How do we support bone health and gut health? Here’s an easy way that only has 3 ingredients; sauerkraut. Let’s dive into this traditional food and all it’s healing qualities.

“Your gut is said to contain over 100 trillion microorganisms or “gut flora,” which is more than 10 times the total number of cells in your body [1]

Unpasteurized sauerkraut contains probiotics, which are beneficial bacteria that act as the first line of defense against toxins and harmful bacteria. They can also improve your digestion and overall health.[2, 3, 4]

Probiotics like those in sauerkraut can help improve the bacterial balance in your gut after it has been disturbed by the use of antibiotics. This can help reduce or prevent antibiotic-provoked diarrhea.[5, 6

Research also shows that probiotics help reduce gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, and symptoms linked to Crohn’s disease and ulcerative “colitis Probiotic supplements may contain anywhere from 1–50 billion colony-forming units (CFUs) per dose. In comparison, 1 gram of sauerkraut may contain 1,000–100 million CFUs.

Different probiotic strains may provide varying advantages. Thus, consuming a wide variety of strains may give you a broader range of health benefits.

In this regard, sauerkraut may have the advantage. Research has reported that one serving may contain up to 28 distinct bacterial strains.

Like most other fermented foods, sauerkraut contains a variety of enzymes, which help break down nutrients into smaller, more easily digestible molecules.”

- Healthline

3 Ingredients:

1. 1 head of organic cabbage (either green, purple or combination of green and purple)
2. 1 Tablespoon of kosher sea salt
3. 1 Quart glass ball jar with lid

Preparation:

1. Remove the outer layer of the cabbage but do not wash the cabbage
2. Slice in cabbage in half
3. Remove the core
4. Then thinly slice the two halves
5. Add your sea salt
6. Massage the sliced cabbage for about 10-15 minutes (until liquid comes out when you squeeze the sliced cabbage).
7. Pack into glass ball jar
8. Continue pushing down the cabbage allowing the liquid to rise to the top
9. When finished place the lid on the top but do no seal
10. Twice a day pack down the cabbage (morning and night)
11. 5-7 days you sauerkraut is finished
12. Place in the fridge and eat a tablespoon daily

Transcript:

00:00:00 This is Irma Jennings from food for Healthy Bones. And I’m here with my kitchen mate, Vicki Sarnoff. And of course, Skelly is here because Skelly is a skeleton that lives in us all. What we’re about to explain and show and demonstrate today is sauerkraut. And why does that matter? Because our gut health is the vital aspect of all health, bone health, heart health. Overall health is good health. Sauerkraut is a wonderful, probiotic and natural probiotic to support good health. Vicki is gonna tell us about it, the nuances of it.

00:00:34 And then we’re going show you how to make it. How easy this to make it. Could tell me about sauerkraut, where did it come from and where did it originate?

A lot of people think that sauerkraut really came from Germany or in that area because of its name. But it really originated in China. China? Yes. When they were building the Great Wall of China, the workers would eat, especially during the summer. They would have rice and cabbage, and in the winter months, they decided they needed to keep it from going bad.

00:01:03 They added rice vinegar, to it, and they really created a fermented food. Eventually, when Genghis Khan was conquering the world, sauerkraut was brought to Middle Europe and it settled into Germany. And that’s where it got its name.

Who knew? So I always thought it was a German or American hot dog. No. Okay, it really came from China. So tell us more about sauerkraut. What is going to be your your process? What are we going to do today? We’re gonna pick a green cabbage.

00:01:38  I want you to wash your hands first before you start working, and then remove that outer layer, which is sort of the dirty layer of the cabbage. But we’re not going to wash the cabbage because we’ll need the bacteria that comes from the soil, which is eventually going to make the Lactobacillus brevis and  Lactobacillus plantarum that we need to ferment. This is organic cabbage. 

Absolutely. Start with organic cabbage, okay, because you don’t want the creepy crawly. You know the herbicides, pesticides or any of those things.

00:02:07 We take our cabbage, cut it in half and cut out the core. And once the core is removed, you can start slicing the cabbage.

00:02:19 I say thin slices. Maybe the width of a dime really works. Well. Doesn’t matter.

