Hello there beautiful people, I hope you’re all doing well.

Last Saturday, I held my last workshop for the time being – the end of season one! We will start up again in mid-September and I have so many ideas of the next season and so many exciting things coming that I’m so eager to share with you all that my head just might burst! I can’t wait to have you all back and get going again 🙂

As always, here is my workshop recap, highlighting some the main points and topics discussed at the event and also the recipes shared.

Before I get into it, I would just like to once again say thank you to all those of you who have supported me in this new endeavour in one way or another. To those of you like and share my content, those of you who message me privately asking me about food or nutrition or anything at all, to those of you who tag me when you make one of my recipes and especially to those of you who came to my workshops, I would just like to say thank you so so much! Your support, encouragement and wonderful feedback has been so fulfilling and rewarding. So from the bottom of my heart and soul – THANK YOU!

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Now, here’s a bit of a recap from last Saturday’s workshop. The topics we discussed were mainly gut health and using food to prevent and even treat disease.

Gut health is an incredibly interesting topic and the truth is there’s a lot we don’t know yet because it’s a relatively newly discovered organ – now the gut isn’t actually an organ because it’s not one thing – it’s made up of colonies of bacteria (mainly) that are spread out over our intestines; mainly the large intestines. However, the microbiome or collection of bacteria is considered a newly discovered organ due to it’s huge impact on our health.

The health of your microbiome is linked to mental health, general health, immune system, depression, weight gain or loss, allergies and sensitivities and much more. Therefore, keeping our gut healthy is of paramount importance.

Eating a wide variety of plant foods which will ensure sufficient fibre and nutrients and consuming both prebiotic and probiotic foods will help improve the health of our microbiome.

PRObiotics contain live bacteria and PREbiotics feed the bacteria. Probiotic foods include fermented, raw and pickled foods such as full fat yoghurt, artisan cheese, raw apple cider vinegar, tamari, kimchi, kombucha, sourcrout, kefir, raw olive oil, miso, pickles, pickled eggs and onions. Prebiotic foods include the following: banana, onions, garlic, oats, whole wheat, leeks, asparagus, artichokes and soybeans.

We made and enjoyed some yummy tzatziki, this time, using full fat natural Greek yoghurt – which is a probiotic foods since the natural full fat variety contains live bacterial strands (which may sound disgusting to most – but we need live bacteria to function). The recipe is linked here:https://holisticnutritionninja.com/2019/01/10/tasty-tzatziki/#

I mentioned far more information at the event relating to gut health and how to improve it which I can’t condense into one blog post because if I do, this post will be far too long. However, if you are interested in the topic and would like more info or recipes including perbiotic and probiotic foods, do let me know in the comment section below and I’ll be happy to write and share an article dedicated to the topic!

We moved on to talk about the immune system and preventing and fighting disease with food.

There is nothing hippie or new-age or even remotely unrealistic about the notion that we can fight and prevent disease with food. I am certainly not advising anyone with a medical condition not to seek proper treatment and turn to food instead. However, I do strongly believe in using what works; in some cases, natural remedies as a first line of defence are what work, often better, than pharmaceuticals. This of course will depend on the ailment in question. For example, did you know that large double blind (very reliable) studies involving thousands of participants have shown that 1/4 teaspoon of powdered ginger is just as effective as you typical pain killed in treating migraines? I’m sure most of you have heard that real cranberry juice is a good treatment for urinary tract infections. These are just a couple of examples to give you an idea – I am thinking of dedicating an entire blog post or perhaps a series of blog posts relating to food fighting disease – would you be interested in that?

Consuming foods that boost your immune system will give you a stronger chance of not getting ill, or at least recovering quicker. I used to get a cold every other week in winter, now it’s far less frequent (I still do get sick – no food will make you immune to everything) but I don’t get throat infections and colds and flues that last very long like I used to. I also exercise regularly which does help the immune system in the long run too.

We made a quick smoothie at the event using Acai Berry powder – which I use regularly at home – acai berries and known for their far ranging health benefits, namely immune system boosting. It has a nice flavour and works really well in smoothies. Here’s how we made it.

Just blend 1 cup of coconut water, 1/2 a banana and 1 teaspoon of acai berry powder and a lot of ice; pour and enjoy!

I shared a variation of this over on my facebook page which is linked here: https://www.facebook.com/holisticnutritionninja

Finally, we discussed chronic inflammation and its link to many modern diseases that impact many people today. While inflammation is the body’s natural response to heal an injury, illness or an immune system invader (such as a bacterial infection), continued inflammation, even when there is no infection or injury, can and often does, lead to serious illness over time.

There are foods that increase inflammation – such as animal fat, red meat, deep fried foods, soft drinks, highly refined / processed carbohydrates and excess sugar. Other foods, high in certain types of fats, help reduce inflammation. These foods include: oily fish, olive oil, nuts and some seeds, (walnuts and flaxseeds in particular) turmeric and even coffee (the unprocessed kind).

So we ended the workshop with a sweet treat that is also high in anti-inflammatory foods. I just published the recipe for these yummy bars here on the blog. The recipe is linked here https://holisticnutritionninja.com/2019/06/18/ten-minute-energy-bars/

That’s it from me for today!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post – I also hope it wasn’t far too long 🙂

If you’d like a more in depth look at gut health and fighting disease with food, do let me know in the comments below. I’ll see you back at the workshops in September YEY!

If you have any questions or requests for future blog posts, please leave them in the comment section below. Don’t forget to click on the ‘follow’ button below to stay updated on all the content I share here. Also, I do share a TON of recipes over on my facebook and instagram pages

Sarah’s Healthy Eats – @holisticnutritionninja

As always, if you do try them out, please let me know 🙂

Thank you for taking the time to be here and read this ❤

Until my next post, be well xXx