Sunday we held our 3rd seminar / Health Food Brunch in the Yummy, Fun And Healthy Living seminar series at MICA´s Coffee bar in Haarlem –  us being Stephanie from Appetit Voyage and me.

We would like to thank all of you who attended as well as Annemarie and Sophie for another morning of amazing food, drinks and atmosphere at their beautiful coffee bar.

The main idea behind these Health Food Brunches and Seminars is that people get together , bringing any questions they could possibly have when it comes to food, nutrition and health and we are there to answer them all.

We start the morning off with a theme to get the conversations and questions going, while staying open to being flexible to what the need is of the participants.

This time the kick off topic was ”Food & Mood”.

Up until recently most research in the field of ”Food & Mood” has been focused on the brain – the hormones and chemicals there which are supporting or even creating the way we feel in relation to the brain.

The past years, and as we speak, more and more scientific reports together with books are being published about our gut and the microbiotia in our entire metabolic channel proving to be the source of how well, or how not well, close to all procedures in our bodies are being executed. Including how we feel or will feel.

To quote David Jonsson  – ” The gutbacteria reacts to what we eat, excretes signal substances, communicates with our gut cells and influences what genes are switched on and off. They can influence how full you feel, what you crave, the health of your bloodvessels, how your liver reacts to sugar, if you are stressed, depressed or calm.”

Most of us have heard of the neuro transmitter serotonin, but did you know that it is created by a certain regular bacteria in the gut?

We modern westerners have around 8 – 1200 strains of bacteria in our guts, indigenous peoples have 1600 + plus none of our ”modern” dis-eases.

Without going in to too much detail in this shorter blog post – the sum of it all is that if you keep the good bacteria happy and well fed in your gut next to the bad bacteria low and starved, you have a beautiful, strong base for a well functioning body and mind.

So, how could you achive that?

Add more of this to your lifestyle;

• Soluble fibers (veggies, berries, fruit, oats)
• Resistant starch (legumes, root vegetables, potatoe starch)
• Fermented foods (sauerkraut, kim chi, miso, soya etc)
• Probiotica supplements

Have less  of, or rather completely remove,  this from your lifestyle;

• Refined sugars
• Meat from not wild four leggeds

These are the basics, which are really easy to incorporate. In addition, if you do not incorporate these, whatever you do after that will only work to a certain point and never 100 % as your base is not solid.

After this foundation has been built you can pimp your health even more by going for specific boosters for brain health –  as well as general health –  by adding the following to your lifestyle;

• Fatty fish & seafood (or an Omega 3 supplement –  also available from algea for anyone vegan or preferring to support more enviromentally friendly products)
• Ginger
• Turmeric / Curcuma
• Sweet potatoes
• Onion
• Pineapple
• Blueberries and bananas , together
• Cardamon (volatile oils, makes the gut relax)
• Mint (volatile oils, makes the gut relax)
• Potatoe starch
• Psylliumseed
• Movement & exercise – vital to both gut and brain health!
• Good old H20
• Honey – the more raw the better (essentially the microbiota of the bees)
• Saffron – direct food for the serotonin production
• Dark chocolate

Furthermore one important addition is …….Music!!!

Recent research has shown that when you play music which relaxes you ( your own choice of relaxing music that is , we all have different taste and ways 😉 ), your gut relaxes and your good bacteria becomes not just good but also happy bacteria.

Wishing you lots of Shiny Happy Gut Bacteria out there 😉

Our next workshop/s and seminars will be up on the site soon!