Life Biodiversity, Fermented Foods, and Quality Routines
Hi Folks! Connor and Nick here from Healthy Living With Nick and Connor. Thanks again for being on our email list, it means a lot, and we are excited to share our weekly email with you. We hope you enjoy it! Here is what we hope you take away from this one:
Put an emphasis on biodiversity in all aspects of your life.
Make sure to eat a portion of fermented foods every day.
Routines in your life will have a powerful influence.
Starter Mindset Tip: Lead a Biodiverse Life
We often hear about the importance of biodiversity in nature, we want you to think about the importance of biodiversity in your own life. This way of thinking extends to all aspects of your life, and all aspects of your health. Eat a diverse diet to make sure you are fueling your body with a wide array of nutrients, exercise in different ways to stretch and strengthen all the different parts of your body, exercise your mind in different ways to allow it to stay engaged and grow, have diverse experiences in your life to make new memories and allow you to look at the world through different lenses, interact with people that offers you diverse ways of looking at the world, and most importantly, sleep in diverse ways. Alright, all of those are true except the last one. Sleep is the one area of health you want consistency. Consistent bedtime routine, consistent bedtime, consistent morning routine. Now back to diversity. If you were to write on a notepad about each aspect of health in your daily routine, would the notepad be filled up, or pretty empty? Imagine writing down all the different foods and spices you eat, the different exercises that you do, the different things you are learning and doing to work out your mind, the different experiences that you are having, the different types of people you interact with. Do you break up your normal routine with different things, different activities, different experiences? We hope this allows for a little introspection, a view for yourself into your life. If you want to start leading a more diverse life, start small, pick things you enjoy, do things with others, fill that notepad in a little bit more and see what happens. Life is what you make it, live the heck out of it.
Health Recipe: The One Thing We Should All Be Eating: Fermented Foods
Timing: 1 minute buying in a store, 1 minute eating
Level of Difficulty: Very easy, great bang for your buck
Serving Size: One serving a day of fermented foods
Spiciness: Not usually spicy unless you go for a spicy Kimchee
INGREDIENTS
Some fermented food options: sauerkraut (homemade or buy refrigerated), kimchee (homemade or buy refrigerated), yogourt (with active and live cultures and sugar free), kefir, pickled relish, miso paste (do not boil), tempeh, natto, kombucha
REASONING AND BENEFITS
Fermented foods are some of the most incredible foods you can eat to improve your health. Every single culture in human history has fermented foods as a celebrated part of their food tradition. (Bulsiewicz, p. 117) Fermented foods contain probiotics, which are little bacteria that help protect you against allergies, improve digestion, decrease bloating, boost the immune system, reduce inflammation, lower cholesterol, and create the lactic acid-producing bacteria that will fight cancer cells. (Miller, p. 34, 177) Fermented foods are especially important right now because so many of us have diets full of refined carbohydrates, unhealthy processed foods, and an excess of certain meats, which can all kill the healthy bacterial population of your intestinal lining. Bad gut health leads to issues such as diarrhea, indigestion, bloating, leaky gut, and other digestive problems such as difficulty absorbing nutrients. Introducing probiotic rich fermented foods into your diet is a key component to maintaining this healthy gut lining. (Miller, p. 177)
Another key component to eating fermented foods with probiotics is to make sure you are also eating PREbiotics. These are foods with fibers that will actually feed and maintain the health of the good probiotic bacteria in your gut. Some examples are: garlic, onion, leeks, bananas, and cereal grains in whole form like wheat, oats, barley, etc. Prebiotics lay the foundation and feed what you already have, and probiotics help reintroduce healthy bacteria you may be missing. In order to maximize the nutrients from the foods that you are eating, you need to have the proper bacteria available in order to break that food down and extract those nutrients to feed your body.
A quick note about supplementing with probiotics. You cannot fix a bad diet with probiotics. Probiotic supplements have a hard time colonizing your gut permanently, and often only have a small number of bacterial strains, while foods offer a wide variety. So make sure you think of a probiotic supplement as a “supplement” to your diet. Eat prebiotics and fermented foods in unison with your probiotic supplements if you choose to use them. A little bit goes a long way. Try to have something fermented every day, and this may just be the single most important positive improvement to your nutrition.
INSTRUCTIONS
Determine what fermented foods you actually enjoy, and can see yourself eating on a consistent basis. For example, if you do not like kimchee, don’t choose it.
Decide if you would like to make your fermented foods, or buy them, and then do it.
Set yourself up for success and make a plan to introduce the foods you have chosen into your daily diet. If you acquire the fermented foods, but do not make a plan to actually eat them, then it will not consistently happen.
Try out some different fermented food options, try out different eating times, and discover what works best for YOU.
If you choose to make your own fermented food such as sauerkraut (our favourite), make big batches at a time so you don’t have to make it as often, or make it with a friend to make it more fun.
PRO TIP: If you plan on making your own sauerkraut—which is one of our favourites—you will be getting a little workout in at the same time! Massaging the salt into the cabbage to get the liquid out of the cabbage will take some elbow grease, so you can count that as some movement as you bulk up your forearms!
* “Fermentation makes foods even healthier. Compared to other hyper-sterilized foods, the consumption of fermented foods could increase the number of microbes in the diet by up to 10 000-fold.” (Bulsiewicz, p. 124)
** “Fermentation was a staple in our diets until the 19th 20th century when we started new techniques for food preservation: canning, pasteurization, preservatives, refrigeration, freezing. These work by altering the microbes. Sterilizing destroys the bacteria, good and bad.
Now it is sterilized and mixed in with countless chemical preservatives to inhibit microbes and their food processing enzymes.” (Bulsiewicz, p. 122)
*** We are always looking for quick fixes when it comes to nutrition, adding some fermented foods to your diet every day may just be one of the quickest, easiest fixes you can do!
Dessert Quote:
“The key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and add routines and rituals to your working life designed to minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration.” — Newport, p. 100
Now we want to hear from YOU! Please let us know what you think of today’s newsletter, and send us an example of how you applied the health recipe to your life! We would love to share how you introduced this week’s recipe into your life’s unique menu. Thanks and have a great Sunday!
Sources:
Learn more about fermented foods, and nutrition in general:
Bulsiewicz, W., MD. (2020). Fiber fueled: The Plant-Based Gut Health Program for Losing Weight, Restoring Your Health, and Optimizing Your Microbiome. Penguin.
Miller, D. (2008). The jungle effect: A Doctor Discovers the Healthiest Diets from Around the World--Why They Work and How to Bring Them Home. Harper Collins.
Montgomery, D. R., & Biklé, A. (2015). The hidden half of nature: the microbial roots of life and health. W. W. Norton & Company.
Learn more about developing good work habits and routines:
Newport, C. (2016). Deep work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. Hachette UK.
