Our summer issue is out now!
Mary-Thea Brosnan, created Kerry Kefir, a traditional homemade kefir due to suffering with digestive issues for years. Thankfully, her symptoms of IBS improved just within weeks of taking her own kefir.
Keep on reading to learn more about her gut health journey below…
By Hans Wieland
I can’t really remember what came first: buying and cooking with whole foods, or consciously introducing more fermented foods in our diet and thus revisiting the food tradition our parents grew up with. Having bought a small farm in rural Ireland in 1985 and starting out to grow and produce most of our own food, it all fell into place naturally. We started growing vegetables and fermenting them for use in the winter, milking cows and goats and making cheeses, buying local grain in Enniscrone and baking with sourdough. I strongly believe that the ultimate culinary connections are between the soil and the gut, and between growing and cooking. Today I will make the connection with the visible prebiotic vegetables and the hidden or not visible probiotic bacteria, because eating organic whole foods rich in fibre (carbohydrates) is as important for your gut health as consuming fermented foods. But first things first!
“Grow” prebiotics to “feed” probiotics!
Probiotics and prebiotics both serve important health functions for our digestive system in the human gut. Probiotics are live microorganisms that live inside your gastrointestinal tract. They aid in digestion by essentially cleaning out the gut so that things keep flowing. Like all living things, probiotics need to be fed in order to remain active and healthy and to benefit us as much as possible.
Prebiotics are types of dietary fibre that feed the friendly bacteria in our gut. Prebiotics act as food for probiotics. In other words, probiotics eat prebiotics. This helps the gut bacteria produce nutrients for our colon cells and leads to a healthier digestive system. “The ultimate culinary connections are between the soil and the gut, and between growing and cooking.” In a nutshell, prebiotics are a type of undigestible plant fibre that can only be eaten by nice bacteria. The more food or prebiotics that probiotics have to eat, the more efficiently these live bacteria work and the healthier our gut will be. Much has been said about the health benefits of prebiotic food and higher intakes of prebiotics are linked to many health benefits like lower risk for cardiovascular disease, healthier cholesterol levels, improved digestion, and higher immune function.
Grow for your gut: Classic Prebiotic Vegetables Since fibre is the source for prebiotics, foods that are high in fibre are also typically high in prebiotics.
My top contenders on the prebiotic foods list are:
1. Chicory Root, popular for its coffeelike flavour and a replacement for coffee, is a great source of prebiotics.
2. Dandelion Greens are a great fibrerich substitute for greens in your salad or a spicy addition.
3. Jerusalem Artichokes have been shown to increase the friendly bacteria in the colon even better than chicory root. 4. Garlic and Onions not only give great flavour to our foods but provide us with prebiotics.
5. Asparagus is another great source of prebiotics and also protein.
Probiotics love Prebiotics and Prebiotics love Gardeners
As gardeners and growers we are in a very powerful position when it comes to gut health. We can grow the best prebiotic foods ourselves, but not all vegetables are the same and probiotics are choosy! They especially love vegetables from the onion family and the daisy family and many are very easy to grow. In the onion family we have garlic, onion, leeks, chives and scallions. Maybe not so well known are the members of the daisy family: Jerusalem artichoke, globe artichoke, chicory, endive, lettuce and scorzonera. Give Jerusalem and globe artichokes a permanent bed in your garden and you will be richly rewarded. Endive and chicory are fantastic salad plants throughout the winter months and deserve to be grown more. And then there is one of my favourite ‘unusual’ vegetables, yacon. I grow it in the polytunnel with great success and good yield. It tastes best raw, grated in a salad with carrots. Probiotics also love potato skins and cold potatoes. No wonder then that they love my favourite prebiotic dish: potato salad.
This is an article from our spring 2015 issue, out now. Stockists | Subscribe in time for the summer issue.
By Hans Wieland
The radish (Raphanus sativus) which “occupies a far more exalted position in Oriental cultures” (Joy Larkcom) than in European food circles, seems to be making a comeback this year. “We are starting to see radish appetisers, roasted radishes and other musings with the vegetable on menus”, says Andrew Freeman, president of restaurant consulting firm AF&Co.
Gut health is becoming an increasingly popular area of our physical selves to be taking good care of and radishes are a secret weapon against bad bacteria and funguses in our guts. They contain natural isothiocyanates, such as mustard oils, which help to protect our digestive system and are also responsible for the sharp, pungent, peppery flavour, ranging from mild in the case of white icicles to very hot in red globe and other pigmented varieties.
Loaded with the important minerals potassium, calcium and iron they are full of vitamins A, B1, B2 and 100g can provide 25% of the daily recommended intake of Vitamin C. Radishes contain mostly water (94%) and therefore 100g of them contains only 15 calories, which makes them an ideal food for slimming diets.
Radishes are one of the first vegetables to harvest fresh in April, even grown in a pot on a balcony in a city flat. For a continuous, nearly all year round supply of those delicious ‘sharp devils’, sow every two to three weeks from March to September, one centimeter deep, every five centimeters, in rows of ten centimeters apart, or else broadcast. The seeds will germinate in a few days and these plants love temperatures of 12-15° C in a sunny spot. In early spring you can cover with a light fabric or veil if it gets too cold at night. It’s most important to keep the soil moist as lack of water makes them too sharp and sometimes hollow. You should be able to harvest 4 to 6 weeks after sowing.
