Pain and Healing – Part V

 The Food Fallacy: The idea that eating should be pleasurable, social, fun, and comforting is a marketing ploy. This is how food addition begins. When our eating experience produces pleasure, the biological process in the brain is getting a hit a dopamine. We then want to reproduce that experience over and over again. Think about kids and candy, cake, juice – anything with sugar. Sugar addiction is a really hard habit to stop.

When you go to a restaurant there is an “expectation” that the food be beautifully plated, colourful, alluring in smell, sight and taste. We are eating to please our senses, or expectations, our desires – it is no longer about fuelling and nourishing our body.

When we learn how to eat in a way that is appropriate for our nourishment needs – to provide nutrients, to balance the gut and remove toxins we suddenly find ourselves with more energy, more clarity, less pain and illness, maybe we lose weight, have less inflammation, have better skin, sleep better, etc. Our food can still be tasty and flavourful but perhaps the experience of eating becomes duller than when we eat for desire. When our food brings out body and minds back into balance, we no longer need the dopamine spikes to make us feel better. The purpose of eating is to refuel, not to induce pleasure.

Want to live healthier, longer? It’s time for a paradigm shift in how we approach food and eating.

Neuroscience and Ayuvedic practioner Dr. Kulreet Chaudry outlines how we can use food as medicine to improve our digestion and how our gut health is intimately linked with our brain health and thus full body health.

Three ways we can support ourselves and heal our gut through food is:

  1. Tri-Dosha tea: one teaspoon of each: coriander, cumin and fennel. Steep in 4 cups of boiling water and sip throughout the day. This will help improve digestion.
  2. Take Triphala, 1000mg at bedtime. This will help remove toxins and heal the gut mucosa.
  3. Eat your heaviest meal at lunch and the lightest meal at dinner.

Our gut microbiomes is a huge living population that impacts every part of our health. What is often seen as a structural issue is often related to inflammation, as is the case of migraines. The blood brain barrier is mimicked in the gut, so we can prevent neurological conditions through the gut. The majority of neurotransmitters that talk to the brain, come from the gut.

In general, pain is often seen as structural issue. We use medication to hide pain from the brain BUT you are not getting to the cause of the pain. Dr. Kulreet has found that 90% of pain is related to inflammation. Inflammation caused by the food we eat. The blood brain barrier is mimicked in the gut. It’s kind of a like a canary in a coal mine. This means we can prevent neurological conditions through the gut. The neurotransmitters that relay information from our body to the brain, mostly come from the gut. It talks to the brain. She describes leaky gut as a dumb gut. A gut that has lost intelligence because the shift in the population of gut bacteria that prevents inflammation. There is also an autoimmune component so there are lot of things happening all at once.

The take-away? Healing happens on many different levels and effects the physical body Be mindful of what you eat. Consider consulting an Ayurvedic practitioner and find out what you need for your constitution to maximize your health and wellness.

In health,