Maybe you’ve had your gallbladder removed. Or maybe your stomach just gets a little unsettled when you eat fatty foods. Perhaps you’re pregnant, and the very thought of higher fat foods starts a wave of nausea you have to fight to resist.
Whatever the reason, you’re a person who finds digesting fats hard.
So when you hear me raving about ways to get more fat in your diet, you think, “Well, that’s nice for you, but I just can’t do that.” Then maybe a small part of you feels angsty because you’re missing out. You’d love to eat more fat. It’s tasty! It’s full of important fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E & K-2. It keeps your skin blemish free, your moods serene, your hormones well-regulated.
But… you just can’t.
Good news! Maybe you really CAN, thanks to a little known traditional remedy for people like you.
Ox Bile and Bitters: Aiding Fat Digestion Since … Forever!
Traditional Medicine on every continent has acknowledged the import of these two supplements for many hundreds, if not thousands of years. What are they? How can they help you?
Ox Bile
This is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the bile from oxen.
Bile is what your body produces to help you digest the fats you eat. Your liver excretes the bile, then stores it in your gallbladder for later use. Ultimately, the bile helps breakdown the fats you eat and aids your body in the absorption of the ultra-important fat soluble vitamins.
If, for any reason, you’re running deficient in bile, you’ll have trouble digesting fats. You may get gallstones, have big swings in your blood cholesterol and lipid levels, or suffer from constipation.
Ox bile is chemically similar to our own bile, and our bodies have no trouble using it alongside our own bile for the exact same purpose.
How to Take Ox Bile
If you’ve got issues digesting fats, try taking a single 500mg pill shortly before you eat meals or take any fatty supplements (like cod liver oil) or other fat-soluble vitamins. If you’re still uncomfortable, take more. Your goal ought to be to completely eliminate your symptoms of digestive distress.
If you take too much, your digestive symptoms will likely swing the other way — towards diarrhea. If that happens, just reduce your dosage back down.
Bitters
Bitters are herbal infusions made from bitter herbs. They stimulate your liver to produce more bile and work more efficiently.
They have a long history in traditional medicine and an equally long history in traditional cuisine. Many cultures around the world begin meals with a quick burst of bitters.
The French will drink an apéritif. Many cultures will drink a tea made from bitter herbs like dandelion or milk thistle. Others will simply chow down on a small salad filled with bitter herbs like chicory, arugula, radicchio, or even peppermint (yes, peppermint is considered a bitter).
These bitters stimulate your body to release the hormone gastrin, which in turn increases your gastric acid levels, bile production, and many other important secretions along your digestive tract. This not only aids in the digestion of fats, but it also helps your body breakdown proteins, stimulates the the self-repair mechanisms in your intestinal wall, and eases the passing of stool.
How to Get More Bitters in Your Diet
Traditionally, people consume these small doses of bitters about 15 minutes or so before eating meals.
You can try out a homemade apéritif made with homemade bitters like those found in the book Natural Cocktails.
Or, you could try beginning your meals with a small salad with crisp, bitter herbs.
If neither of these is practical, you could simply take a dropper full of an herbal bitter tincture just before meals. (Hint: Be sure to mix this in a bit of water first, otherwise the bitter flavor may be too overpowering and unpleasant.)
(Where to buy herbal bitter tinctures)
Sources:
Bitter Herbs Sweeten Digestion
Bitters: The Revival of a Forgotten Flavor
(photo by lisbokt)
Are Swedish Bitters the same thing as “bitters” that you are talking about?
Yes! Really any bitter herb aids digestion, so you can find them ANYWHERE in the world.
Bitters – original herbal recipes – were and probably still are originally made from cholagogue herbs, which help the liver and gallbladder function and principally dischage bile, which helps break fats down to useful constituents. It is generally trans fats and fried industrial fats the liver/gallbladder complex has the most difficult time with.
Here is a Dandelion Chai we love for bitters infusion:
2 cup dandelion leaves, dried (most health food stores have these in their bulk section
1/4 cup cinnamon chips or coarsely ground cinnamon
1/4 cup loose black or orange pekoe tea
1 tablespoon cardomom pods
1 teaspoons whole clove
1/2 t. ground nutmeg
1 teasp. dried licorice root herb, chopped
Mix well and steep 1/4 cup to quart of boiling water, add the water to the herbs, do not boil the herbs. Let steep 20 min-hour- or longer- strain, serve with your choice of milk/cream.