00:02:26 It doesn’t really matter. You could even have thicker ones. If you ever eat kimchi, it’s often very similar process, just different spices.

00:02:34 For my very much perfectionist clients who want to make sure that it’s exactly right, that’s not necessary, I just want to cut it up.

00:02:45 Absolute. Just nice slices, OK, Once you sliced your cabbage, put it in a nice sized bowl that you can maneuver with.

00:02:53 The only other ingredient we’re going to use is salt. And you should really use a kosher sea salt, which is a chunkier salt.

00:03:02 Uh, but it’s wonderful. So for a nice size cabbage, you only need one tablespoon of salt.

00:03:08 Now, I don’t like a lot of salt, right? What would I do? I would cut that down a little bit.

00:03:14 I used 3/4 of a tablespoon. Salt is absolute.  You need that salt which will draw the liquid that we need to create the fermentation process.

00:03:22 Once you coat your cabbage in the salt, we then spend 10 to 15 minutes massaging that cabbage, and it can be done as a very meditative process.

00:03:33 You can just really get into massaging and rubbing that cabbage together, and we do that until the liquid start flow from the cabbage and it’s going to drip.

00:03:44 It’s gonna drip. But I want to say one thing. This is the mindfulness. Not only do you cut a cabbage in half and then you look, you look at the cabbage.

00:03:52 Don’t forget to look because it almost looks like a tree on the inside. And this is just a reminder how magnificent nature is.

00:03:58 And then we have this moment of massaging, mindful, lovingly sending loving thoughts, and this is a single test you don’t want to have.

00:04:07 Ignore what’s going on in the background. You want to be in it and feel it. Feel the juice and your hands will feel it.

00:04:13 It takes some work to do it, but it’s really very good for you. So I was just listening to an interview yesterday with Dr Lani Simpson about arthritis is how we have to move our joints.

00:04:23 And this is a great exercise for that. And what’s the next step? So once we have those juices flowing, we’re going take a quart sized bowl jar, which is a glass jar, and we’re gonna take a handful of it, and we’re going to slowly start packing it in.

00:04:41 We do a little bit of the time and keep pressing it down because there’s little air bubbles and we want to push those air bubbles up and always keep some of that liquid around.

00:04:50 Use all the liquid that we’ve created from the massaging, and we’re going to do that slowly until we fill up the jar. 

00:04:58 You need about half an inch to an inch of liquid above, because it has to grow in an anaerobic environment, meaning it doesn’t have any air, so the oxygen is not there.

00:05:10 That’s why we’re pressing all those little air bubbles and the liquid stays on top the entire time. 

00:05:18 We massage and we pack now. Once you’ve packed it, it’s not over yet. Put the lid on very lightly or you could put a piece of cheesecloth over it, and we’re gonna let that sit for anywhere from 5 to 8 days.

00:05:32 But every day you have homework to do, you have to pack it down twice a day. I like to do this in the morning, I’ll get up, I wash my hands, and then I will pack the cabbage again and just push it down because a little bit will float to the top.

00:05:49 Pack it down. Those little air bubbles will keep rising up. Put the lid lightly on it and let it sit again.

00:05:54 I do it again before I go to bed at night. It’s almost like brushing your teeth, right?

00:05:57 You do it twice, do it twice a day. I get up in the morning pack my sauerkraut and before you go to bed pack your sauerkraut

00:06:05 But you also you will notice by the next morning, and for the next couple of days you’re going to see all these little bubbles forming on the top.

00:06:12 That’s the fermentation process. That’s the exciting thing that you want to have happened. And once those bubbles disappear and it stops doing that your sauerkraut is done.

00:06:22 You can seal it up, put it in the refrigerator. Oh, I forgot one important thing. What’s that?

00:06:27 When you're done packing it, take a little piece of tape and put the date on it just so you know when you did it.

00:06:33 It’s a reminder when it’s stored in the refrigerator. You know, it’s certainly good for a couple of months.

00:06:40 But it’s nice to know when you actually created it right? So when that sauerkraut ends up in the back of the refrigerator, you can look at it and say  “I made it a month ago and I could still eat it, which is a beautiful thing”.

