3 Natural Ways To Test Your Gut Health
Try these 3 natural strategies to learn more about what might be causing your gut problems.
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Do you have digestive issues? Perhaps you think it could be from parasites, bacteria, or candida? If you’re not yet ready to take the GI-MAP stool test to see what’s in your gut, you can try these 3 home tests to learn more.
The Sauerkraut Protocol
If you have a bad bacteria problem in your gut, eating good bacteria will kill them and force them out. This produces die-off symptoms like nausea, headaches, and chills. So eating naturally fermented cabbage, vegetables, or sauerkraut will help you learn more about your gut bacteria.
What to do:
1. Buy a jar of sauerkraut. Be sure that the jar is refrigerated, has live cultures, and doesn't include any preservatives whatsoever.
2. Consume 1 tablespoon of sauerkraut with a meal. Pay attention to how you feel. If you feel die-off symptoms then keep eating this small amount once per day until it doesn't feel bad anymore. If you feel fine with the amount of kraut, go to the next step.
3. Increase the amount of sauerkraut you eat by 1 tablespoon per meal. Keep paying attention to how you feel to keep die-off symptoms to a minimum. And keep increasing your dosage until you get to 1/2 cup sauerkraut per meal. Make sure you don't go too fast or you'll kill too many bad bugs and feel like absolute garbage.
4. Continue this slow-build process with other probiotic foods. Once you tolerate sauerkraut, try kimchi, coconut yogurt, kefir (if you tolerate dairy), coconut kefir, kvass, kombucha, fermented fruit, and so forth until you can eat as many fermented foods as you desire without any symptoms.
5. Make your own fermented foods. Once you tolerate store-bought fermented foods, ideally, you should make your own fermented foods. These are far higher in probiotics and have a bigger positive impact on your gut.
The papaya parasite test
One great and cheap, way to find out if you have parasites is with anti-parasitic foods, specifically, papaya seeds. You can even test yourself for parasites at home with the papaya seed test.
1. Make a papaya smoothie. Toss 1/2 of papaya in a blender (or less if you prefer). Toss in all the papaya seeds from that half of the papaya. Feel free to add a little juice or water if you like a thinner smoothie.
2. Drink the smoothie on an empty stomach. Don't eat anything else for 3 hours (water is fine). This should be enough time for the papaya seeds to get through your small intestine. Pay attention to how you feel. If you get any die-off symptoms, then you might have parasites, and the papaya seeds have just made them angry.
3. If you get any die-off symptoms, get a parasite test to find out for sure (the papaya parasite test isn't a sure thing). This is also necessary to see which parasites you have if you do have them.
The coconut oil test
Just as papaya seeds kill parasites, anti-fungal foods kill gut fungi like candida. A great and cheap, way to find out if you have problems with gut fungi is with the coconut oil test.
1. Eat 1 tablespoon virgin coconut oil on an empty stomach. Don't eat anything else for 1-2 hours (water is fine). Pay attention to how you feel.
2. If you feel die-off symptoms then keep eating this amount of coconut oil (or less) until it doesn't feel bad anymore. If you feel fine, go to the next step.
3. Increase the amount of coconut oil you eat by just a tiny bit per day. Keep paying attention to how you feel. Keep increasing your dosage until you get to 2-3 tablespoons of coconut oil per day (you can include this oil in food if that's easier, but it might not be as effective).
If you are able to determine what your gut issues are, it’ll be easier to resolve them.
Created with content from The Berkeley Well-Being Institute.
