Bitters & Digestion are like PB&J or ham and cheese or lentils and rice!
They belong together.
You can eat bitter foods as part of your meals, to get this forgotten flavour into your life.
OR you can make herbal digestive bitters blends, like this one.
They’re easily customisable, delicious and optimise digestion in a tonne of ways, such as:
- increasing secretions of saliva, gastrin, mucous to line the digestive tract, digestive enzymes, hydrochloric acid, bile production and secretion
- increase circulation to gut
- regulating gut motility and digestive sphincters
- tonfiying smooth muscles of digestive tract, notably the stomach
Bitters, through helping us properly break down our food, actually help us better absorb nutrients and get more out of the food we’re eating!
What are herbal bitters?
Bitters are both an action and a taste in herbal medicine. Herbal bitter blends are traditionally a combination of cooling bitter herbs and warming aromatic ones (although yes, you can get warming bitters and cooling aromatics!).
In this recipe, I’m turning to the bitter powers of gentian (Gentiana lutea), arguably one of our most straight-up bitter herbs in our western materia medica.
So we don’t overly cool our digestive systems (we don’t want to put out our digestive fires after all), we blend gentian with warming herbs.
Gentian and ginger is a classic Western herbal combo and works well.
I personally find ginger too spicy sometimes and I wanted a herbal bitter blend that was delicious and works with carminative herbs to support digestion as well.
Herbal bitters blend recipe
Most of these herbs are tinctures I’ve made or bought and I’m blending together, although I’m also using rose glycetract in the blend. I love this for its nervous system support and its floral sweet taste balances the flavours in the recipe.
There’s two versions of the recipe – the first is in parts, so you can make it whatever size you want, keeping the same ratio. I’ve also then given some more directions in millimetres for a 100ml bottle (roughly).
Rosy Bitters recipe:
2 parts gentian (Gentiana lutea) tincture
1.5 parts orange peel (Citrus sinensis) tincture
1 part rose (Rosa sp.) glycetract
1 part fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) tincture
(could add 1/8 – 1/4 part ginger) (Zingiber officinale)
Rosy Bitters Recipe in ml
30ml gentian tincture
22 ml orange peel tincture
15 ml rose glycetract
15ml fennel tincture
Mix tinctures in glass dropper bottle.
Label your bottle with ingredients and date made.
To use:
Shake bottle before using to make sure all mixed well.
Use 20 drops (roughly 1 ml) diluted in 30ml water to stimulate digestion before meals.
Some people take the dropper straight on their tongue but I prefer to dilute mine with water – although you still need to be able to taste the bitter flavour.
I personally find this combo delicious, but if you’re really un-used to bitter-flavoured foods and herbs you might not. Try it for a few weeks and see if your taste buds adapt, or if you notice improvements in your digestive functioning.
If not, try another blend – there are so many bitter and carminative herbs!
