 Hi, I'm Chef Robin. Welcome to Hans and the Kitchen Workshop about foods that aid digestion. We have done quite a few of these workshops, speaking about different parts of a healthy plate, and in order for that healthy plate to be of use for us, of use to our body, it's interesting to know about the digestive system and how it actually works and how it actually breaks down those particles for us to make use of. So we're going to go through the digestive system today. We're going to talk about what is digestion? What is your GI tract or your gastrointestinal tract, which is referred to as your gut? I know my mother would not like to hear me say that, but they do speak of it as being your gut. Also, the steps of digestion, what is healthy and unhealthy digestion, foods for great gut health, what prebiotic means, what probiotic means, what culture means, and what fermenting means. So you might have heard these words lately. They're very much in the news. Gut health has only been a relevant topic for like the past 20 years. Gastrointology didn't really start to become an issue or something that was researched heavily until the 1990s. So in the medical world, it's kind of a new phenomena or a new kind of thought. Digestion is very simply the breakdown of food into smaller components that can be absorbed into the bloodstream by mechanical and enzymic action. So if you think about, or just look at your bloodstream and look at your veins and you think about the size of the particle of food that you eat and how tiny, tiny it has to be broken down in order to be absorbed up into your bloodstream to go to all those organs and systems that need those nutrients. A lot has to happen and you're responsible for helping that happen by having a healthy gut. So we're going to go through how we can create that healthy gut by room and not have tummy aches. Otherwise, the steps of digestion happen pretty fast actually, but then they can slow up and that's where we run into trouble. So first, we ingest food by our mouth, very natural to do, very easy to do. We started from childbirth and our mouth and tongue work with chewing and saliva to push it back to the back of our throat where a little tiny flap will come down and shut. It's called a stinker and a little tiny flap shuts down so that food doesn't go down our windpipe but goes down through our esophagus. Our esophagus through a process called peristellosis, peristellosis contracts, relaxes, contracts, relaxes and pushes that food down. So our food is mixed up with saliva in our mouth and chew, chew, chew, chew at least 20 bites a piece until we have smaller particles with a lot of saliva, easily swallow down, automatically swallow down and it drops down into our stomach. There's also a little flap at the end of our esophagus that shuts down so that we don't regurgitate that food back up unless we violently have to burrow and then that flap comes open and food does come back up. But generally, the food is now partially digested and in our stomach. Now these three organs, the pancreas, the gallbladder and the liver all send enzymes to our stomach. And what happens is these two processes right here begin to occur, mechanical and chemical processes. The stomach through peristellosis as well contracts, relaxes, contracts, relaxes, churns that food up with bile that's coming from the liver, other enzymes that are coming from the pancreas and the gallbladder, breaking it up, breaking it up, breaking it up until it drops down into our small intestine. In our small intestine, more enzymes are released through our small intestine and most of the digestive process is actually happening there. So pieces that are broken down, even even smaller, smaller, smaller, coming into our small intestine, breaking down smaller, smaller, smaller, then traveling into our large intestine. Our large intestine is responsible for absorbing most of the water out of anything that's left from those food particles and creating stool. So most of the water that comes in this digested bits of food particles in our large intestine, the water will be absorbed into the walls of the large intestine, stool will be created. That hangs out in the rectum, which is right here, and then finally gets charged to the anus. Now, if everything goes great, we have a lovely BDM, mostly twice or once a day should be on a regular basis. But if things don't happen correctly, stools can be held in your body for up to 48 to 72 hours, which is a crazy amount of time. You may not have enough liquid, you may not have things that are working correctly, and we run into problems when that happens because it's a waste material that your body actually needs to discharge. So you don't want to hold on to that waste, you want to get rid of it. So in the system of our gut, the GI tract, there are trillions, trillions of bacteria, some of them good, some of them not so good. We really want to keep a balance between the good and the bad, but with the good coming out on top. So if we talk about good gut health, good gut health is going to aid digestion. Good good health is going to lead to healthy elimination of waste. Good gut, good gut health, excuse me, is going to mean that we get nutrient mineral and vitamin absorption into our bloodstream. Also, you may not know this, but 70% of our immune function comes from our gut, which is really an extremely large number. So it stimulates immune function, you want it to be working right. And also, it's involved in brain development. You may have heard people refer to your gut as your second brain, or go with your gut, or trust your gut. It's because the gut and the brain are constantly talking, constantly sending back messages to each other, and the gut is actually sending material to the brain to help it to become stronger to help your memory to work