Who would have thought that learning how to brew beer can teach you more about health than most health books, websites and doctors…
I was having a hard time digesting food, hormone production was low, and my body was slow to recover…
I was gaining weight non stop, had brain fog, hair started falling off, skin was dry, had chronic fatigue, anxiety, depression, just to name a few…
Doctors had told me there was nothing I could do about it… that I would have to take hormones for the rest of my life…
I wasn’t quite ready for that commitment so I started to research and became obsessed with understanding how the body works…
That’s when I stumbled upon the most important lesson about health…
Health begins in the gut…
The term “gut health” isn’t just referring to your gut… it’s referring to your gut and what lives in your gut…
This is where my big epiphany came from…
When I realized that what lives in your gut is the same bacteria and yeast we use to make things like beer, yoghurt, sauerkraut and basically all things fermented…
… that’s when I realized that I could improve my gut health by doing the same thing I did when brewing beer to keep yeast and bacteria (probiotics) happy…
This flash of insight sparked a deep understanding of health and I got pretty excited about the possibilities of what I could do with my health using my beer brewing knowledge…
Gut health is the key to health…
Our guts are like the root system of a tree…
We absorb nutrients through the gut just like a tree absorbs nutrients through the roots…
When a tree gets “sick”… if the leaves start getting holes, wilting, etc., the problem is not at the leaf… the problem is at the root…
“Finding the root cause” is about finding what’s making the roots unhealthy… there are 5 things that affect health the most:
- Water
- Minerals
- pH
- Temperature
- Probiotics
It’s when I started to pay attention to the quality of water, minerals, pH, temperature and probiotics in my gut (and overall body) that I was able to improve my health and vitality.
Water
Water is life… Our bodies are 74% water with minerals just like “mother earth”…
At least they should be…
Most people are dehydrated and are closer to 68% water and demineralized…
Without water and minerals you can’t digest food…
Here’s how I came up with this concept…
To brew beer you must first take the starch from a grain like barley, wheat, etc., and digest it (break it down) to sugar…
How do you do that?
You add water and minerals… (and make sure pH and temperature are within range to digest starch…)
Now look at your body and ask yourself what happens when you eat bread?
Bread is a starch…
When you eat starch, you digest it, meaning you break it down into sugar…
How do you do that?
You need water, minerals, the right pH and temperature…
What breaks down starch into sugar?
Enzymes…
Alpha-amylase, beta-amylase, etc…. The name of these enzymes is not important to know or remember, but know that it’s the same enzymes we use to digest food in our body and when brewing beer…
Here’s a little fun history lesson…
In the book Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, there’s a recipe for a corn beer made by Quecha Indians of Bolivia…
This corn beer called Chicha beer, is made by taking corn kernels “maize”, turning it into flour, moistening it with water and putting it in their mouth until saturated with saliva. This allows starch digestive enzymes to saturate the dough which turns it into sugar which is what yeast eat and ferment…
This is the traditional way of making Chicha beer…
This requires a deep level of wisdom and understanding of digestion…
The reason I’m writing this book is because these traditions are being forgotten and it’s the reason why many people struggle with gut issues…
These traditions helped me understand health…
It’s understanding fermentation and digestion that has helped me improve gut health the most…
This book is my story… my journey… it’s a peek inside my mind for people looking for information on how to improve gut health, which is the main reason why I became extremely interested in this topic…
I needed to improve my own gut health…
So the first thing I did to improve my gut health was to drink more water with minerals to improve digestion…
Remember we get energy from food and water…
How important is water to digest food and get energy?
You don’t just shove food down your throat and magically have it break down on it’s own…
That magic is only possible because of water…
The body needs water to make saliva which is part of what helps you digest and break down food…
The stomach also produces stomach acid to break down food… you need water to make stomach acid…
Stomach acid is so strong it would pierce through your stomach… the stomach protects itself from its own acid by building a mucus lining… it needs water to build that mucus lining and protect itself…
Stomach acid must then be neutralized before it goes to the intestines… you neutralize acid with alkaline solutions… that’s why you are equipped with a pancreas to make an alkaline watery bicarbonate solution that neutralizes the acid from food coming out of your stomach as it enters the intestines…
What does the pancreas need to make that alkaline solution?
Water…
It doesn’t end there…
How do your intestines push that food through and out?
The intestines extract water out of food and squeeze food out the way you squeeze out toothpaste…
That’s why if you eat too much “dry” food, your intestines get clogged… and we call it constipation…
What’s a good carbohydrate vs a bad carbohydrate?
The word carbo-hydrate is describing a hydrated carbon… carbo-hydrate…
However, not all carbohydrates are fully hydrated…
A cucumber is practically water…
Bread on the other hand is more of a dry carbohydrate…
If you eat cucumbers, you hydrate your body because there’s a lot of water the intestines can extract out of that food…
If you eat bread, you dehydrate your body because there’s not much water the intestines can extract out of it…
Is bread bad for you?
Not necessarily…
As long as you know that you need to drink extra water and minerals to digest and break down dry carbohydrates like bread compared to eating cucumbers…
You can also eat cucumbers with your bread…
The point is, become aware of your body’s need for water and how the quantity of water you need changes based on your dietary choices…
