Are You Masticating at the Dinner Table?

Make sure you chew your foods well. We all have enzyme activity in our saliva, which is where the actual digestive process begins. Chewing thoroughly will give your stomach and the rest of your digestion a break and should help your gas problems. Because your body relies on digestive juices and enzymes to break down the foods you eat, don’t drink liquids (especially cold liquids) in large amounts during your meals. This may dilute the digestive juices and hinder your proper digestion. Be sure, however, to drink plenty of water in between meals, as proper digestion requires a lot of water. If you must drink during meals, sip warm herbal tea. The warmth will relax the stomach and aid digestion, whereas an icy cold drink will contract the stomach and inhibit digestion.
Bowel cleansing will help if you have foul-smelling gas. If you have started taking a new herb supplement, such as psyllium hulls, aloe vera, or any cleansing herb, you may experience gas the first few days to a week while your bowel is cleansing. I like to think of this process as sweeping out an old, dirty basement. You stir up a lot of dust, but when you are through, you have a clean basement!

The Answer, My Friend, Is Blowin’ in the Wind

So, besides reaching for fennel and other supplements and herbs to get rid of this antisocial problem before it strikes, let’s take a quick look at how and why those things that cause the problem can be handled.
Proper food combining takes a little work, but it will help your digestion. When you eat foods together that are not complementary for each other, this can be considered poor food combining.
Let’s just cover the very basics of food combining:

• In general, do not eat starches and proteins together.
• Do not eat fruit on a full stomach (empty stomach only).
• Do not combine fruits with any other food besides other fruits.
• Do not eat more than one concentrated food (starches and proteins) at any one meal. To demonstrate, eat only fruit in the morning. For dinner or lunch, if you have a steak or some type of meat, have a salad or other green vegetables with it, and leave out the bread and cheeses. Or, have a big salad and add a concentrated food, such as cheese or beans or meat—but choose only one.

Gas: Dispelling the Myths with the Right Herbs

Food enzyme supplements, especially those with hydrochloric added, will help your body break down foods that have been cooked. (Cooked foods kill the live enzymes in our foods, leaving our pancreas and liver to make up for the extra production of missing enzymes.) If you find a good enzyme tablet, take the tablet or capsule about 20 minutes before you eat. This gives the supplement a chance to begin breaking down in the stomach before you eat. Some people purchase food enzymes in capsules and open up the capsule and sprinkle it on their cooked foods before eating. If you forget to take your enzyme supplement before a meal, take one after or during your meal anyway.

Eat Here, Get Gas, Take Fennel

Have you ever seen those signs outside those rural roadside gas station restaurants? Eat here, get gas? Well, most of them don’t know what a prophetic sign that is—and if they were smart, they could sell a bottle of fennel capsules to you on your way out! Fennel (Foeniculum vlagare) is an herb that has historically been used to eliminate gas, colic, diarrhea, indigestion, nausea, and vomiting. Fennel has an affinity for the digestive and intestinal tract; primarily, the seeds from this plant are used for digestion. The raw seeds are served or offered in many restaurants in India and Nepal, similar to how restaurants in the United States give out peppermint candy at the end of a meal. For intestinal gas, take fennel tea or capsules right after meals. You can also chew on the raw seeds if you like their licorice taste.
In herbology terms, fennel acts as a carminative, which makes it effective for the subject we are talking about here. For colic in babies, fennel is effective for breastfeeding moms to take. No known side effects exist for fennel, and—as far as we know—it is completely safe even in high doses.

Got Gas?

Intestinal gas is funny only when we see comedians carry on about it. However, flatulence is an embarrassing symptom caused by poor digestion or constipation. I know this is no fun to talk about, but if you are one of those gaseous types, read on for herbal help. The answer to your roommates’ prayers are almost over! Our bodies create gas for many reasons. Intestinal gas is created by fermentation of wastes in the bowel, and constipation is a large part of why we have this problem. How do you know if your gas is a result of constipation? It shouldn’t be too hard to recognize, but here are a couple of clues:

• You have the mysterious power to clear out a movie theater without saying a word.
• While flying, you cause airline attendants to strap on their parachutes while passenger oxygen masks drop from the ceiling above you.
• Only when you sit up front during a live lecture does the speaker seem to become overwhelmed with unexplainable emotion, which causes him to go into long pauses, tightly close his eyes, and wipe sweat nervously from his brow.

But seriously, here are some reasons why you might be full of hot air:

• Improper combination of food
• Poor digestion
• Inadequate mastication of food
• Eating too fast (sucking wind)
• Drinking lots of liquids with meals