Need a plumber for your digestive challenges?

My first Thanksgiving as a 19-year-old newlywed, was a disaster. Not understanding about plumbing, I peeled 10 pounds of potatoes into the sink and then attempted to grind it down the garbage disposal. Well, I’m sure you’re all snickering at my naivety, but as you guessed, it got stopped up. Nothing I did would unplug it, try as I and other guests may, to get it moving. Dishes were brought to the neighbor’s house to wash, while others that stayed behind had hardened on food that was difficult to remove. I had to hire a plumber to come resolve the sink mess. This debacle is not unlike what we do to our own garbage disposal — our digestive system.

We stuff ourselves with not only too much food, but the wrong foods for the system. Then we get backed up, sometimes for years on end, and need some powerful plumbing tools to get things moving again. I’m not just talking constipation either.

First of all, most of us don’t even know what the “right amount” of food is. How much is “too much food”? When comparing the amount of food we eat, here in the U.S., to other countries all over the world, it is astonishing how big of plates we have and how much we fill them out. What we get served in restaurants is about three times what we should be eating. Why do we eat so much?

Because we are eating foods devoid of truly nutritional elements. We consume a majority of empty calories, instead of good, nutritionally dense foods. The brain feels its starving and keeps sending out “I need more food!” messages. And we respond, usually with more nutritionally devoid so-called foods.

The next element is the amount. If you lightly cup your hands and hold them together, forming a bowl, that is the amount our stomach is capable of handling. Our stomach size and enzyme capacity can only handle that amount. More than that, we plug up the system like the potato peels in the drain. Well, we don’t always plug up. Instead, we create so much stress on the system that eventually we create “dis-ease.”

Diseases of the digestive tract include the stomach, large and small intestines, liver, pancreas, and gallbladder. On one website I counted 99 different digestive disorders. Wow! With all the complexity of digestive disorders, it takes a true health detective to wade through all the digestive symptoms, get past the fancy diagnostic labels, and get to the real reason why the digestion is so messed up in the first place.

The hope lies in the over-stuffing of the potato skins (or foods) into the mouth being an easy solution. Slow down, don’t eat so much and eat nutrient dense foods. Most of the time it is beyond the simple and requires a skilled practitioner to work on it to ease the pain and support health once more! Learn more, attend our upcoming class, Beyond Tums: Drug Free Solutions for Heartburn, Reflux, Indigestion & Upset Stomach, 7 p.m. today, Feb. 1. Fee: $10. RSVP: (208) 765-1994.

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Holly Carling is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, Licensed Acupuncturist, Doctor of Naturopathy, Clinical Nutritionist and Master Herbologist with nearly four decades of experience. She is currently accepting new patients and offers natural health care services and whole food nutritional supplements in her Coeur d’Alene clinic. Visit www.vitalhealthcda.com to learn more about her, view a list of upcoming health classes and read other informative articles. Carling can be reached at (208) 765-1994 and would be happy to answer any questions regarding this topic.