to help your emotions stay stable. It's amazing. It's really just amazing. And it also, in addition, more even more great stuff, it will regulate your sugar levels. So, lots and lots of stuff is going on that we want to make sure stays in the good department as opposed to the bad department. When you get bad gut health, and we've all been there with a tummy ache before or something that's upset us and for a couple days maybe a virus even wipes us out. But when you consistently have a bad gut microbiome going on situation, which is unpleasant and also embarrassing. But then it can lead to irritable bowel syndrome, we can lead to Crohn's disease. Inside of our bodies. So, how do we try and avoid that. There's lots of different ways. We're talking here on this poster about triggers that create those tummy ache situations. We've all done it, we've all, you know, we're not saints when it comes to our diet for health, but some of them are relatively easy to avoid. The first trigger for a tummy ache that we're all familiar with is just eating too much food. People tend to keep on their plates, which is relatively not a very smart thing to do. It can lead to overweight. It can lead to your stomach being too full to process that food. The other thing about a trigger for tummy ache, and I didn't put it on there, but it's just as important is to live. Not eating enough to where you're always feeling fatigue to where you're never having enough energy to where you're just not maintaining that caloric intake that you need to be healthy. So too little or too much food. And then this is a big, big deal for seniors to little water senior seem to be like frightened of water for some reason, but it's seriously seriously important that you try to drink water throughout your day. This is a tip from a friend of mine who says she just keeps a cup in the bathroom. And when she has to go to the bathroom, even if it's just to wash her beans, she'll drink a cup of water. And yes, it seems kind of counterproductive or intuitive to drink water and then be in the bathroom and go to the bathroom and drink water and go to the bathroom. I need this amount of water for all your systems to function and especially your digestive system to function correctly. So six to eight cups daily. There is some leniency. Some doctors will accept decaf coffee. Some will accept seltzer water. Some will accept water with lemon. Some will accept decaf tea. So whatever kind of combination you necessarily need to achieve eight to six glasses of liquid, mostly water. Try to find that niche for yourself. You're too little food, way too little water. And then we get into things that probably you're very familiar with and are aware of greasy food is a super cult culprit for trigger for tummy aches. I'm not anti pizza. But when you open up that little pizza, and you see a pool of grease on the top. Maybe sparingly eat pizza. Don't make pizza your go to five night a week dinner. Just be aware that it is giving you a lot of facts that are not necessarily the healthiest for you to digest. Also, just greasy fair food is what I call it anything that's put down in a deep fryer, because not fried correctly, and it comes out saturated with the grease from the fryer. It really cannot be good for you, and it really can trigger a tummy ache or worse. Bacon is another one that we should be sparing up even though it's a Vermont favorite. Just be aware that bacon every day is probably contributing somewhat to a situation that could be avoidable and probably is not going to lead you to good health. So in addition to greasy food. This is a culprit right here too much soda. And one thing about soda is that it's carbonated. So it's already gas up. So it's going to create bubbles inside of you that may be difficult to digest. But mostly the thing about diet sodas is the sugar that's in those diet sodas immediately goes through your system and it rushes through so fast that it really creates some issues in your digestive system. So overloading on diet soda can be a problem. These are too much too much. So too much alcohol, too much soda, too much acid. No one is telling you to do away with drinking orange juice or to do away with eating a grapefruit, or to enjoy an occasional beer or something on the rocks, or even a diet soda, just balance it out with other good healthy food for your gut. So now we are at that healthy food for your gut poster. And this is where I would ask if there are any questions. We're going to break down what prebiotics and probiotics are all about and fibers soluble and inside. So prebiotic foods, you're probably hearing a lot about prebiotics are contained in a rainbow of foods. All right. All of these foods here in their natural state contain prebiotics. All of it is contained in the skin. So vegetables and fruits that have skins, although you don't eat a banana skin, but and ginger and garlic squashes apples, berries, a rainbow colors, a rainbow food prunes, this prunes, even probiotic prunes. Prebiotics are like booster rockets for probiotics. So the essential prebiotic nature of these foods when eaten with a probiotic food helps the probiotic bacteria kind of overwhelm the bad bacteria in your gut. You're talking about good good health and bad good health. So just to simplify and break that down a little bit. Let's talk about probiotics and cultured infirmary foods. So these foods, not this one, or this one, although these are good for you. So these foods right here, and I'll hold them up so you can see them better, have all been inoculated or cultured with a good bacteria. And what that means exactly is micro organisms like yeast or bacteria are added into carbohydrates and that carbohydrate is then converted into carbohydrates like starches and sugars are then converted into alcohols and acids. Okay, so