In the realm of Herbalist, digestion is King to balancing your entire system. When it comes to digestion and the best herbs for digestion, I always talk about, diet and lifestyle, efficiency and consistency when it comes to elimination. As this when it comes to the vagus nerve and digestion must be in the forefront of balancing your body in all ways, and just like dealing with any imbalance, assimilating nutrients is a key component of finding homeostasis again, this can be a complicated issue, but addressing the root of all imbalance always leads to health.
When working with clients, and really in the farmacy garden apothecary in general, I aim to work with the body as a whole, and the root of your body coming into balance, is the vagus nerve and digestion, digestion leads to the building blocks of your entire body, which will lead to your health, or your demise. Digestive Bitters are the best herbs to implore to bring on the beginning of reestablishing homeostasis. But why do they work? How do they work? The wanderer, the nerve more generally known as the Vagus nerve, and it holds the answers to these questions. The best herbs for digestion are directly linked to the vagus nerve and optimizing your health.
Starting At the Root
Before moving deeper into our discussion of the Wanderer I feel this question needs to be answered – What makes your digestion healthy? Nature is the answer, as on par with the narrative that comes from this farmacy garden apothecary. When you choose to eat nourishing, natural foods your body completely understands what is coming in, and how to build from there. Nature knows nature, and our cells need natural foods because they are nature too! When you implement nutrient dense, nourishing ways of eating, and choose health encouraging options for food, your digestion is optimized, creating a body that is vitally well and healthy.
As you nourish your vagus nerve with digestive bitters and nutrient rich food choices, what comes is a digestive system in full working order. The acids and enzymes in your mouth and stomach are meant to create secrets properly, therefore the foods are also broken down correctly. With proper vagus nerve and digestion stimulation, each of the nutrients that feed your microbiome are assimilated perfectly into your bloodstream to move throughout your body building each organ, and system to be in its perfect state of health and vitality.
When these natural attributes happen every time you eat, health is easily attained and maintained. Not only do healthful foods create this environment, but they encourage it through the stimulation of the vagus nerve and digestion. This is why it is most important to focus on eating the way nature intended, and the come the medicinal herbs known as digestive bitters, here is where you can further optimize your digestive system and functions of your vagus nerve through food as medicine from the farmacy garden.
I love digestive bitters, and honestly, it has come from years of ingesting them to really love the flavor that they offer your palate. The best herbs for digestion are not always the best to taste, but they will enhance your healthy eating by tonifying and strengthening all of the organs involved in breaking the nature made foods you are eating in becoming building blocks for your body.
Digestive bitter herbs talk to a certain collection of taste buds in your mouth (and in many other places of your body) that have been neglected for decades through the new normal ways of eating, sweets, starches, and synthetic foods have trained your taste buds, your microbiome and your brain to dislike anything that is far from pleasurable. AND these taste buds reside in your mouth still, let’s talk to them as they talk right to the vagus nerve.
Digestive Bitter (follow this link for some specific materia medica on bitter herbs) herbs create an environment in your body to have a properly functioning digestive system, through talking to these taste buds, the vagus nerve, and tonifying individual digestive organs, like the liver, gallbladder, pancreas and stomach. By doing this, and more, digestive bitter herbs soothe your appetite and calm cravings. Also, digestive bitters assist our bodies in managing healthy blood sugar levels, and some specific bitter herbs have even been shown to lower blood cholesterol levels as well. As this is attained, inflammation is easily regulated, your immune responses are boosted, and your brain will function at an optimal level, yes, say goodby to brain fog simply through digestive bitters.
How & Why
All of this is awesome, and great to strive towards, and it feels rather simple, right? You want to feel better on a daily basis, and the promise of a long, thriving life is also appealing. But how does this simple fix truly work? Let’s dive into the anatomy and physiology of this digestive bitter concept through your vagus nerve and digestion. These simple shifts (though food habits are not easy to kick) through the best digestive bitter herbs and foods will be life changing for you.
Anatomy of the Wanderer
When you eat a meal, the main goal is simply, to strive for delicious, (and healthy choices ARE delicious too, so hear me out) satisfying and maybe to satiate your cravings. This is normal when it comes to the western way of eating. But, if this is the main goal of the food you are eating, where does nourishment come into play for your food choices? Are these goals satisfying, and ones that provide a healthy response for digestion? What does sweet say to our bodies? How about savory? Do these tastes promote health on their own?