00:06:50 Now what’s the cost of making sauerkraut? An organic cabbage and a glass ball jar. Um, you can sometimes get the jar for a dollar.

00:07:01 So I say the whole thing, including a jar, and everything costs  $5.65 or $6 for your belly, for you gut health.

00:07:09 Isn’t that a beautiful thing? And then you should eat every day anywhere from a tablespoon to two, maybe three tablespoons. Depends.

00:07:17 You know, I like it as a side dish for things that I’m eating, like put it on food.

00:07:22 But, you know, it’s wonderful to get that bacteria in your belly. Start slowly with a tablespoon.

00:07:27 It could even be a little bit less and then work your way up. And adding it to food.

00:07:33 Thanks and on hot dogs. But some of us still eat hot dogs. Um, but on other pieces, if you’re an animal protein eater or you could put it on the side of a pork chop or even a steak.  Have you ever made it in an omelette?

00:07:48 The thing about sauerkraut is, I know that a lot of people grew up eating sauerkraut on hot dogs, and it was kept hot.

00:07:56 It was in a heated container, and they put the sauerkraut on. You’re destroying the bacteria so you don’t want to do that so I wouldn’t put it inside and out.

00:08:07 Yes, that’s the heat. The heat, right? All right. So what do you think, Do you think you’re going to try this?

00:08:12 We told you is how really simple this is. Now you can get a little bit more advanced if you want to add garlic or various kinds of seeds like caraway seeds.

00:08:24 You can add carrots. You can add turmeric or raw ginger, too. Yeah, that’s great.

00:08:30 I would just grate ginger. You could grate carrots into it.

00:08:35 You could do the ginger. I love that. Yeah. Um, and any other vegetable. If you want to put it in there, it’ll ferment with it.

00:08:42 That’s great. How about that? Okay, Irma from Food for Healthy Bones with Vicki Sarnoff signing off.

00:09:04 www.foodforhealthybones.com. There you could sign up for my 30 Essential Foods for Bone Health and you’ll receive my monthly newsletter.

00:09:13 You can also see all my blog posts. I’ve been blogging for the past 12 years on all things bones.

Resource Links:

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12583961/

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4058509/

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19584499/

[4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30267869/

[5] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22570464/

[6]https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006095.pub3/full

The post Easy Way to Support Gut and Bone Health appeared first on Food For Healthy Bones.

Vitamin D: It's not just about Osteoporosis and Bone Health

There are numerous reasons why I chose the title, The Whole-Body Approach to Osteoporosis, for my book. Not only should we look at the whole body when searching for causes of bone loss, but the fact that there are so many pieces of the "bone puzzle" that fit into other parts of the body, we really can't separate skeletal physiology from the other organs and tissues during the diagnostic process.

Take vitamin D for instance. We all know that vitamin D is important for bones because it helps us absorb more calcium from the gut. But did you know that vitamin D is also important for the immune system to effectively ward off disease?

And, it does so much more!

Lets take a closer look at Vitamin D

Vitamin D, or 25 hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] is actually a precursor hormone. In this form, vitamin D doesn't actually do us much good. It needs to be converted in the liver and kidneys into the active form of vitamin D called 1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D [1,25(OH)2D3] or calcitriol.

By the time 25(OH)D is converted into 1,25(OH)2D3 it is a true steroid hormone that targets many genes.

You can think of 1,25(OH)2D3 as being similar to what a can opener is to a can, or what a spark plug is to an engine.

This active form of vitamin D turns on up to 1,250 genes in the body. That is a huge percentage of the number of genes we carry, and therefore, vitamin D greatly impacts who we are.

In a recent "Letter to the Editor"(1) in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, Assistant Professor Dr Toshihiro Sugiyama from the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Saitama Medical University, Japan, called upon researchers to find consensus in determining the "adequate level" of vitamin D for bone health.

In fact, most medical doctors and researchers believe that the effects of vitamin D on bone mineral density scores should be the determining factor in setting supplemental dosing recommendations.

But this approach fails to recognize the full impact that vitamin D has on the body.

Currently, blood levels of vitamin D [25(OH)D] below 20 ng/ml are considered deficient. Most doctors feel that 30 ng/ml is adequate for maintaining good bone health. In order to maintain 30 ng/ml the average person needs to consume 400 to 800 International Units (IU) of vitamin D/day.