My Alternative MD started me on a product by Transformation Professional Protocal called Lypo. It has made all the difference in the world for my gallbladder-less body. I had gotten to where i could not eat fats without painful cramping and gas. Now I’m able to eat more fat and feel better.
If ox bile, and bitters which increases bile production, what does this do to a person who has a problem with acid reflux?
Hi Nancy,
That’s an excellent question! In one of the source articles I linked to, the author (a nutritionist) responds to this point by saying:
“The smooth muscle of the stomach is also stimulated by the bitter reflex, which increases the rate of gastric emptying, and contracts the esophageal sphincter to prevent the movement of acidic stomach contents upwards into the esophagus…. While many people with GERD are hesitant to partake of bitters due to the potential increase in stomach acidity, the combined effect of these actions actually can help this condition by ensuring that the stomach contents are moved downward rather than allowed to reflux back up and out of the stomach. Bitters also act to heal any damage done to the gastric mucosa.”
For a more in-depth explanation of why they can help, read this:
http://chriskresser.com/get-rid-of-heartburn-and-gerd-forever-in-three-simple-steps
coconut oil and which is a medium chain triglyceride, does not need bile to digest. that info could be helpful to many.
http://www.ofspirit.com/brucefife1.htm
Very interesting post and replies. Thank you!
I use chicory in my coffee and have no problems with digestion of fatty foods. Perhaps a small cup of brewed chicory before meals would help. I recommend a tablespoon chicory in 4 ounces of boiling water. Allow to steep for five minutes, filter, then drink. A little honey could be added.
Chicory was used extensively as a coffee substitute in the South during the American Civil War, and is still readily available in coffees served in New Orleans.
Frontier makes a granulated chicory that is the best I’ve tried. I use a scoop of chicory in my coffee (1 to 4 ratio of chicory to coffee) and have for several years. No problems with digestion of any kind. The chicory smooths out the coffee taste too.
Stephen Greenfield
How is ox bile obtained? Sounds like something inhumane. I didn’t see a link in your resource center for ox bile, specifically – where is it typically sourced?
To my knowledge, no one raises cattle specifically to obtain glands or tissue extracts.
So, ox bile would be a product of the meat industry — basically a way to use up every part of the animal.
As with anything like that, you’d want to source it well, if possible!
This is very helpful info for me as I,unfortunately, had my gall bladder removed a long time ago. I am a bit confused though by the recommended dual remedy. If bitters stimulates the pancreas to produce more bile and one does not have a gall bladder, what happens to the bile? Hence, I can readily see the helpfulness of the ox bile, but I am uncertain about the bitters. On another note, I couldn’t find a source for ox bile via your link.
When the gall bladder is removed, your body still produces bile, but it is no longer stored and concentrated in the gall bladder. Instead, produced bile goes directly into your small intestine to aide digestion.
Bitters help by stimulating bile production immediately before and during meals. This bile then goes directly to your small intestine to help digest your food.
In other words, any bile you make isn’t stored and concentrated, but it is either used or pooped out. If you’re making too much bile, then your poop will start getting too watery, so you’ll know to cut back on the ox bile and bitters.
As for the link, you likely have an ad blocker enabled or javascript disabled. I use an ad software to load my Resources page, so you’ll need to disable the ad blocker for that page or re-enable javascript for that page in order for it to load properly!
Hope that helps!
Yeah, thanks Kristen, that is really helpful.
I had my gallbladder removed, since than I have trouble controlling outbreaks on my skin. This has been going on for 10 years. I am 44 now. hopefully this works I will try this thank you.
OX BILE could be my answer! Sounds disgusting but I will do anything to digest my food better!
It’s really not all that disgusting. It’s pills! Practically tasteless and super-quick to swallow.
Hopefully you’ll see this, since the post was written a while back. Do you think ox bile would help if you still have a gall bladder, but it doesn’t function at 100%?
Is ox bile and bitters both safe to take during pregnancy? I had my gallbladder removed a couple of years ago and take ox bile which really helps. I am wanting to get pregnant but want to make sure it is safe to take.