause weight gain, slowed production of skin, hair and nails (causing hair loss, weak nails, and dry skin), weight gain, and constipation from slowed digestion.

Seaweed has traditionally been used as medicine for the thyroid. In Chinese medicine, it is seen as cooling and good for dissolving any type of swelling. In autoimmune thyroid conditions such as Hashimoto’s or Graves disease, it has been used to decrease inflammation and swelling. In hypothyroid, the swelling of the thyroid known as “goiter” has also been treated by seaweed. In Western medicine, this is assumed to be related to replacement of deficient Iodine.

The Iodine content in seaweeds varies depending on the variety, but is quite high in any type you find. Iodine is a critical component in the creation of thyroid hormone. In its absence or deficiency, the thyroid will swell to many times its normal size to try to create sufficient thyroid hormone. This swelling is called “goiter”. Before salt started being iodised in the United States in 1924, iodine poor areas had extremely high rates of goiter--a goiter rate of 47% of the population of Michigan was reported at that time.

Cortisol, Blood Sugar, and Adrenal Health

One of the primary goals for our seasonal eating during the winter is to keep the blood sugar balanced. Especially during the winter months, it is crucial to work on preserving and increasing the health of the adrenals; controlling blood sugar is one very important way to do this.
During this time of the year, because we are not getting much energy from the sun and fresh foods, we must rely more heavily on our body’s own methods of energy production from the hormone, or endocrine system. One of the primary organs we want to support during this time are the adrenal glands, as they are responsible for producing many of the hormones that help us feel energetic.

The hormone we associate most with our ability to feel “awake” is cortisol. Cortisol is a sugar-mobilizing hormone we produce for two primary reasons: as a response to stress and when our blood sugar drops too low. Historically, stress for humans has meant “fight or flight” or as I like to put it “I have to run from the bear.” During stress, our body makes adrenaline which helps prepare us for running: our heart pumps faster and lungs open wide to help provide more blood to our brain and muscles. At the same time we are producing adrenaline, we also produce cortisol, which mobilizes sugar from storage so the brain and muscles can work extra hard, run fast, and climb that tree.

Sunchokes, Immunity, and the mysterious Inulin

Sunchokes are a delicious member of the daisy family, which includes many of the superstars of the botanical world: dandelion, burdock, artichoke, arnica, echinacea, chicory, and elecampane to name a few. Something all of these plants have in common is that their roots contain a compound called inulin. Inulin is a polysaccharide that acts as a type of soluble fiber. Fibers do not get broken down by our normal digestive process in the small intestine, so it remains intact as it is either absorbed or sent to the large intestine.

When inulin arrives in the large intestine, it can function in a manner similar to other prebiotics such as fructooligosaccharides. It serves as food to the healthy bacteria living in the digestive tract and thereby can help to grow and develop a healthy balance of flora. The large intestine is our largest immune organ: 70% of the immune tissue of the body resides here. Healthy flora help to protect this immune tissue, boost our natural defenses against infection, and prevent inappropriate inflammation in the digestive tract and throughout the body.

The problem with eating foods high in inulin is directly related to its benefits. When those happy bacteria consume it and grow, they create waste products in the form of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. This can cause gas, bloating and general discomfort in the belly for some people. Processed foods that contain isolated inulin (which also can be called chicory on a label) do seem to cause problems for many people, so check your labels. That said, many traditional diets have contained high levels of inulin-containing foods and it is well tolerated by many people. Whole foods, such as sunchokes, can cause fewer gassy issues for people so it may be worth the experiment to give your flora a healthy snack!