bloating

Chai for Bloating

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There are many reasons to drink chai, the spiced up tea from India. It’s delicious, warming, and if you don’t like one cup, you can change up the spices next time around. Often chai bought in cafes is a highly sweetened concentrate with nothing medicinal about it, though it can still be a tasty treat. When it’s made correctly though, it acts as a carminative, which is another way of saying it eases bloating and gas. The traditional spices are also prebiotics and immune modulators/boosters (depending on which ones used), and you can add herbs that are specific to what you want to address. You don’t have to add the black tea if you want a caffeine free version, but tea itself has anti-oxidants and l-theanine in it which is an anti-anxiety amino acid.

Chai is usually served with half water and half milk, but again, those proportions are completely up to individual preference. To make sure it is truly a medicinal beverage, the milk needs to be one that is not agitating in any way, so if you can drink dairy without issues, go for it, but everyone else (and there’s a lot of us!) go ahead and experiment with oat milk (my favorite!), coconut milk, or whatever is your go to milk alternative. I like to add just a bit of vanilla nutpod creamer to my chai and if you can tolerate things made with nuts, I highly recommend you give it a try.

I have not put my own chai blend together (yet) because I’ve found one that I absolutely love. Before I introduce it and a few others though, I want to warn you to read the ingredients of any packaged chai you buy. It’s common to get it in concentrate form which indeed is easier (and not as messy) to use, but many if not most are highly sweetened. Even if you want sweetened chai which is indeed the traditional way to drink it, it’s best to sweeten it yourself, to your taste, and to use whatever sweetener works best for you. Of course, if you love a chai concentrate that is sweetened, it’s better to drink that and get the herbal benefits than to not drink those spices at all!

My favorite lately has been Morning Glory’s Spiced Home Brew Kit. I love it for several reasons. First of all, the ingredients are amazing. It has 16 ingredients, all herbs(!), as long as you count black tea as an herb that is, and those herbs are phenomenal ones. There are the traditional ones such as cardamom, ginger, black pepper, etc, and there are added herbs such as gotu kola and gingko biloba which are excellent herbs for the brain, and fo-ti which is known as the longevity herb. It tastes amazing too, nice and spicy, though if you can’t handle too much spice you can use less of the blend in water as you simmer the spices, and simmer for a shorter amount of time. Or this might not be the blend for you if you really don’t like spiciness, but I will say that my son loves this chai too and he can’t handle much spice. For the two of us, I like to put at least two heaping tablespoons into a little over 2 cups of water and simmer for 15-25 minutes. (It’s a great way to make the house smell delicious too!) Which takes me to the next thing I love about this particular product is that they package the black tea separately so you can add it after simmering the herbs for a longer time. I have tried to use blends with the herbs and tea already together, but they are never quite right because you have to simmer the spices for best results but simmering black tea is not a good thing to do because it causes bitterness. Being able to simmer the herbs and then add the tea once the burner is turned down is perfect. I usually turn the burner down when the water has reduced about half an inch and the chai smell is fragrant throughout the house, add 1T tea and let it sit for about 5 minutes, then I add the (oat) milk with a bit of vanilla nut pod and let it all sit together for another five minutes while either turning the burner off or leaving it on low. Then I pour the pot through a mesh strainer straight into our two waiting mugs.

You can use that home brew kit to make your own concentrate which would be easier and less messy (the messy part is pouring it out into mugs) but I like to make our fresh each time and as I mentioned before, it always makes the house smell amazing so that’s a big bonus. They also sell a liquid concentrate of this blend themselves but the second ingredient is honey so it’s not unsweetened like the home brew kit.

I bought Bhakti, a liquid concentrate version, that is not sweetened for quick emergency chai making, but I haven’t tried it yet. I don’t like that it doesn’t detail which spices are used, but I’m willing to give it a try. Let me know if you have had this one.

Another option is chai powders. This one is a golden chai which means it has turmeric in it as well, a fantastic anti-inflammatory herb with adaptogenic qualities. This is an easy option because you just add it straight to your warm water/milk and stir, but it’s not as spicy as I like. This might be a better choice for those that can’t handle spiciness or are specifically working on inflammatory issues.

