Another Cause of Constipation: Unripe Fruit
I want to talk about RIPENING fruit. A lot of people haven't a clue about how to do this. They end up eating fruit BEFORE it is ripe. Unripe fruit doesn't break down properly in your digestive tract. Which means you don't get all the nutrients out of it. Which means you've wasted your time eating it.
Unripe fruit also doesn't taste all that good.
Sour, in fact. Not very sweet. It has little aroma since most of the flavour is locked inside. Many fruits are very acidic when they are not ripe. They also contain raw undigestible starch which needs to be broken down into simple sugars.
Above all, unripe fruits are very, very hard. It's amazing to see people biting into unripe pears, hearing the tasteless fruit crunch in their mouth. Unlike apples, which can be crunchy, pears are meant to be soft.
Eating Fruit in an Unripe State is Very Hard on Your Digestive Tract
Ripening, in fact, is quite a fascinating process. Ethylene, a simple hydrocarbon gas, will suddenly be released -- this often happens when the fruit is picked, falls to the ground or is damaged. The ethylene process begins when the fruit realizes its life is at an end. Ethylene triggers genes in the fruit to start releasing enzymes that begin the ripening process. This attracts the interest of animals.
You see, fruit has survived for thousands of years because it knows how to make itself attractive to animals (animals aren't into hard, sour, dry, unripe fruit.) The wild beast eats the ripe fruit -- seeds and all. The seeds often pass whole through the gut of the animal and are deposited into the soil again (encased in fertilizer to boot). From some of those seeds a new fruit tree will sprout.
So fruit doesn't become ripe and attractive until it has fully mature seeds inside of it. Otherwise, animals would eat the fruit before the seeds were present. In such cases, fruit trees and vines may have become extinct thousands of years ago.
Another Sign That Fruit is Unripe is its Color...
Bananas are a great example. They are green when they are unripe, yellow with black spots when they are ripe. Bananas are picked in a very unripe state when being sent to countries like Canada and the United States. If they were picked ripe, they'd arrive bruised, squashed and rotting.
Now, of course, when fruit gets too ripe, it becomes mushy and begins to ferment. Bananas, which release a high quantity of ethylene, can go from green, hard and scentless to black, mushy and smelling like alcohol in a matter of days.
But there are a few tricks you can use to enjoy ripe fruit whenever you want. Otherwise, if you simply let "nature take its course" you'll end up with days where no fruit is available, followed by more ripe fruit than you can eat.
Right, now I just want you to avoid eating fruit if it's...
• green (unless that's its natural colour)
• hard
• sour
• scentless
Of course, everything is relative to the species of fruit. A ripe lemon is, of course, going to be sourer than a ripe fig. A ripe apple more hard than a ripe orange, etc.
Oh yeah, one more thing: If your fruit isn't ripe, DO NOT put it in the refrigerator. Your fridge is too cold. It'll make it taste like rubber. More about this next article (including when you should put fruit in the fridge).
Yours in Natural Health,
Dr. Karlo Mauro, BSc, BA, MSEd, ND
Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine
Constipation Relief Strategies For Women
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Over the last 12 years Dr. Karlo Mauro has helped thousands of patients with their gastro-intestinal issues. He works out of his clinic near Windsor, Ontario on the border to Detroit. For more information on his naturopathic practice, go to www.theNaturopath.ca.
In 1992 Dr. Mauro began training in the martial art of Aikido Yoshinkai. In 2003, he earned a 3rd degree black belt. It was Aikido that originally opened his eyes to living a more natural lifestyle -- staying more balanced physically and mentally.
In 1995, he began receiving help from a Naturopathic Doctor for some digestive trouble he was experiencing. This first introduction to natural medicine resulted in him meeting other Naturopathic Doctors and finally making a life-changing decision.
Despite the fact he had just completed 6 years of university, including a Masters degree in Education, Dr. Mauro abandoned his teaching career, entered Naturopathic College, emerging four years later an ND.
Dr. Mauro lives in Windsor, Ontario with his wife Natalia, son Alek and daughter Ella. When he's not at the clinic, he's either watching Alek play golf, watching Ella in gymnastics class or coaching Alek's soccer team.Though he's helped patients with a wide variety of disorders, he's found the most success helping people with gut trouble. "I like the fact it's so easy to see an improvement," he says. "If you're constipated, only going once a week, and you start going everyday, you KNOW you're getting better."
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Eva V., a 52 year old
woman drove 3 hours (one way) to come to
my clinic to tell me her story. She had bowel troubles since she was a child...
Many fertility specialists have seen a definite link between constipation and the inability to conceive or carry a baby to full-term. It makes perfect sense... "If your colon is overloaded with toxins," explains Dr. Mauro, "those toxins will back up into your liver and then into your bloodstream. It's less than ideal circumstances for balancing hormones and bearing a healthy child." Though Dr. Mauro makes no guarantees that having one bowel movement a day will ensure fertility, it should nonetheless help make getting pregnant much easier. You should consider regularity a natural component of any fertility program. |
Dr. Mauro's credentials and experience back up his expertise. He has successfully completed TEN years of university studies...
