An afternoon with Giulia Enders

As most of you know, our team have made a commitment to make 2017 all about taking care and nurturing our gut. So, with this in mind, we attended the ‘All About Women’ festival at Sydney Opera House to listen to gut expert and author of the international bestselling book, GUT, Giulia Enders.

For those of you who may not know her, Giulia is an up and coming microbiologist who has just completed her Ph.D. at the Institute for Medical Microbiology in Frankfurt, Germany, and two-time scholarship winner of the Wilhelm Und Else Heraeus Foundation.

We couldn’t help but be on the edge of our seats listening to Giulia explain how the 2kg of bacteria taking residence in our gut, has the ability to affect our mood, weight and insulin levels. Giulia went on to reveal how our gut connects to the fear and morality receptors in our brain and explained how there is research to suggest that gut issues such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome can be linked to anxiety and depression.

Our gut does an incredibly efficient job at cleaning itself so we don’t need to resort to colonic cleanses to make it happy. We all know too well the uncomfortable feelings we can be left with if we don’t get the balance right, so hearing Giulia’s recommendations really intrigued us.

Begin to take notice. We need to become best friends with our gut and really listen to what it likes, dislikes, reacts well to and is negatively impacted by

Eat in a distraction-free calm environment. When our bodies are stressed whether it be from our brain or other parts of the body, blood supply is shifted away from the gut and digestion is compromised. In our busy lives this can happen more often than we realise, so having technology and distraction free meal times are key.

Eat a balance of fibres. Australians as a whole are well below the recommended daily intakes of dietary fibre and so getting a balance of fibres from grains, fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and legumes is crucial for a healthy gut environment. Making sure that we get the fibres for motion together with the fibres that feed the gut microbiome is the perfect recipe. For more information about getting the balance right visit our resource page.

Until next time,

Muriel