Gut Brain Health In The New Year

Happy New Year!

I hope you had a restful holiday and seeking new possibilities for 2026.

Our biggest challenge is living with uncertainty. When our biological nature is always seeking safety and order, staying healthy is accepting the impermanence of life. Everything is always changing and our ability to be flexible is our greatest asset.

For the next three months, I am offering nutrition consultations at a discounted fee of $45 for one-hour sessions.  Together, we will review your current issues and I will provide my recommendations for moving forward. Some concerns may require several appointments.  I am available to work with other health practitioners if needed. Please visit my nutrition page on my website to find out more and to book an appointment.

Meditation and Somatic movement sessions are now free. Meditations is on Tuesdays and Somatic Movement is on Wednesdays. You can book sessions on this page.  

In this newsletter, there are two articles that address the health of the gut. The first brings in the biological factors of the vagus nerve and its relationship to the gut and brain. Why illnesses such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular and gut diseases fibromyalgia, IBS, Crohn’s impact both. The other article demonstrates why food sensitivities are not caused by the food itself but by the health of your immune and digestive system.

A few recipes are included. One is for women who apparently crave chocolate during the cold winter months than any other time of year?

In this issue:

Article1: The Vagus Nerve-Gut Brain Superhighway: A Pathway to Emotional Resilience

Article2: The Gut Doesn’t Want To Be Gluten Free by Lorene Sauro

Recipes:  Chocolate Treats, Pickled Ginger Carrots and Fermented Vegetables with Quinoa

Article1: The Vagus Nerve Gut-Brain Superhighway: A Pathway to Emotional Resilience

Over the past ten years, I have writing about the vagus nerve, a physiological highway of good health. It can be seen as a neural portal – the conduit between the brain and gut.

The word vagus means “wanderer” in Latin and is the longest nerve in the body. In mammals the vagus nerve contains two motor pathways with different functions that evolved at different times during the evolution of vertebrates.  They originated in two different areas of the brainstem. One is the nucleus ambiguous that regulates facial muscles, muscles of ingestion, listening, and engaging others later termed as the social nervous system (Stephne Porges, The Polyvagal Theory). It also helps regulate our breath.

The second vagus pathway goes below the diaphragm into the supradiaphragmatic system engaging the digestive and reproductive organs..This pathway is older and  shared with other vertebrae like fish and reptiles. Both pathways work in harmony with the sympathetic nervous system which helps blood flow, makes us feel alert and confident to optimize our physiological health.

We react in the sympathetic fight or flight defense state from severe social challenges or threat of survival.

We can become stuck in this state, a high-stress state when activated into a defensive manner too many times that the body does not revert to normal. The nervous system communicates with the gut deferring to the brain that will cause mental disorders. This can lead to major illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, fibromyalgia, depression, anxiety disorders, migraines, or tinnitus. This also includes auto-immune gut illnesses such as IBS, Colitis, Ulcerated diseases, Acid Reflux, Crohn’s, Celiac that are a result of poor gut or brain connection.

On the other hand,  when the nervous system reacts to being in a safe environment, the sympathetic nervous system turns off and the defensive state diminishes allowing social behaviours to set in regulating facial muscles, muscles of ingestion, listening, and engaging others.

Compare the Polyvagal Theory to an elevator ride…a journey that descends from the vagus -ventral ‘safe haven’ (social engagement) level to the sympathetic ‘battle ready’ floor. It may continue down into the  dorsal ‘shutdown”’ level. The journey doesn’t end there. Self driven, it can again ascend upwards by the same elevator and engage in social interactions, mindful practices and play!  

Play creates a safe place, downplaying defensive behaviour. Play recruits the social engagement systems by presenting cues of safety and trust. Through facial expression, vocalization cues or creativity, it mobilizes vagus nerve responses!  

Expressing yourself creatively through art modalities such as music, visual arts, theatre acting, writing or playing a instrument, tones the vagus nerve. to keep you centred, in touch with your body, and self regulating the gut-brain connection.

Toning the vagal nerve is compared to muscle toning. It helps to activate the parasympathetic nervous system to relax faster after stress. Vagal toning is measured by tracking your heart rate alongside your breathing rate. Deep breathing and meditation will bring down the stress. Your heart- rate speeds up a little when you breathe in and slows down a little when you breathe out. The bigger the difference between your inhalation heart-rate and your exhalation heart rate, the higher your vagal tone allows your body to relax faster (breathing from the gut into the chest) with slower exhalations.

