Dietary FIBER, Bloating, and Intestinal Gas

So today we're going to talk about what would happen if you were to actually starve your colon your large intestine of the fiber it really needs to support your colon cells because we all know that fiber is essential it's almost classified as a nutrient there's just a lot of confusion in this area and a lot of questions that people have and so we're just going to bring up these questions what type of food would our bodies be best designed to consume are we really herbivores plant eaters okay are we carnivores meat eaters or are we omnivores a combination of both plant and animal now I want to touch on that for just a little bit because it'll kind of give you a little Foundation of what I'm going to talk about next if we take a look at a cow which is an herbivore callus are not designed to consume meat they were designed to consume grass and of course we end up feeding them grains right more than grass which makes a huge difference in the health of that cow which I want to bring up since I have cattle and I was involved in a study comparing grass-fed to grain-fed cattle so this is very interesting now if we just take the pH of the stomach of a cow when it consumes grain it's 10 times more acid than if it consumes grass so typically the pH of the cow's stomach should be about 6.4 that's almost seven and it's almost neutral okay but when a cow starts consuming grain the pH changes it becomes 10 times more acidic it's right around like 5.3 okay and when you talk about pH every whole number when it comes down like from a six to a five is not just one number it's by a power of 10. and there's a big problem nowadays with cows consuming grains they develop a common condition called Subacute ruminal acidosis this is a situation where their microbiome is creating a very acidic condition and this creates a lot of inflammation and it's already a known factor that cows that are raised on grains have a more inflammatory profile in their meat in other words the omega-6 omega-3 is really off and grain fed is like eight to one okay so very small amounts of Omega-3 grass-fed is like three to one which is better in a study that I participated in my beef came to almost a one to one so it was definitely not an inflammatory type meat it was definitely an anti-inflammatory meat because it buried low amounts of omega-6 fatty acids because you have to realize that the grains are very heavy in omega-6 this could also explain any studies that were done on Meats in general they're probably not doing studies on grass-fed grass-finished meat they're doing on the grain-fed meat which is in some cases inflammatory so I just want to differentiate that one point because it's really what that cow ate that determines the health of that meat when we take a dog or a cat they're more carnivore and we'll see meat but they also been known to eat other things too you know whatever is available grass acorns things like that but typically they're carnivores and a dog or a cat has an extremely acidic stomach it's between like 1.05 to 2.2 okay that's like battery acid humans also have a pretty acidic stomach not quite as acidic as a dog or a cat it's like 1.5 to 3.0 the fact that our stomach is that acid gives Clues on what we should be eating and so humans have more of a digestion that is a mix okay it's a it's omnivore both animal and plant you can actually put a human and just plant foods and they can survive probably not as well as they should but you can also put a human on a carnivore diet and they can also survive as well I'm bringing that up to bring up a point on this confusion of what should people be consuming well I always like to compare that to what diet would be the absolute worst diet for man okay well it just so happens to be the diet that man is on now it's called this sad diet the standard American diet where they're doing animal products and plant products but the definition of their plant products are really grain products so I want to just put a magnifying glass on Plants right a grain is a plant but if you're consuming mainly grains and that's really what a typical American consumes 65 of all their calories in the form of grains of course it's mainly refined grains but whole grains have a lot of other issues with them gluten other anti-nutrients like phytic acid which blocks zinc and other minerals tannins oxalates anti-enzyme factors and it's also true that plants also have some anti-nutrients as well but I think really what happens if you start someone out on grains you will start creating damage in your gut and now because of the damage any fiber food is going to be a problem for you this is why I always recommend if someone has got damage they're probably not going to be able to handle all this vegetable fiber salad okay so they should back off on that the question is is it because of the fiber is the fiber doing that well I think it's the anti-nutrients in the fiber of course fiber relates to the microbiome okay now I'm going to bring up the actual subject that I wanted to talk about the microbiome in relationship to what it eats if you look at some of the standard textbooks they usually omit one key function they don't really talk about it very much okay they'll tell you that the large intestine is primarily there to reabsorb water and form and store your feces or stool okay but what about all those microbes what are they doing they're fermenting and they're making things from that fermentation in the fermentation process there are small change that acids that are made they're feeding your colon you also have vitamins that they're making certain acids secondary compounds that help your immune system so the small intestine is about 25 to 23 feet but the large intestine is about five feet and what happens when you start off the microbes with fiber they can eat other things they can even ferment Protein that's right they can ferment collagen cartilage and just so you know a good portion of bone is collagen when someone is on the carnivore diet okay they're just eating meat no plants those microbes are adapting to digest that protein and this explains why many carnivores if they're doing it right are thriving in fact they're doing much much better microbes are amazing they can adapt to different diets but the point I'm going to bring up is you're not going to kill all your microbes off if you just avoid all plants for a while but I want to bring up this really important Point okay when you consume grains or eat animals that have consumed grains you're usually going to end up with inflammation in your gut especially if you're genetically predisposed and then that is going to make it very difficult to digest any plants at all and I think a lot of people are on the Spectrum where they might not have any damage to a little damage to some major damage in their colons and so some people can handle digesting different plants like salads and things like that large quantities okay like myself yet other people on this spectrum well you give them plants and they just get bloated they get constipated okay so they should be not consuming plants for a while then you get these people in between which they can handle plants but in a fermented state I'm talking about the sauerkraut the kimchi pickled vegetables because what do we have there we have a plant like cabbage for example that's fermented and has a lot of additional microbes that can actually help you with your gut why they found that the more Diversified microbes you have the better the digestion the better the health so we have this wonderful fermented food that has Prebiotic it has some Fiber already broken down it has a lot of microbes which are very beneficial that can start to seed and help your colon I don't know if they can be cultured in and developed into more microbes but those microbes by themselves can actually add a lot of benefits plus you have all the additional vitamins in fermentation right you have K2 you have B12 you have Biotin you have other B vitamins you have certain acids that are very beneficial the other cool thing about eating fermented foods is this that when you ferment things you immediately start decreasing these anti-nutrients you lessen the oxalates the lectins the phytic acids the tannins and you make other things in that food more bioavailable like the proteins so here's some tips preferably if you eat animal products go for the grass-fed grass finished if possible because the more grains the more inflammation the more problems if you are a vegan or a vegetarian don't consume the grains Okay consume other plants like vegetables for example if you have severe digestive problems you probably have gut damage and you're going to have to do carnivore for a while but just make sure that you do the grass-fed grass finished why so that way you don't have that that omega-6 grain effect that has been passed over to that animal if you have marginal problems with your digestion maybe you're going to benefit from fermented vegetables so that would be like the kimchi the sauerkraut and just have that with your meals now if you don't have any digestive problems at all you may benefit more from having a combination of the grass-fed grass finish animal products with the plants but not the grain category of plants I hope this video cleared up some confusions on some of these topics there's a lot more to say about that but if you haven't seen my video on the microbiome which is a very important and interesting topic I put that video up right here check it out

Channel: Dr. Eric Berg DC

Views: 393,341

Keywords: dietary fiber, bloating, intestinal gas, gut, gut health, benefits of fiber, fiber benefits, fiber health benefits, how to improve digestion, reduce bloating, best type of diet, high fat diet, worst type of diet, gut microbiome, fiber foods, vegetables, dietary fiber explained, dietary fiber foods, dietary fiber benefits, dietary fiber and carbs, dr berg on dietary fiber, stomach ph, microbiome, dr eric berg, eric berg, dr berg, berg, dr berg on fiber

Id: 5Ld9jCxv_to

Length: 10min 28sec (628 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 12 2023