Spicy food and your gut: Is spicy really healthy for your digestion? (DG136)

Listener question: Is spicy food good for the gut

In this episode, I answer a listener question on the topic of "Spicy food and the gut". A listener wrote to me: "Your podcast is very informative, thank you for that. I have another suggestion: Why don't you do an episode on the topic of spices/herbs and their role in gut health? I would personally be very interested in this, especially because there seem to be contradictions between Asian and classical European teachings."

In general, there are of course spices or plants such as caraway, camomile, fennel or aniseed that are good for digestion. However, I always find such general questions very difficult to answer, because when making dietary recommendations it is particularly important to see what the person I am advising has. What digestive problems does he or she have? What does the basic diet look like? Etc. etc.

Therefore, when answering the question, I would prefer to focus on the second part of the question, which reads: "In TCM, the opinion is held that hot spices tend to promote inflammation, as they have a heating effect. Conventional medicine, on the other hand, advises people to eat spicy food, especially in the case of inflammation, because it curbs inflammation. What is your opinion on this?"

You can listen to the episode here:

What does Dr. Sabine Paul say about spicy food?

When I hear spices and the effect of spices on the metabolism, I inevitably think of my colleague Dr. Sabine Paul. That's why I asked her for a statement!

Sabine has a PhD in molecular and evolutionary biology and many years of experience as a science writer, speaker and trainer on the topics of evolutionary medicine, nutrition and psychology.

In her statement, she explains why chili is not beneficial for leaky gut, what the latest research on ginger has revealed and why pepper is considered an organic enhancer. Make sure you listen to her statement, you will know more about whether spicy food is good for the gut afterwards.

If you would like to hear more from Sabine, she has already been a guest on the Darmglück podcast twice, in episode 123 on strengthening the immune system and in episode 70 on de-stressing with essential oils.

She also has a great free offer on her website Nerven-Power, namely the Immunpower taster course, which I can highly recommend!

But now we want to hear another voice on the topic of "spicy food for the gut" yes or no.

How does Daniela Pfeifer approach this topic?

As the question also mentioned TCM, I naturally thought of Daniela Pfeifer. Daniela is a dietician, book author and specializes in low carb TCM.

Since she combines the knowledge of both worlds, i.e. Western nutritional knowledge with Eastern TCM dietetics, she was predestined to answer this question!

In her statement, Daniela explains why a lot of something good is not necessarily better and why it is so important to be careful with your diet. nutritional recommendations should always consider the whole person and not recommend the same thing for everyone.
She also points out once again that herbs and spices as well as foods are definitely helpful for the gut, but that first and foremost the basic diet and the way it is prepared simply has to be right.

If you want to find out more about Daniela, I can also recommend the podcast interview here in the Darmglück podcast, it was episode 95, where she talked about the connection between the gut and liver from a TCM perspective.

Daniela's website is daniela-pfeifer.at and she has a great membership platform called TCM-Lowcarb-Club, which I also like to link to in the episode notes.

I would like to thank both colleagues for their help in this podcast episode! I hope you and the questioner were able to take something away with you!

Do you have a question that I can answer in the podcast?

Do you have a question or a topic that I could cover in an episode? Feel free to write to me, maybe I can cover your topic or question in an upcoming episode. One topic I've often been asked about is fasting and I'll be talking about this with naturopath Anne Faulborn in the next but one episode, which I'm really looking forward to!

So subscribe to my podcast so you never miss an episode and if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends and family via social media or email. I am very happy about recommendations, because a podcast thrives on being heard!

If you would like to try the great combination of turmeric and pepper, I can highly recommend our curcumin + piperine. And regarding herbs and their positive effect on the gut, the Herbal would be very helpful, which is now also available with ginger from Arktis BioPharma Germany! In Switzerland, we are still considering whether to include this in our range, so please let us know if you would like us to do so.

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Links from the episode:

Lins zu Dr. Sabine Paul

Podcast Episode 123: Strengthen your immune system with natural methods - Interview with Dr. Sabine Paul
Second podcast interview with Dr. Sabine Paul

Podcast Episode 70: Blitz de-stressing with essential oils
First podcast interview with Dr. Sabine Paul here in the Darmglück Podcast

free Immunpower taster course by Sabine Paul

Website of Sabine Paul

Links to Daniela Pfeifer

Podcast episode 095: The Liver from the Perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine - Interview with Daniela Pfeifer
Interview with Daniela Pfeifer here in the Darmglück Podcast

Website Daniela Pfeifer

TCM-Lowcarb-Club by Daniela Pfeifer

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