I ask these questions, because I love to see mindful eating come into play and when you choose to lean into these questions, you are automatically taking the Vagus Nerve and your digestion into consideration. The Vagus nerve holds answers to these questions, and will guide you to fulfil nourishment, alongside delicious and satisfying meal choices. The vagus nerve is known as “The wanderer” as it meanders throughout the body beginning at the base of your brain, connecting to most every organ in your body, and landing at the base of your digestive system.
The Vagus nerve is your 10th cranial nerve stemming specifically, from the Medulla oblongata, to then take a dive through your torso, connecting to the lungs, stomach and spleen, even the heart, liver, larynx, and small intestine. It is related not only to healthy digestive responses, through digestive bitter herbs and foods, it is also a key modulator in your breathing and stress responses, aspects of the endocrine system functioning fully for proper hormone responses, and enhancing your moods. Scientists are finding that not only do gut bacteria hold aspects of these conditions, it is also your Wandering Nerve that is linked to digestive issues related to the breakdown of food, and the gut brain axis.
As the Vagus Nerve meanders through the body, its list of duties becomes more and more varied, and because of this, reactions that occur from stimulating it are also diverse and encourage many functions. Not only do the actions of the Vagus Nerve include digestion, it also monitors heart rate and functions of the voice box like coughing and vibrations that lead to speech, and healing of your internal waters and stresses.
The nerve endings directly related to the Vagus Nerve function, that are found in the Small Intestine, lead to control of that smooth muscle, how food is broken down, communication with the gut microbiome and optimizing assimilation of nutrients into the body. Hormonal secretions of cholecystokinin & ghrelin (two key digestive, and hunger response hormones) are secreted by the stimulation of the vagus nerve as well. Each component of the vagus nerve and digestion are directly related to your health and vitality, and it is best stimulated by movement, breathing, and yes, digestive bitter herbs and foods.
BACK WHEN WE WERE FORAGERS
There is a deep resonance in your body and brain that is connected to the action of taste, it goes way back to when your ancestors were hunting, gathering, and trying out plants that maybe they didn’t recognize. Back then, the reliance upon taste and intuition was a matter of life, and sometimes death, now I do not believe that there were so many deaths because once the human population didn’t know what plants were what, as a whole, the humans of these ancestral times were much more in tune with the divine guidance of their bodies, and taste was still a vital component of survival.
There are many reactions throughout the body directly related to your taste buds, and at the beginning of all these internal responses, is your mouth. It is known that the salivary glands activate when you see, smell or even think of foods that you enjoy. What makes the brain sense this and react are your Taste Receptors (TRs) or taste buds, each set of TRs is correlated with different food tastes, there are TRs specific to sensing sweet, salty, savory and yup, bitter. Taste Receptors are components of your taste buds. There are many different TRs but we are focusing on the 35 different T2Rs which are the receptors directly related to tasting the bitter flavor spectrum, T2Rs are what refer to the Bitter Receports.
These bitter T2Rs are located in the mouth, brain, stomach, and both intestinal tracts, they have even been found to reside in the lungs. Each location of these T2Rs maintain a different response, for instance, those T2Rs found in the lungs, are not necessarily linked to digestion, and yet, they are correlated with Vagal Nerve stimulus. This could be a factor in linking the Gut Balance to Mood alongside the Bacterium that thrive in our small & large intestines, because breath is a key component of overall vitality and wellness when it comes to mood enhancement, the main point is that your body is a complete system that contains power as a whole and individual systems.
Back to a bit of painted visuals of historical humans, who were hunters and gatherers, instead of grocery store shoppers. There are bitter flavor spectrums that are known as acrid, these plants, roots and berries, generally are toxic to the point of sickness, and sometimes death. Yet, acrid is in the spectrum of the bitter flavors, without knowing this spectrum of taste, the body essentially forgets that it even exists, and thus, if you were to ingest something of this flavor on accident, your body might not respond in the innate way it is meant to. That being this flavor is so bitter that the body induces vomiting. Diarrhea, and even shortening of your breath. Your body is designed to respond to all flavors, especially those like bitter, to keep you alive and well. Eliminating substances that may cause harm, through inviting bitter herbs in to nourish and encourage proper digestive responses.
