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Feeding Your Gut Microbiome Seasonally

by Agata 15 June 2021

Summer is just around the corner and as in nature, almost every function within our bodies will undergo a change and renewal with the seasons’ changes.

Take for instance our metabolism, it also has cyclical changes in accordance with the different seasons. As we currently shake off our winter slumber, in some of the cases we may experience springtime lethargy, where due to the increased amount of sunlight and longer days, we experience hormonal changes in the body causing us to feel sleepy or even tired.

A Stanford University study concluded that our gut microbiome also changes with each season in accordance with our dietary seasonal changes.{1} The microbes living in our gut could vary with the seasons, so it is important that we feed them well and eat accordingly to the appropriate time of year. Feeding our gut biomes, the bounty of each respective season can help our systems develop stronger digestive systems and develop a stronger immunity.{2}

As the abundance of the spring and summer seasons near, consider nourishing your gut microbiome with fiber-rich complex carbohydrates.

Foods rich in bioflavonoids like dark grapes, blueberries, black currants, blackberries, beets and elderberries, are wonderfully rich in phytonutrients which perform both anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant duties. These foods support the liver by activating enzymes to help to detoxify and maintain a healthy liver function.{3}

Don’t forget that eating seasonally also helps to maintain your bodies’ optimal temperature. In traditional medical systems, such as Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine various foods are thought to have warming and cooling properties. Therefore, in hot weather it should be considered important to eat cooling foods, such as watermelons, cucumbers, and seasonal summer fruit that are sweet. However, such foods should be avoided in the winter as they are seen to be cooling and would hinder the body’s optimal metabolic state.

Our bodies get outside information from the things that we put into our mouths, so remember to reap the benefit of each delicious season- here is to a wonderfully abundant spring and summer!

Olivier Salad

by jena 2 April 2021

Spring is finally in the air; Easter is just around the corner and the world is looking a little different again. I actually really love this time of year as it signifies a rebirth, hope, and a new life, both in nature and within many religious celebrations.

Growing up in a Polish family, it meant a full-on Easter prep-athon that involved cooking and baking of meats, cakes, and various dishes before the big Easter Sunday dinner. One staple that never seems to be forgotten is the Olivier salad, or in Polish Sałatka Jarzynowa.

Ask any Pole alive and they will swear this is a classic Polish dish, myself included, until one day when sitting in a Barcelona tapas bar staring at a menu that called our Olivier salad, Ensaladilla Rusa, or Russian salad. To my great surprise this salad did originate in Russia, but it was the invention of a French chef, Lucien Olivier from the Hermitage, one of Moscow’s most celebrated restaurants in the 1860’s.

Olivier took his original recipe to his grave, and since then the salad has taken on many modifications but the original ingredients, peas, potatoes, carrots, onions, pickles, eggs, and mayo, remain as a standard classic enjoyed by many cultures alike.

For me this salad is a holiday staple and particularly enjoyed during Easter, for some reason it always tastes the best in the spring.

Olivier Salad – Sałatka Jarzynowa.

INGREDIENTS

3 potatoes, cooked and cubed

3 carrots, cooked and cubed

6 eggs, cooked and cubed

3 Greenola baby dill pickles, cubed

¼ sweet onion, cubed

½ cup of cooked celery root, or fresh celery stalk

1 cup frozen fresh peas

1 cup mayo

salt and pepper, to taste

Fermented Foods and the Gut Microbiome

by Agata 24 February 2021

Gut health plays a key part in our focus in what we do and the products we bring to the market. With that idea, there is also a sense of comradery knowing that fermented foods have been a long-established part of culinary traditions around the world. Almost every culture has some sort of fermented foods that make up their daily tradition. In cultures where there is a heavy meat diet, fermented foods play an important role in helping us to digest the proteins found in meat products. It is no coincidence that in cultures like Poland, Germany, Korea, where meat makes up a substantial part of the diet, you see food staples such as sauerkraut, pickles and kimchi accompanying their traditional dishes.

Prior to the 20^th century, fermentation was never really studied as a topic. It was just done and incorporated into the recipes that were handed down to us from our grandparents. However, there has currently been a big resurgence of interest in the study of the connection between fermented foods and the bacteria that inhabit our gut. Today, we know that a healthy gut plays an important role in the maintenance of health.

It is only in the last past decade researchers have made a staggering discovery that inside our digestive system we have about 100 trillion bacteria. These microorganisms thrive inside our gut microbiome, which is a collection of bacterial species that reside in our large intestine. It is here in the microbiome that our immune system is regulated, along with our moods and behaviours. Simply put, our mental and physical well being can be traced back to the health of our gut.

Studies have linked the quality of our gut health to obesity and how we store fat, as well as autoimmune disease, allergies, and different types of inflammation. Each person has a microbiome that is as unique as a fingerprint, and this uniqueness determines our predisposition to different diseases that we will face in our lifetime. However, research has also shown that aspects of the modern Western lifestyle have reduced our microbial diversity in the gut. Our Western diets have recently leaned towards more processed, refined, sugar-rich, and fiber-poor foods. The ironic reality is that it is in our economically rich processed Western diets where we find the most impoverished microbiomes. In these impoverished microbiomes, we then find more likely instances of toxins that cause inflammation and are associated with a host of various illnesses.

Today we can find a myriad of diets and nutritional suggestions, and whichever diet you follow, make sure your diet:

nourishes your gut microbiome with fiber-rich complex carbohydrates
includes fermented foods such a pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, yogurt, and tempeh
encourages a reduced sugar intake

References:

Inclusion of Fermented Foods in Food Guides around the World. (2015, January 1). PubMed Central (PMC). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4303846/

Mayer, E. (2018). The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Hidden Conversation Within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood, Our Choices, and Our Overall Health (Reprint ed.). Harper Wave.

Sonnenburg, J., Sonnenburg, E., & M.D., W. A. (2016). The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-term Health (Illustrated ed.). Penguin Books.

Spector, T. (2016). The Diet Myth: Why the Secret to Health and Weight Loss is Already in Your Gut (1st ed.). Abrams Press.

Tamang, J. P. (2020, January 1). Fermented foods in a global age: East meets West. Wiley Online Library. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1541-4337.12520

Additional Reading:

Kolata, G. (2012, June 13). Human Microbiome Project Explores Our 100 Trillion Good Bacteria. The New York Times.
Pollan, M. (2013, May 15). Say Hello to the 100 Trillion Bacteria That Make Up Your Microbiome. The New York Times.

Welcome to Our New Site!

by Agata 30 August 2020

Hello and welcome to our new website! We are excited to present to you a new and refreshed version of our site. Here we will be updating the blog section with updates, recipes, and seasonal musings.

Currently it is the beginning of September, which for us means fall harvest and pickling time for the cucumbers, cabbages, and beets that we bring you. As mentioned earlier, we source our vegetables from small organic family farms, and although the yields are not large, it is wonderful to know that the quality of their harvest is abundant in micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals.

Supporting small family farmers who practice organic farming techniques ensures a self-sustaining cycle adapted to local conditions, with ecological processes such as providing habitat for native pollinators and biodiversity. Today in our current environment where we find ourselves losing nutrient content in our conventionally grown food, supporting small-scale, organic farming is the obvious choice.

We are also pleased to hear that Poland is among one of the countries in the European Union that has voted on a total ban on GMO crops. Several countries such as France, Germany, Austria, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Poland, Denmark, Malta, Slovenia, Italy and Croatia have chosen a total ban of GMO’s. This is great news for both biodiversity, the health of our planet, and the nutritious food that lands on our tables.

Stayed tuned for future posts, and happy late summer and harvest season!

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