Improve your Gut Health for Christmas

5 Ways to Take Care of Your Gut Before the Big Meal

Christmas is one of the most delicious celebrations of the year. Even though it is full of warm, savory and comforting food, we all know it can be a bit much at times. In this blog, Waku will share with you 5 Ways to Take Care of Your Gut and keep your tummy well prepared for the upcoming seasonal food. Be ready to enjoy your favorite plates without any worry or guilt! These strategies will help aid your digestive system and prepare your belly. Here is How to Take Care of Your Gut Before Christmas!

Drink Lemon Water

Drinking lemon water first thing when you wake up on Christmas morning will aid setting up your digestive system for the rest of the day. Your body is fasting when you’re sleeping, so drinking water upon waking will help flush your system. Adding lemon to the water will help flush toxins from the body as well. You don’t have to save lemon water for the morning only; you can drink it throughout the day because the citric acid in lemons stimulates stomach acid production, which helps digestion.

Try Bone Broth for Gut-Friendly Flavor

Need to infuse flavor into everything from gravy to stuffing to mashed potatoes? Try bone broth. “One easy way to make your dishes gut-friendly is to use bone broth. The collagen, gelatin, and other nutrients in bone broth are soothing to the gut”. Add it to your stuffing, cook rice or other grains in it, make it the base of your gravy, add a few spoonfuls in place of some of the cream when mashing potatoes.

Be Mindful of Snacking

Appetizer trays, chip bowls with dip, crackers. It’s easy to mindlessly snack during Christmas. You’re chatting with family, drinking wine, having a good time, and before you know it, you’re full from snacks. Even before the main meal even begins! You don’t have to skip the snacks altogether, but aim to snack on easy-to-digest foods like raw carrots or celery sticks.

Beware of Potentially Inflammatory Ingredients

When you’re living with a sensitive gut, certain ingredients and foods can cause flare-ups and spur inflammation. So, as you’re prepping for Christmas dinner, you’ll want to make sure you limit these potential inflammatory foods as much as possible, and instead lean into more gut-friendly alternatives. Some of these may include bacon, soda, hot dogs, corn syrup, pasta, white rice, bread and other carb-rich foods that are primarily composed of refined flour, sugar or grains.

Chew More!

Have you ever scarfed down a meal in five minutes because you were in a rush? Or nearly choked on something because you didn’t chew it well enough? Chewing is an important part of digestion. Carbohydrate digestion begins in the mouth with an enzyme called salivary amylase. If you aren’t chewing your food properly, that initial step of digestion gets hindered! To Take Care of Your Gut Before the Holidays and because this dinner is full of carbohydrates, chewing your food thoroughly is important to keep the digestive system running smoothly.

Bonus: Enjoy a Nice and Fresh Ginger Drink

Christmas is one of the most delicious celebrations of the year. but you know that feeling after a large meal where it feels like you could pop? Or that burning indigestion that comes with uncomfortable burps? If you didn’t pay attention to the tips above, you might be a tad uncomfortable once the meal is over. Especially if you indulged in pumpkin pie, too!

The good news is that ginger is a powerhouse for digestion. In fact, research shows that ginger can increase gastric emptying, which is the ability for the body to empty food from the stomach. This is awesome for a large meal like you have on Christmas! So get yourself a case of a deliciously replenishing Ginger Lemon Waku and enjoy it cold once the dinner is over. Not only will the ginger help your stomach and digestion, the prebiotics that it contains will be an amazing health enhancer!

Liked this blog? Christmas is one of the most delicious celebrations of the year. We actually reference information from these amazing articles where you will be able to find this and more information on the topic to Take Care of Your Gut Before Christmas:

 The 8 Worst Foods to Eat for Inflammation