Vagal toning activates the sensory fibres of the vagus nerve in the body. Practices such as singing -Inuit throat singing or Tibetan sound healing that generates deep resonating sounds with the voice, playing instruments like the Australian didgeridoo or smiling, laughing, dancing, deep breathing, meditation, massage, and yoga,

NOTE: Overstimulating the vagus nerve can cause serious problems and emotional upheaval without proper guidance. (See your health practitioner for more information)

Our ability to calm our nervous system is within us. You have the innate tools – from your breath, body movement, mindfulness, creative self-expression and being present provides emotional resilience!

Article2: The Gut Doesn’t Want to be Gluten-Free by Lorene Sauro

This is an article by Lorene Sauro, an author, professional baker, holistic nutritionist and founder of The Digesters Dilemma.  I’ve taken courses with Lorene who regularly reminds me that food itself does not cause food sensitivities and health problems. It is caused from our own dysfunction of our your gut ecosystem that initiates those reactions to foods.

In this article, Lorene provides insights into the benefits of balancing gut flora as the only way for the body to defend itself against unwanted pathogens to stay healthy.  Applying the benefits of probiotics keeps us mentally and physically in homeostasis (balance). It’s not one thing but a scope of things that keep us attuned.

We live in a world where happy times may be hard to find. Where a lie can become the truth simply through repetition. This happens more than I care to think about.

Unfortunately, this has also happened with our knowledge about food. Saying we’ve been brainwashed about what to eat and how our bodies work may sound harsh — but it’s true.

For example, if you asked the average person whether gluten is bad and should be avoided, what do you think they would say? Most would answer yes.

But since gluten itself is not inherently bad, how did so many people — many of whom don’t even know what gluten is — form such a strong opinion?

Repetition. That’s how brainwashing works. It’s also how advertising works. It’s how the media works — and they are among the biggest amplifiers of incorrect food and health information.

Here’s an example of what the media can do. An article about Matt Damon’s weight loss cited his avoidance of gluten as the reason he lost weight.

If Matt has an issue with gluten and removing it made him feel better, that’s great — for him. But that isn’t news. And the media shouldn’t present it as such, because it implies that removing gluten helps people lose weight.

If Matt was routinely experiencing bloating, gas, or water retention due to a wheat sensitivity, then, of course, removing it would lead to weight loss — much of it likely water, not fat. The number on the scale doesn’t tell that story. Nor can his weight loss be definitively attributed to removing gluten itself. It could just as easily be that by cutting out gluten-containing foods, he simply ate fewer calories overall.

And that’s the real problem. The article never explores how or why the weight loss occurred. It’s all about Matt and what he thinks.

And frankly, I don’t care what Matt thinks. That’s not how I want to get my food and nutrition information. I like Matt — but personal experience isn’t the same as understanding how food works. We’ve seen this pattern before. Celebrities who adopt Paleo or carnivore diets often claim that simply removing certain foods led to weight loss. The narrative repeats, and the nuance disappears.

Is one article enough to brainwash people? No — if only there were just one. Instead, there are countless articles attacking gluten. Practitioners repeat misinformation. TV commercials highlight “gluten-free” labels as if they’re inherently superior. Sitcoms and pop culture turn gluten into a punchline.

Now you have a formula for brainwashing.

A few years ago, I might have said avoiding gluten isn’t a big deal — just eat other grains instead. And for people with celiac disease who absolutely must avoid it, that remains essential. Other grains should be part of their diet. But for the rest of us? We need real knowledge about gluten-containing grains in order to make informed decisions.

And here’s why this matters.

People have been convinced not only that gluten is bad, but that all grains — or even all carbohydrates — are bad. Nothing could be further from the truth. I could walk through every claim and counter it with research. But instead, I want to share something more important: what your microbes think about grains, gluten, and carbohydrates.

Your gut requires a wide cross-section of foods to maintain microbial diversity and balance.

That diversity doesn’t happen when foods are removed. When specific foods disappear, specific microbes lose what they rely on to survive. Diversity decreases. Cross-support between microbes weakens. Symptoms and sensitivities begin to develop.

This is how we end up with a brainwashed public unknowingly harming valuable microbes — without the information needed to make good decisions.

Is that what you want? It isn’t what I want.

Grains are extremely important for certain families of gut microbes.