I’ve noticed when I just replace one cup of coffee with chai per day, it makes a real difference in my digestive system. I have coffee when I wake up, but then chai in the late morning or early afternoon, and it is a nice balance. As Hippocrates famously said, “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.” I think drinks can be included in that sentiment!

Thank you for reading and please share with anyone who complains about bloating!

Natural Bloat Busters to Always Have on Hand (and You Probably Already Do)

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The discomfort of trying to sleep with a bloated stomach is terrible. It’s always evening and nighttime too when the bloat is at its worst, after all the meals have been eaten and certain foods throughout the day trigger our digestive systems to retaliate. Bloating is often caused by food intolerances, but can also be caused by other things such as eating too fast or too much. We often know what will bloat us~ dairy, beans, wheat, soy, or some other food or food group that we know we personally should avoid but sometimes we just can’t. It’s hard when food is such a communal activity and you don’t have a true allergy as an excuse to avoid certain foods, and sometimes it’s a favorite food and we just eat it anyway and hope for the best. There are some things that can be done in prep of those trigger foods though, and things that can be taken after eating the foods, or even later when the bloating is intense and maybe you don’t even know what triggered it.

Before you eat, enzymes can be taken to help break down your food. A broad spectrum enzyme will cover all the bases, but if you have one particular food group that is your personal trigger, you can take an enzyme supplement that targets that specific food. Some examples are: for gluten and casein intolerances take these, this one for lactose intolerance, or for beans, this one can help.

You can also take herbs called bitters to help stimulate the body’s natural enzyme production. You should take both bitters and enzymes about 10 minutes before you eat. Enzymes can also be found in fresh produce, so having fresh fruit and/or vegetables at every meal will also help with digestion. You can also prepare your stomach for work by drinking a tablespoon of organic apple cider vinegar (with the mother) in a cup of water before eating. Doing so can also help ease heartburn issues for some people.

Right after a meal, you can eat about a nickle-size amount of fennel seeds to help digest your food, or mix some fennel essential oil into a base oil like sweet almond oil or sesame seed oil, and rub that on your stomach. (Five drops of essential oil in 1 tsp. of base oil.) Fennel is also the main ingredient in Gaia Herbs’ Gas and Bloating tea. Traditional Medicinals has a helpful tea too called Gas Relief. Having a soothing herbal tea on hand to sip after meals is a nice way to fight the discomfort of bloating.

Probiotics can make a huge difference in how well you digest your meals. Taking them regularly will help keep your microbiome in optimal shape, but taking them right after eating possible trigger foods is especially important. It’s a good idea to switch brands to get a wide spectrum of probiotic strains in your system, but if you find one that works really well for you, stick with it. My all time favorite is VSL-3 and I highly recommend it if you suffer from IBS, colitis, or have had multiple rounds of antibiotics in your lifetime. My kids like Rainbow Light’s probiotic gummies.

If those don’t work, you can use activated charcoal to make the bloating go away. This is not something to use all the time though, because it soaks up not only the bloating agents, but also the good nutrition, so only use it when you have tried other things first. It really does help one to get to sleep though if you have a bad case of the bloats keeping you up at night. Activated charcoal is also something you can use if you suspect food poisoning, so it really is a good supplement to have on hand at all times.

Some people get relief from food intolerance issues by drinking kombucha daily. This hasn’t been a magic bullet in my family like it has with some other people I know, although we do drink kombucha, we still need other digestive aides to tackle our multiple food issues here at times. We are much better than we used to be, but dairy, soy, and many other beans still cause problems. If your food intolerances are mild, adding kombucha to your days just might be all it takes to keep you bloat-free and pain free.

Digestive discomfort can be such a nuisance, so it’s nice to know there are things that can help ease the issue, especially when it’s disrupting sleep. Thanks for reading and please share with anyone who might need some tips on keeping away their ‘bloat baby’.