you take a product like milk, you add an inoculant to it. It creates buttermilk or yogurt or kefir, which is a drink, a yogurt kefir. Kefir is cultured low fat milk or yogurt. It's probiotic it says right there. So it converts it into alcohols and acids, which act as a natural preservative. Okay, but it also promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria, which is known as a probiotic. So the probiotic is actually a form of bacteria that's created after another bacteria that inoculates a micro organism like yeast or bacteria is added to the product at hand. So say you're making sauerkraut, your product at hand is a head of cabbage, chop, chop, chop, slice, slice, slice, you're going to take salt, massage it into that cabbage, then you're going to let that cabbage rest in a cool dark place. The process that's happening right there is creating another bacteria that's going to preserve that cabbage as a pickled cabbage called sauerkraut. So sauerkraut is a probiotic, and it's a very healthy thing to have. Even if you have it on a hot dog, still healthy. Okay, and it's probiotic. You can tell people I had my probiotic sauerkraut today. So kimchi is a similar product to sauerkraut, except that it's made with very hot chilies, but same kind of process where a bacterial agent came about from the process of fermentation and manufacturing of sauerkraut to create a probiotic product. Okay. Miso, which is added into soups or stews, are inoculated soybeans or chickpeas, this one is chickpea miso. So the chickpeas are taken, dried, rinsed, grown, and then inoculated with the bacteria, set aside for a while to allow to ferment and become tasty and processed into miso. So this is a probiotic product, the same with yogurt, the same with kefir, and a lot of so culturing and fermenting has been around for hundreds of years. The only thing that's new for us to think is the term probiotic, fermenting and culturing have been around forever when there were too many grapes, what they turned it into, they turned it into wine through fermenting. When you add salad or starter, that was a result of wanting to save for the next loaf of bread. So it's not a new concept to us, it's just new to know the beneficial qualities of preserving food in this way actually makes it much healthier for us and much healthier for our gut. This is a product that you might not be as familiar with. This is inoculated soybeans, and it's called tempeh. Tempeh is a little cake when the inoculation is done, and the fermentation has happened. It turns into a little brick cake. It's sold back and sealed in this package. It usually comes with a recipe. It has all the dietary breakdown for you on the back. This is a probiotic product that you might want to consider adding into your diet. You can roast it, you can sear it. It's relatively inexpensive, and it's a plant based protein that you can use that's also not going to lead you to having a saturated fat red meat protein for dinner. So there's a lot of food items out there that are readily available and that shouldn't be too scary, that you can start to kind of blend into your diet. Again, when you make any change to your diet, you don't want to suddenly go to Brands Lakes five mornings a week, flaxseed shakes five mid mornings a week, because sudden change is also something that your body reacts to suddenly and abruptly. So small steps of including probiotics into your diet, if you have none at all, you may have been eating all of these things already and not really realize how healthy you're keeping your gut volume. If you have not, if you have been possibly maintaining the tummy egg diet, you may want to consider slowly proceeding to add in more healthy probiotics, and they're not really difficult to do. So, I mean, it's not a difficult thing to do. Most of these items should be very familiar to you in some manner than for the other key for maybe is not yogurt definitely is. This is plain yogurt, but the you can buy it fruity flavored yogurt if you like. The only thing that you need to make sure is that on the back, it will tell you if it has live cultures, and if it has live cultures that means that those probiotic bacteria are in this yogurt and going to do the healthy gut health for you. This is such a topical topic or a topic that people are so much talking about now that when I went to the grocery store to actually pick up these items for this workshop. This was on the grocery store staying right beside the cash register. So, gut health one on one. And this, I'm not advising that you go out and buy this I'm just advising you that this is something that a lot of people are talking about a lot of food purveyors are going to be advertising more and more that their foods are probiotic because they want to, you know, for a little dollar. But if you just know that a probiotic food is a food that's been culture, then you can look for that on the grocery store shelf and not necessarily have to search out something exotic or unfamiliar to you. So, but this was a good read and it was very interesting to me to find that it was so much in the food world now a topic that is really getting a lot of buzz, should we say. We're right on time with stuff talking about probiotics and hopefully these were helpful to you, I didn't necessarily make colored illustrations but also these cheeses I forgot to mention Buddha, Parmesan and Swiss cheese have a probiotic nature. And kombucha, which is an inoculated black or green tea, which a lot of people like to drink is also a culture provider. So, grab some probiotic food, enjoy it at your leisure and see if you feel healthier or if you're experiencing any of these tummy ache issues, maybe cut out or regulate your water or regulate your intake and hopefully you will be healthier and your tummy will be healthier for it.