Gluten-containing grains don’t just provide calories. They deliver specific fibers, resistant starches, and protein fragments that certain microbes rely on for fuel, growth, and communication. When these foods are removed, those microbes lose their preferred food sources, which can reduce microbial diversity, disrupt microbial cooperation, and weaken the metabolic processes that support gut and whole-body function. Just reading that should give us pause.

If grains — just one category of food — play so many roles in feeding microbes and supporting health, imagine how much more complex this becomes when we consider all the foods our microbes need.

And when you think about it, how much do the people loudly talking about food and nutrition actually know about the gut microbiome? If your answer is “not much,” you’d be correct. So why do we let them influence us?

It’s an unfortunate reality, but when it comes to figuring out how we should eat, we are largely on our own — and this is deeply individual. It’s 2025. Don’t tell me gut health is a popular topic if we’re not willing to talk about what the gut actually needs. Don’t tell me there’s a product or diet that will fix every gut issue. It doesn’t work that way. And don’t look to the media — or even most medical professionals — for the full picture. It takes time for education to shift, and the microbiome is still poorly understood in many mainstream circles.

I only know what I know because I spend too much time reading the research.

One of the reasons I created the Gut Balance Method program was to give people a simple strategy for feeding their microbes. It helps fill in dietary gaps, supports a broader range of microbial species, and offers ways to reduce sensitivities, improve digestion, and understand how food and lifestyle influence gut function.

This is where the research is going, and it’s time we all realize this and question what we think we know about the gut. People remove foods because of sensitivities, too, including those for wheat or gluten.

Food sensitivities are not caused by the food itself, but by a gut ecosystem that no longer has the microbial capacity to handle it. This is something we can work on.

But as I talk about the program, I often see the disconnect. I’m asking people to unlearn ideas that have been repeated for years. Sometimes it lands. Sometimes it doesn’t.

In the end, it’s up to us to recognize misinformation and resist the urge to follow it blindly – no matter how often it’s repeated. The more we understand how the gut actually works, the more control we have over how we support it.

And if we have that control — let’s use it wisely.

Understanding how the gut actually works gives us back control. When we stop outsourcing our food decisions to headlines and trends, we can start making choices that truly support our bodies — and that’s where real gut balance begins.

If you’re interested in learning more, the Gut Balance Method offers a simple, practical way to support your gut by feeding your microbes without unnecessary restriction. You can also explore Simply Fermentation, which looks at how fermented foods support digestion and microbial health beyond probiotics.

Recipes: Chocolate-Covered Ginger or Dried Fruits + Pickled Ginger Carrots and Fermented Vegetables with Quinoa

I’m so happy to share these two recipes that go perfectly with this time of year and relevant to the topics in this newsletter.

Winter is a good time of year to nourish and sustain a calm gut. The winter cold months we need something to soothe and provide pleasure and chocolate does that for us. Eating raw or 70% or more dark chocolate is loaded with antioxidants and polyphenols.

Chocolate has many benefits such as

•  It’s anti-inflammatory,
• Protects the nervous system and heart,
• Improves gastrointestinal flora from antioxidants, anti-diabetic from polyphenols,
• Protects eye vision, helps cell expenditure from the mitochondria for energy.
• Includes minerals, such as potassium, phosphorus, copper, iron, zinc,
• And Magnesium for relaxing muscles,
• It is calming – the feel-good side of chocolate.

These benefits also release endorphins in the brain that make you feel good, boosting your energy, focus and mind set .

Another recipe I like at this time of year nurtures your gut flora. Fermented  and pickled foods are great all year round and is a good activity to do while you’re spending more time indoors. Fermented foods are also probiotic foods such as yogurt, miso, tofu, tempeh, kombucha and sauerkraut. You can easily make them yourself. It takes a bit of time for the vegetables to ferment (a day or two) and are delicious. They can be eaten with salads, grains, meats, beans or almost any meals

Here’s the recipe for Pickled Ginger Carrots, Sauerkraut (cabbage) with Quinoa.

Feel good and stay healthy!

UPCOMING!

I am offering nutrition consultations at a discounted fee of $45 for one-hour sessions. Please visit my nutrition page on my website to find out more and to book an appointment.

Meditation and Somatic movement sessions are now free. Meditation is on Tuesdays and Somatic Movement is on Wednesdays. You can book sessions on this page.

I love hearing from you! Please contact me anytime at [email protected]

My best in Health