In this respect, bitter is correlated with poison, the more intensely bitter tasting a plant is will indicate its level of toxicity. Therefore tasting the new plant our foraging relatives would come across, would tell them to either spit it out and move on, or yes, let’s have some more. Later in human history we began to realize that this bitter sensation was nourishing too, bitter herbs were used for stomach complaints & in the spring when food had been scarce through winter, our ancestors would ingest large amounts of these bitter plants as they came up through the snow, getting the sludge of winter moving in their guts, while satiating appetites and diversifying their nutrient load.
Imagine coming out of winter when your food caches were running low, spring would bring the forest to life again. AND the foraging of Midsummer was still many months away. The bitter greens, buds and roots were a staple for this time of year in our ancestral history. The human race lived this way, eating spring greens, naturally going in and out of a fasting state, all while consuming all they could given what the season had to offer.
Many of the first spring plants to come up when the ground defrosts are the digestive bitter herbs; dandelions, arugula varieties, yellow dock, chickweed, burdock leaf, yarrow, nettles and mustard greens to name a few, all stimulating to those Bitter taste buds, and activating to the vagus nerve and digestion. These clues are HUGE to consider, and can you start to see the patterns that nature offers us here? There are many examples of these cues and clues all around you, all it takes is a moment to consider and ponder what the wild world is offering.
Fast forward to present times, no longer is the western population surviving, let alone even diving into foraging practices, though I have seen quite a revival of this urge over the past few years. The food we eat now comes from the store, and restaurants, some of us are eating at home, and even more these days are creating garden spaces even in city landscapes to nourish their bodies.
AND many of the health minded stores and restaurants offer these bitter herbs and plants in the produce section, the next question is, how often do you grab a bunch of organically grown Dandelion greens from the farmers market or your health food store, and think ‘Oh DELICIOUS! Let’s make a salad out of this!” maybe even saute them in some butter and garlic? If you do, that is AWESOME! If not, what food choices are you making in the Grocery Store? Picture your grocery store cart. What is it full of? Do you see stimulating plants in it? Or is it full of Boxed foods, iceberg lettuce, and pasteurized low fat dairy products? This has become the new challenge of today, and this is also where mindful eating practices begin..
HORMONES AREN’T JUST MOODY
Cholecystokinin – CCK is a hormone that regulates actions of the Gastrointestinal Tract or GI. The communication of this hormone includes emptying and intake of food into the stomach. The release of Pancreatic fluids that contain enzymes, hormones and other aspects of digestion and assimilation. Gastric emptying is also a response of CCK. Signaling the stomach to eliminate digested food into the Small Intestine.
CCK also contributes to the production of gastric juices that facilitate digestion of saturated fats, long chain fatty acids, amino acids and small peptides. This being the connection to the Liver & Gallbladder where Bile is created, concentrated, stored & released. Each of these actions aids in proper assimilation of the nutrients contained in the foods we eat.
Receptors for CCK-1 are found on Vagal nerve afferent fibers, this showing how your digestive responses are so closely related to Vagal Nerve functioning. Also leading to show how important stimulus to the Vagus Nerve is. Leptin receptors are also found on these Vagal afferent fibers. CCK-e and Leptin work closely together by inducing short-term inhibition of food intake, managing cravings & stomach hunger. Which thus results in long term weight loss, balancing of blood sugar and the ability to manage intermittent fasting mechanisms, all naturally included in the divine system that is YOUR body.
Each element of these responses are clearly important to digestion and health. But there is another aspect of why this hormone, CCK, is important. When it is stimulated by the T2Rs in the mouth, digestion is slowed down. Again, historically this slowing of our digestion was a life or death response. The Bitter plant would be taken in, if by accident or experiment. Thus, we didn’t die, and built up somewhat of an immunity to these plants (don’t try this at home please), the slowing of digestion, regulated by CCK, would allow our ancestral stomachs to thoroughly break this substance down. Then the liver would receive the possible toxins in small doses, giving it the time it needed to detoxify the substance and send it away for elimination through the bowels.
