Humans evolved with natural inputs like sunlight, movement and bitter plants, amongst others. But these are largely absent in our modern lives. Increasingly though, we’re finding these ‘lifestyle remedies’ help many common health complaints, from mild depression and anxiety to type 2 diabetes and metabolic disease and more.
You could say sunlight, movement and bitter plants are medicine.
Or we could flip it, and say we say we have all these health concerns because of lack of them.
Which would mean, similar to the nutrient deficiencies we’re familiar with, we have a sunlight deficiency, movement deficiency or bitter deficiency.
I find this distinction so fascinating because it points to the importance of bitters (and sunlight, movement) to the proper functioning of being human. As James Green says:
“It is my opinion that the nearly complete lack of bitter flavored foods in the overall U.S. and Canadian diet is a major contributing factor to common cultural health imbalances such as PMS, other female and male sexual organ dysfunctions, hormonal imbalances, migraine headache, indigestion, liver and gall bladder dysfunction, abnormal metabolism, hypoglycemia, diabetes, etc.”
And that’s why James Green coined the phrase ‘Bitter Deficiency Syndrome’.
Now I’m not super into calling things syndromes, but to me, it highlights the importance of regularly including bitters in our diet for proper functioning of the body!
At this point, it’s really helpful to know, that bitters exist on a continuum from mild, (like chamomile and raddiccio), to strong (like gentian) to poison. Probably because of this range, and the risk of poisoning, our body’s actually have really sophisticated bitter receptors, and interestingly enough – they don’t just occur on our tongues! We’ve got bitter receptors all through the digestive tract and in other areas, like the lungs, heart etc! Fascinating right!?
You can see why I can rave talk for 2 hours about bitters in my Embodied Herbalism: Herbal Tastes course (click here) – they offer our body so much and are super fascinating!
How do Bitters support digestion?
We’re talking about how bitters support digestion in this article, let’s take a deeper look at what they do.
Bitter is both a taste and a herbal action in herbal medicine. One of the rockstar actions of bitters is in the body is the range of ways bitters support digestion.
In a nutshell, bitters help us to more effectively break down food, absorb the nutrients from our food and clear away metabolic wastes created during digestion.
Thought to work through a nerve reflex that is triggered by the taste of bitters (mediated through the vagus nerve and parasympathetic system), bitters optimise a huge range of digestive processes, including:
- Stimulating secretions of saliva, gastrin, mucous to line the digestive tract, digestive enzymes, hydrochloric acid, bile production and secretion
- regulating peristalsis
- strengthening digestive sphincters – including helping them to open and close at the right time
- and heaps of others ways!
How to use bitters to support digestion at home
To support digestive functioning, you can regularly incorporate bitter leafy greens or other bitter foods like bitter black coffee or dark chocolate.
You can also take bitters before meals. You might already be familiar with some classic bitter appertifs, such as You can also regularly like Campari or Amaro.
Here’s a small list of common mild bitters you could work with at home:
Mild:
- chamomile (mixed bitter/ aromatic)
- dandelion root and leaf
- burdock
- mugwort (mixed bitter/ aromatic)
- yarrow
- dandelion
- lavender (mixed bitter/ aromatic)
- turmeric (aromatic bitter)
Contraindications and Safety
Mild, food bitters are typically safe – although I always advocate for personal responsibility and awareness. Care must be taken when using strong bitters if someone has gallstones or kidney stones or is pregnant. Be careful to formulate with warming and moistening herbs if someone’s got a cold, dry constitution and will be taking strong bitters regularly.
Curious!? Go grab yourself some bitter foods or herbs! or come get first-hand experience of bitters in my Embodied Herbalism: Herbal Tastes course – both online and in-person options (click here). I also go into way more detail about how bitters work in the body and we talk more about the continuum of bitters from mild to strong.