But, is adequate really good enough? 

Indeed, much of the latest research, as sited by Dr Sugiyama, does indicate that 800 IU of supplemental vitamin D may be good enough. But does good enough or adequate cut it when we have fragile, osteoporotic bones and a high risk for fracture?

I'm not sure I want to bet my bones on it.  

In addition, as I have eluded to earlier, there is more to the vitamin D story than just bones. With vitamin D affecting the genetic expression of over a thousand genes and sparking countless biological pathways, maybe adequate isn't good enough. Maybe we need to shoot for optimal intakes.

Vitamin D, as it turns out, is important not just for skeletal health but deficiency has been linked to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis; cancers such as leukemia and colorectal, ovarian, and breast cancer; autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes; cardiovascular disease, and others.

Vitamin D impacts just about every nook and cranny in the body. It affects everything from cell birth, cell growth, and cell death to the production of microbial peptides in white blood cells, to enzymes in our kidneys that help keep our blood pressure normal, and to insulin for blood glucose regulation. 

Vitamin D is also involved in the production of osteocalcin, the protein released by osteoblasts for the nucleation of the hydroxyapatite crystal during new bone formation. Yes, I want more than just adequate vitamin D, I want optimal levels in my blood. 

In a study(2) that investigated the effects of vitamin D supplementation on genetic expression in humans, Dr. Arash Hossein-nezhad, et al. looked at the difference in genetic effects when dosing with either 400 or 2,000 IU vitamin D/day. What Dr. Hossein-nezhad, a Research Assistant Professor of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Nutrition at Boston University, found was startling. 

Dr. Hossein-nezhad's research found "at least a 1.5 fold alteration" in the expression of genes when individuals supplemented with vitamin D. Further, by increasing D supplemental intake from 400 IU to 2,000 IU/day there was a "continuum in gene expression in response to increasing serum 25(OH)D levels." 

"Any improvement in vitamin D status will improve expression of genes that have a wide variety of biologic functions." The researchers concluded that "to maximize vitamin D's effect on gene expression may require even higher doses than 2,000 IU of vitamin D3 daily." 

In my office, I like my patients' vitamin D blood levels to be at least 40 ng/ml in the winter.

Now is the time to ask your doctor to order a vitamin D test, especially if you live in a northern climate where the sun's rays are weak during the winter months.

By testing vitamin D levels in the winter, and adjusting your intake accordingly, you can be assured of optimal blood levels year round. Due to the added benefit of sun exposure during the summer months, levels may rise to 50 or even 60 ng/ml. There appears to be no added health benefit to going higher than this.

What I have found is that the 2,000 IU of vitamin D that people receive from taking 3 OsteoSustain tablets (providing 1,000 IU of D) and 3 OsteoStim (providing 1,000 IU) each day is typically enough to not only keep bones healthy but also keep vitamin D levels optimal throughout the year.

That said, testing is very important as some individuals require additional vitamin D supplementation to maintain at least 40 ng/ml throughout the year.

Would you like to get to  the root cause of your osteopenia and osteoporosis?

Please join us for an engaging event:

The Whole Body Approach to Osteoporosis.

When: Saturday, March 9th, 2019

Time: 1-6pm

Where: Hollywood, FL - just 10 minutes from Ft. Lauderdale airport

A Bone-Loving dinner will be served from 5-6pm.

More information please click:

https://MyBones.Me

Your bones will thank you!

From my bones to yours,

Irma Jennings, INHC, Holistic Bone Coach

1) Sugiyama, T. 2019. Letter to the Editor: Towards a Consensus over Vitamin D Supplementation and Bone Health. JBMR. February 7, https://doi.org/10.1002/jbmr/3634.
2) Hossein-nezhad, A, et al. 2013. Influence of Vitamin D Status and Vitamin D3 Supplementation on Genome Wide Expression of White Blood Cells: A Randomized Double-Blind Clinical Trial.PLOSONE. 8(3)258725.

The post OPTIMAL VITAMIN D SUPPLEMENTATION appeared first on Food For Healthy Bones.