Bitters

I've been working with bitters a lot recently, making sure to taste them, taking them at the proper times (20 minutes or so before meals). They aren't a miracle cure, but they are a great addition to your daily routine, or diet, to improve health and well-being. One of many pieces to the puzzle of a life that feels good. 
Bitters are a flavor not everyone enjoys. They're a flavor we've strayed from but absolutely could use more of. Bitter is often a signal of poison, a warning to tread lightly, don't overdo it. Dosage is what determines a poison. Anything can be a poison in the right amount, water, oxygen, carbs, meat, fun.
What's bitter? Coffee, tea, dark chocolate, kale and some other greens, citrus peels and grapefruit, cranberries, bitter melon, brussels sprouts, eggplant, ginger, broccoli, artichoke, apple cider vinegar, tonic water, beer (from hops), some mushrooms, some herbs.

Dandelion and lettuce greens. A spectrum of bitterness.

A wild greens pesto attempt. This was one of my most horrible recipe failures ever. Way too bitter!

A lot of these things used to be more bitter, like those wild greens above on the right. Our salads used to be closer to those wild greens, and they still can be with the addition of dandelion greens (the wilder, the more bitter), endive, escarole, radicchio, kale or arugula. We specifically bred out the bitter qualities of so many greens and other vegetables to make them more palatable, sweeter and less beneficial. Then we started cutting them early as baby greens, not yet formed in their bitter attributes. We peel our carrots, but that's where a bitterness lies.  In doing so, we took out the benefits along with so many nutrients. We also developed a taste for sweet and salty. Sweet is quite the opposite of bitter, making us want more rather than less. Sweet hits the reward centers in our brain, just like drugs, alcohol and other addictive things. It also weakened us to the bitter taste. Bitter tastes even more bitter when you eat a lot of sugar.
Salt blocks our bitter taste receptors. Salt is a good tool if you cook something and it comes out too bitter. Add salt or something acidic to balance it out. Or you can adjust your taste buds over time. Our bitter taste receptors are like muscles we don't work enough. The more you use them, the stronger they get and the easier it becomes. Over time, bitter becomes not quite so bad and sweet may even become bad, too much, cloying.
We have bitter receptors located throughout the body, the first being the tongue. Our tongue tastes bitter, and signals are sent to different parts of the body, letting it know what to do next. We can't by-pass this step if we want bitters to work best. In order for bitters to do their work, we need to taste them. Chew that bitter pill to see results. No one ever said life was easy! 😂

One of my favorite bitter herbs, motherwort. A bitter for the heart.

My favorite, and probably the most bitter mushroom, in my experience, reishi. It covers a lot of body systems.

Elecampane, a bitter for the lungs. It grows tall, but we use the root.

Why do we need bitters if they taste so bad and could signal poison?
Bitter flavors stimulate digestive juices to start flowing, preparing to take food in. Later on, bitters hit receptors in the stomach, small intestine and colon. Here, they signal a feeling of fullness, satiety, helping us to eat less. They slow digestion so that it occurs at just the right speed for proper nutrient absorption. When digestion runs smooth and efficient, we feel better, we lose weight, we sleep better, we digest all of life better. When we sleep better, we digest better, we feel better, we lose weight, and life feels better. Funny how it's all connected! Bitters reward our bodies. Sweets reward our brains, instant gratification. It's great in that moment, but don't we pay for it later?
We also have bitter receptors in our pancreas, gallbladder and liver, helping with blood sugar regulation, fat digestion, and so much more.
At the end of the digestive tract, we run into another bitter receptor area. Here, bitters activate 2 more hormones, one being GLP-1. Did you know our bodies naturally produce this and we can influence it to produce more through ingesting bitters? I'm in no way suggesting that you use bitters to treat diabetes. GLP-1 agonists have their place, they last longer in the body than the naturally occurring GLP-1, which is very important for diabetes. Bitters could be useful as one of many tools to help prevent diabetes and weight gain. Maybe if you're thinking of using GLP-1 for a little weight loss, you could start with eating more bitter food, incorporating bitters into your daily regimen, and doing all of the things they recommend you do in addition to taking the pharmaceutical, like exercise, eat more fiber, drink water. I know, I make it sound so simple, so easy. I understand it's not always simple and easy. A little bit of it can help, even if you do end up using pharmaceuticals, either alone or in conjunction with other protocols. There's no shame in doing that! I'm not pharmaceutical free either. Maybe you can avoid starting a pharmaceutical, delay its start, or take less.
Bitters can also influence the heart, immunity, the nervous system and lungs, as well as help with phlegm, allergies, asthma, liver detoxification, inflammation in the gut lining and beyond. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. You've heard that one before. Or food for thought... Funny, our entire body is actually connected to itself. We have to start somewhere, why not the stomach (or the mouth, our first digestive organ)? Happy digestion to keep all of the organs, heart, liver, brain, and skin happy!

So often we take a healthy bitter flavor, but we load them up with sugars and other flavors to cancel out the bitter. Remember you have to chew that pill.  You can't cheat on the taste. Like coffee, we add sugar and cream and who knows what else, then we say coffee is bad, which for some it may be, caffeine is a hell of a drug (though it does have its benefits too). We move on to some other drink, some "healthier" alternative, like tea or mushroom "coffee". Both tea and mushrooms are bitter. We use them as coffee substitutes, but then we disguise this bitterness too with sweeteners again. Or cocoa, a good, also bitter option, but again, often sweetened. The sweet is canceling out the benefits of the bitters that we're often looking for and that they so heavily sell us on. Try adding a little fennel! Fennel has a little sweetness that can also take away some bitter flavor without taking away benefits. 

We've been adding bitters to our cocktails for generations and across the globe, think aperitifs and digestifs. They are usually alcohol based. Why? Because bitters contain glycosides and resins which are partly responsible for all of the benefits. Glycosides are soluble in alcohol and water, but resins are only soluble in alcohol and oil. Alcohol is a great solvent. I'm not encouraging alcohol use, but if you do enjoy a cocktail, why not make it work for you?! Sip an aperitif, a drink served before a meal to open the stomach. Aperire in latin means "to open". Aperitifs were traditionally made with bitter herbs like artichoke (Cynar), gentian (Suze, Salers, Aveze), wormwood (Absinthe), citrus (Campari, Aperol), wine (Vermouth). They're usually lower in alcohol, and the point isn't to drink the whole bottle, just sip from a small cordial glass. Once again, the dosage makes the poison. And more isn't always better. Many beverages were originally made to be medicinal!
After a meal, savor a digestif. These tend to be sweeter but also contain carminative herbs which help aid digestion. The sweet flavor does have its place. I think we have a whole other can of worms to talk about with carminative herbs which are great for cooler times of year! Next blog, stay tuned.

Bitters can be fun! Over time, your taste buds will adjust, and you'll begin to enjoy the flavor. Incorporate some aperitifs to your Sunday dinner, have a bitter greens salad with some oil and vinegar or lemon to lessen the bite and absorb it all better, enjoy that coffee, or take some bitters in tincture form before your meal or throughout the day. You might see or feel a change somewhere in your body or mind. It might be slow; it might be subtle.  Savor the flavor!