Radishes are so easy to grow and so and rarely suffer from pests or diseases that they’re also an ideal crop for children to get interested in growing.
Radishes come in numerous varieties, varying in size, shape, colour and crop duration. Categorised into spring/summer and winter radishes, they are also often classified as red, black or white. Popular varieties are Cherry Bell, Long White Icicle, French Breakfast and China Rose. My personal favourites are autumn/winter maturing mooli varieties like daikon or neptune. Mooli radishes are crisp, pure white 25cm long roots and mild in flavour.
If you want to try something extraordinary, grow Munchen Bier radish, which are grown for their very spicy seed pods and the tops can be eaten as leafy-greens!
theorganiccentre.ie Now celebrating 20 years of organic growing and education.
By Karen Ward
As a busy mum of two, I know that as we approach winter, prevention is key when it comes to health. So whether you have baby, young children, or teenagers, it’s never too late to give your kids’ immune system a boost. For me healthy food has to be quick or at least easy to prepare, as well as packing a punch in the nutrient-density stakes. But even slow-cooking can be time-friendly.
A reasonably priced slow cooker will be your new best friend. Pop in an organic chicken, carrot, stick of celery, onion and a few cloves of garlic, top up with water and leave it to do its thing! Even if you have to pop out on the school run, you’ll arrive home to the best chicken you have ever tasted and copious amounts of immune-supporting chicken stock for soups, stews and sauces for the week ahead. Chicken stock can inhibit infection caused by cold and flu viruses; great news, as a little goes a long way.
If you want something quick and handy for snacks, take a free hour in the week to spend a bit of time filling and freeze individual zip-lock bags with a mix of berries, ripe bananas and some leafy greens, ready for blending into smoothies as needed in the week ahead.
Feeding their healthy gut bacteria is an important part of winter immunity too but there are lots of simple ways to bring it into foods you’re already eating. Increase your little ones’ intake of Prebiotic rich foods by using oats in pancakes instead of flour and adding leafy vegetables like kale to smoothies. Leeks, garlic and onions all contain the antioxidant quercetin which is both antibiotic and anti-viral and thankfully, not destroyed by cooking. Making a leek and potato soup, or throwing a red onion and garlic into their pasta sauce and blending works a treat and ensures their healthy gut bacteria can survive.
Also make sure to bring in the healthy fats! The health benefits of avocado and coconut oil are immense. Blend half an avocado with three eggs for a delicious green omelette/scrambled egg in the morning or after school, or add half a ripe banana to the mix for delicious pancakes. Cook in them in coconut oil for an extra super-boost, numerous studies show coconut oil possesses potent anti-microbial properties due to its levels of medium chain fats.
Finally don’t forget the importance of making sure the kids get enough sleep. I give mine a bedtime snack rich in Tryptophan such as ½ a ripe banana, two gluten free oatcakes, a small glass of milk or coconut milk, slice of turkey or handful of toasted tamari almonds. Tryptophan is crucial for the production of Melatonin, the sleep neurotransmitter which helps repair and regenerate the immune system while we sleep. It gets secreted in the dark so be sure to turn off the TV nice and early and only use low level lighting in the run up to bedtime.
Karen Ward is a Nutritional Therapy graduate from the College of Naturopathic Medicine. CNM trains students for careers in a range of natural therapies, including Naturopathic Nutrition, Herbal Medicine, Acupuncture and Naturopathy. There are CNM colleges across Ireland, the UK, South Africa and in the US.
By Karen Ward
As a busy mum of two, I know that as we approach winter, prevention is key when it comes to health. So whether you have baby, young children, or teenagers, it’s never too late to give your kids’ immune system a boost. For me healthy food has to be quick or at least easy to prepare, as well as packing a punch in the nutrient-density stakes. But even slow-cooking can be time-friendly.
A reasonably priced slow cooker will be your new best friend. Pop in an organic chicken, carrot, stick of celery, onion and a few cloves of garlic, top up with water and leave it to do its thing! Even if you have to pop out on the school run, you’ll arrive home to the best chicken you have ever tasted and copious amounts of immune-supporting chicken stock for soups, stews and sauces for the week ahead. Chicken stock can inhibit infection caused by cold and flu viruses; great news, as a little goes a long way.
If you want something quick and handy for snacks, take a free hour in the week to spend a bit of time filling and freeze individual zip-lock bags with a mix of berries, ripe bananas and some leafy greens, ready for blending into smoothies as needed in the week ahead.
Feeding their healthy gut bacteria is an important part of winter immunity too but there are lots of simple ways to bring it into foods you’re already eating. Increase your little ones’ intake of Prebiotic rich foods by using oats in pancakes instead of flour and adding leafy vegetables like kale to smoothies. Leeks, garlic and onions all contain the antioxidant quercetin which is both antibiotic and anti-viral and thankfully, not destroyed by cooking. Making a leek and potato soup, or throwing a red onion and garlic into their pasta sauce and blending works a treat and ensures their healthy gut bacteria can survive.
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