How To Make A Delicious Gut Health Shake | Healthy Recipes | JJ Virgin

Hey, it's J.J. virgin, author of the New York Times bestsellers the Virgin Diet, the Virgin Diet Cookbook, and the Sugar Impact Diet. And of course, with all of those programs, a central focus is the gut, whether it's with the Virgin Diet, looking at leaky gut and how it can cause food intolerance, or the Sugar Impact Diet, where those sugars are feeding the bad bacteria in your gut and making you store more fat than you should, depleting your immune system. So I tell people to start the day with a shake. And I'm going to show you how to turbocharge that shake now and make it a gut healing shake, too. And it'll still taste good, don't worry. Because, of course, if it doesn't taste good, who's going to do it? So I'm going to share with you some of my special gut healing tactics. Now, one of them, you know, I have you start the shake with either coconut milk or almond milk or cashew milk. But. But I'm going to use something different today. And I'm going to use a sparkling probiotic drink from my girlfriend, Chakra Earth Song Kavita. And so we're going to use this. I actually drink a couple of these every single day. I'm sort of addicted to them. They're sort of my soda. They're not sort of, they're my soda. But I'm going to use this as the liquid in this shake. I'm going to take a swig, too, while we're at it. So yummy. But what's great here, this is a coconut fermented drink, and it's very healing to the gut. Helps restore the good bacteria in the gut. And it's all about having more good bacteria and less bad bacteria. It's all about the balance right now. Next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to add in some freshly ground flaxseed meal and flax different than chia. It's great with chia, if you're using it in a shake to throw it in, let it sit for a bit and puff up. With flax, you've got to grind it, so make sure that you grind it. I'm putting in some freshly ground flax. And the reason I love flax here is that flax can help soothe and heal the gut, the intestinal mucosa. So flax is great for that. Another thing that can help heal and soothe the gut is applesauce. So even though this is a medium sugar fruit, because it's higher in fructose it's blending it with a bunch of other stuff and it's got great fiber and, and also very gut healing with the pectins in it. All right, next, leaky gut support. This is an amazing, amazing product. Kind of like a little peach tea ish flavor that you can use that's got a bunch of great nutrients in it that are very gut healing and reduce inflammation. And I'm going to throw in a little more fiber because to me you can't get enough fiber. Because think what fiber does. Fiber feeds the short chain fatty acids in the colon. I said it. But also fiber is going to help you move things through the intestinal tract faster. You don't want things hanging out there. Think about, I shouldn't probably say this while I'm cooking, but you're not cooking, you're watching. I mean, think about if you went to the bathroom and you went number two and you just let it hang out there for a day. Like it would smell, right? I mean, you'd smell it throughout the house. So you don't really want things hanging out in you. And fiber helps move things along, give some bulk to your stool, give you poops that you can be proud of. Fantastic. Next important here is the type of protein that you're using. Now, I use either a plant based or a paleo inspired protein powder. This one's got a pea base and this one is defatted beef. What you don't want to do, especially with gut healing, is use things that can be really problematic for the gut that might cause food intolerances if you do them over time. Things like egg white or whey or milk protein. And soy, of course, because soy can be very hard on the gut and can lower thyroid function. So I'm using defatted beef here and I especially like defatted beef because it's so bioavailable. All right. And of course, I don't really have to say this, I hope, but make sure that whatever shake you're using is one that you like, that you enjoy, that you does not have any artificial flavorings, artificial colorings. Ideally it's very low in sugar. Mine have one gram of sugar. It comes from the plant compounds that I have in there. And bonus points if there's vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, probiotics, enzymes, plant compounds, all great fiber. Now you'll notice I've made a pretty fiber rich shake here because I've got fiber in the shake mix, I've got fiber in the extra fiber. I've got Fiber in the flaxseed meal and fiber in here. There's probably about 20, 25 grams of fiber in here, and that is so great for healing the gut. But if you have not been getting a lot of fiber in your diet, you don't just go from 0 to 25 overnight. You do it over time. So the average person gets something ridiculous like 5 to 14 grams of fiber in a day. I do more in my half of my morning shake. You want to get about 50 grams of fiber or more in a day, but do this over, say, a week or two, not overnight. And make sure as you're doing that, you're also drinking a lot of water throughout the day to help keep things moving along. All right, And I'm going to show you a little secret ingredient here, but we're going to throw a little ice in. And again, it just depends on how thick you want to make your shake. And I'm also going to throw in a little cultured coconut milk. This is awesome. From so delicious. It's got one gram of sugar. Lowest source of any kind of yogurt out there. Low source of sugar is this. And remember, when you're culturing things, you're getting now some of the prebiotic and probiotics. So it's also very gut healing. And I love coconut as well, because it's also antibacterial, antiviral. It's got something called lauric acid. Amazing for you. So a lot of really cool things in coconut. We love the coconut. All right, ready to blend. I'm just going to have that ready if I need it. I shouldn't. And one more thing. Bear with me. I'm just going to grab this out of the cupboard. Just thinking about this would be really fun to add because it almost makes it kind of seem like apple pies to throw a little cinnamon in. Yes. Yum. Because also, not only does the cinnamon taste great and it's naturally sweet, it balances blood sugar. All right. And I need a glass. My girlfriend Mary Agnes gave me these glasses that have all these inspirational sayings. Some. Some are. Some can't be repeated here. But this one says, the only judge of me is me. Although you might be watching this video judging me a bit right now. How am I doing? Okay, so let's see how this stays. I mean, literally, I will tell you, this tastes like apple pie. It's awesome. It's definitely something you could drink every day. So, again, I used some kavita. By the way, this comes in a lot of really yummy flavors. Freshly ground flaxseed meal, applesauce, leaky gut support, cinnamon, some cultured coconut milk, extra fiber vanilla shake mix and made this fabulous gut healing smoothie to your health. Give it a shot at home.