Doctor, Counsellor, Sensei, Teacher and Coach all in one! You can visit his clinic's website or phone his clinic at (519) 739-2402. Yes, Dr. Karlo Mauro is the real deal! |
Sometimes, even if you are going once a day, it's difficult because your stools are too hard and dry.
Ideally you want your stools to be about the consistency of a ripe banana. Anything looser or thinner is undesirable.
One of the problems with laxatives is that they don't produce this banana-like quality. Instead they bring on diarrhea. Diarrhea is dehydrating and depleting of valuable nutrients (such as potassium and sodium).
Dr. Mauro's 7-part email series and his collection of 37 Constipation Relief Strategies for Women help produce this ideal consistency because they help you retrain your bowels to work properly. When your colon is in good health, it will naturally make sure your stools are neither too dry nor too hard.
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Are you confused about how much you should be eating? Do you feel like you're already full after your first bite of food?
It's no wonder," says Dr. Mauro, "that so many women suffer eating disorders. If you're not evacuating, it's hard to make room for more food. If waste can't find its way down and out, it's going to make your stomach bulge outward and upward.
In fact, your colon can expand three times its regular size (along with your stomach). The secret to a normal appetite is making sure you are emptying your bowels every 24 hours."
You should have no problem achieving one or two bowel movements a day, if you make the simple changes outlined in 37 Constipation Relief Strategies for Women. This should happen in less than 30 days of using these strategies.
Some medical doctors will prescribe birth control drugs to help with constipation. They believe this will help balance the hormones. Like most synthetic hormones, birth control pills come with complications.
Many women experience breakthrough bleeding, decreased appetite, depression, headaches, low libido, urinary tract infection, skin problems, gum inflammation. They also have an increased risk of contracting viral diseases.
Considering all the risks, is this really a good way to "balance your hormones?" Especially when natural methods may produce far superior (and economical) results...
Oftentimes hormonal imbalance is caused by a high consumption of white flour and sugary foods. These same foods turn into a glue-like substance that further clogs up your bowels.
By following the natural remedies and lifestyle changes in 37 Constipation Relief Strategies for Women, you'll be helping to bring your hormones into balance, naturally. Likewise, getting your bowels moving will stop toxins from backing up into your bloodstream, which will further knock your hormones out of whack.
"Many medical experts today agree that most illness begins in the colon and that the colon may be the single most critical organ in the body. As the colon becomes a stagnant cesspool, failing to move the poisons from food waste out of the body on a regular basis, the toxins back up.
"It is estimated that there are 36 different poisons that come from the colon, and as these accumulate in the bowel over a period of weeks, months or often years, they spread into your liver, gallbladder and other organs; into your blood; into your tissues and finally into your cells."
-- Women's Menopause Health Newsletter, October 2007
"A lot of elderly people are taking senna," explains Dr. Mauro. "It's an herb that causes your colon to flush itself out. Many people must drink it as a tea everyday in order to keep on going. The nerves and muscles in their colon are totally zapped and dependent on the stuff. It's a nightmare trying to get them off it."
Senna is one of the few herbs medical doctors prescribe. Unfortunately, it's harmful to use on a daily basis. Once a week as part of a colon cleanse is okay, but more frequently is impairing.
The effects of senna can be fairly drastic," explains Dr. Mauro. "They tend to flush out too much of the healthy bacteria. It's like having diarrhea. It's dehydrating and depleting of your electrolytes (potassium and sodium)."
I don't know about you but I don't want to be dependent on an herb to make me go. Worse still, you have little control over your bowel movements. You go when the herb is ready to make you go. There's not much warning.
That's fine if you're 80 and don't leave home. That's not great when you're on your way to soccer practice to pick up the kids.
Senna is also dangerous for people with high blood pressure, kidney problems or edema.
Healing and strengthening your colon so it can function on its own, as described in 37 Constipation Relief Strategies For Women, is the way to go.
Over 4 million Americans, each year, are affected by constipation, according to the The National Institute of Health. That works out to about 2.5 million doctor visits and $725 million in over-the-counter laxatives. The majority of those visits and purchases are by women.
As you can see, there's a lot of money in keeping people constipated and reliant on laxatives. No wonder Dr. Mauro's 37 Constipation Relief Strategies are not more well known.
Digestive disorders account for the largest amount of lost time from work; they are the number one cause of disability absence; they comprise one-sixth of all hospital admissions. It is acknowledged by conventional medicine that at least 40 percent of all cancers originate in the gastrointestinal tract. Many alternative practitioners would say the number is much higher."
— Women's Menopause Health Center Newsletter , October 2007
"And yet, as the old expression goes, death begins in the colon. Don't believe it? Ask any coroner. Autopsies often reveal colons that are plugged up to 80 percent with waste material."
— Martin Zucker,
Vegetarian Times,
March, 1998
"[Toxic waste that built up in the colon turns into] a sinister world of monstrous creatures that feed on living flesh: parasites..."
"In fact, parasites have killed more humans than all the wars in history."
Find out how to kick parasites out of your colon in Strategy 33, on page 35, of 37 Constipation Relief Strategies For Women.
Investigators in the United Kingdom conducted a study on 34 women with chronic constipation. The investigators found a direct demonstrable link between certain aspects of central brain activity -- anxiety, depression, feeling 'unfeminine' -- and gut dysfunction. —Gut, August 2001 |
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