The slowing down of digestion keeps us fuller longer. This action being regulated by the gastric fluid known as Gherlin. A 28 chain amino acid peptide that is produced by the stomach in the presence of CCK-1. This keeps your appetite satiated as our food digests at a snail’s pace. Not only keeping your demand and need for meals in-between low, BUT also allowing your bodies to break down and take in the nutrients you need. Eliminate those that you don’t, all while keeping you satisfied and nourished by consuming less food as a whole.
T2RS IN DIGESTION
I find that the more I understand about how the body works, how it is connected and what it takes to get it moving, I am more motivated to nourish these components. We physically are designed to heal, be in homeostasis, and thrive, it is outside forces that attempt to tamper with these innate components of what it is to be human. Healing truly is simple, because we are designed to do it. The mechanical actions of our Taste Buds and more specifically… individual & different Taste Receptors are the reasoning behind many functions in the system. With the addition of bitter plants to our salad plates, digestive bitter tonic extracts, and eating from natural food sources, you are enhancing and encouraging the natural reactions within your digestive body.
As I mentioned previously, the Vagus Nerve is responsible for many reactions in the body, including ones of the Endocrine System, and hormones are key components of communication in the body to the brain and different systems of organs. Your digestive system is no different, it has its own set of hormones that talk to the stomach and then the brain, traveling throughout the body to communicate with all of the digestive organs within that system. The wandering nerve also sends signals from the digestive organ system to the brain and back again, and this action all begins in your mouth with those special bitter T2R receptors.
T2Rs target our hunger responses by releasing Cholecystokinin or CCK which is a hormone directly related to stimulating the gallbladder to secrete bile, bile is vital and the reason that fats and proteins are able to be broken down in the lower duodenum (opening from the stomach to the small intestine) to then be assimilated and used in the body. Furthermore, CCK stimulates ghrelin which is another hormone that is amazing for digestive processes and your hunger.
Ghrelin tells your brain when you are hungry and then again when you are satiated from a meal, and both of these are stimulated by those T2R, bitter taste buds in your mouth. These hormones also affect the Vagus nerve and its vitality and tone. Without talking to this collection of taste buds in the mouth, your body isn’t secreting the proper hormones, or satisfying essential nervous responses from the vagus nerve.
T2R receptors are key in not only activating the digestive chemicals, but also monitoring hunger responses, cravings & gastric emptying, breaking down of food, acid balance within the stomach, and so much more. Hormones play a critical role in YOUR healthy digestive system & BITTER Taste Receptors are the start of this all happening.
ALL-IN-ALL
There is more and more being uncovered by research when it comes to the vagus nerve and digestion all of the time. Each year it gets more and more dialed as more information is honed through research and people practicing these amore ‘ancestral’ ways of eating. From how your mood is connected to the gut microbiome & thus the Vagus Nerve, all the way up to those bitter T2Rs.
Your bitter Taste Receptors are a big component of these responses occurring regularly., and because of the modern way of eating… ESPECIALLY the SAD (standard american diet)… T2Rs are neglected completely which results in an internal disruption of many key functions when it comes to building your body through the food you eat, the water you consume, and even the amount of movement you are partaking in.
In the modern world, each of us are expected to move at an incredibly fast pace, in survival mode, it is not easy to allow the natural rest and digest pattern to happen. Food is slammed into our mouths, sometimes even behind the wheel of your car even, how are we to be slamming these foods and ‘food like substances’ into our bodies while also attempting to think about how we eat? Mindful eating, a concept that works well for me and my clients, begins the shifting process to eat well, eat slowly and make space for nourishing foods.
Alongside regular intake of Bitter Constituents from plants. When we choose healthy foods and work to shift habits like implementing bitter remedies into our life. We are already encouraging a healthier system which inevitably will lead to a more vital, long lasting life. Pairing this with digestive bitters in your daily diet, you will be well on your way to nourishing your body through the foods you eat, and the ways in which you eat by encouraging more nature made processes into your day to day life.
The Wandering Nerve is responsible for a lot of actions throughout the body AND it is up to you to hone it’s abilities to better your life and your health. You don’t need any magical tools to do this either, you can light this nerve up with a few simple ways of eating and ingesting plants.
Here is the link to the Digestive Bitter Collection that comes straight from the farmacy gardens here at Enchantment Creek. Know you are ALWAYS getting the best herbs on the market, we ONLY work with Fresh Plant materials to ensure potency and we are third party tested for purity!
