Helpful Tips for Optimal Digestion
An Omnivore diet is our optimal diet. This is how our ancestors ate and what we are adapted to eating -meat, fish, seafood, eggs, vegetables, a small amount of fruit and whole grains like quinoa & oat groats, nuts, seeds and healthy oils.
A vegetarian animal getting plenty potassium in fruits and vegetables, needs salt. A carnivorous animal gets its salt from the 3% sodium found in the vegetarian animal that it eats. The membranes of our cells, that make up our glands, organs and tissues, bring nutrients into the cell using a sodium potassium exchange pump. Therefore, sodium and potassium need to be in balance.
In winter an Inuit would be on a high sodium animal protein diet which would tell the kidneys that the weather is not sunny so his kidneys would activate vitamin D much more vigorously.
The Importance of the Ileocecal Valve and How to Eat in Season
If your skin is turning brown from the sun, you can eat a slight excess of potassium (fruits and vegetables); otherwise you should eat a slight excess of sodium (meats and fish) which ties in with the Asian medicine concept of yin and yang- warming and cooling.
Even though most Asians don’t have high calcium dairy products in their traditional diets, they generally have much lower incidences of dental cavities and osteoporosis than do Westerners who use dairy and who also eat a lot of fresh fruit, juices and salads even in winter.
The ileocecal valve is the valve that separates the small intestine from the large intestine, can become weak if a person is low in calcium for more than 5 days. That’s when your “Good bacteria” become “Bad” meaning your beneficial bacterial flora grow out of control, coined Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO), and yeast (Candida) joins the party. The alkaline pH of the small intestine allows yeast to multiply profusely.
Absorption of calcium requires Vitamin D which is made by your skin when exposed to ultraviolet rays (UV) and then stored in an inactive form in your liver. If you are out in the sun without sunblock, your skin can make enough Vitamin D. Our kidneys convert this weak form of D into a much stronger form that can improve calcium absorption up to 1000 times. In winter when we don’t get enough sun to make Vitamin D, this conversion is crucial for bone density.
The kidneys oversee regulating calcium levels by activating enough D with the changes in seasons.