Do you have burning questions about endometriosis and nutrition that you have been dying to be able to ask?
Today is your lucky day!
I have collected questions from my audience on the things they would like to hear about most, so this one is for YOU!
Want to submit a question for a future Q&A episode? Head over to Instagram and send me a DM @endobellygirl
In this episode you will hear answers to questions like:
- What foods should I avoid to limit bloating?
- What are some healthy snack suggestions?
- How do I decide what kind of diet works best for me?
- What are some foods that help lower estrogen?
- How does eating meat and dairy affect endometriosis?
…and more!
Enjoy!
Episode website and full transcription
Resources:
Episode 3
Episode 2
Low FODMAP Diet
Chomps
Epic
Glucose Goddess
Sacred Cow
Cook’s Venture
Wild Pastures
Butcher Box
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Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. This may not be the best fit for you and your personal situation. It shall not be construed as medical advice. The information and education provided here is not intended or implied to supplement or replace professional medical treatment, advice, and/or diagnosis. Always check with your own physician or medical professional before trying or implementing any information read here.
Full episode transcription:
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the EndoBellyGirl podcast. Now, today’s episode is going to be a little bit different style of episode than what we’ve done in the past. So what I’ve done is I have reached out to my audience on Instagram as well as in my Facebook group, and I’ve asked them what their most burning questions are about endometriosis and nutrition.
And they came back with some amazing questions. And so what I’ve done is I have taken those questions, I’ve taken some time to put together some really valuable information to answer those questions, because I’m sure if one person has that question, probably ten others of you, if not a hundred others of you, have the exact same question.
So I’m here to do a little Q& A episode today. And I plan to do these fairly regularly, so if you didn’t get your question in for this episode but you have a question that you’d like to submit, I’ll put shoutouts every once in a while on social media, but you’re welcome to actually submit questions at any point in time.
I have an ongoing list that I’m collecting, so you can just find me on Instagram at EndoBellyGirl. Send me a DM. Let me know what your questions are, and I’m more than happy to include them in my next Q& A episode. Now, today’s questions are really focused around nutrition. I will, in the future, be doing episodes on supplements, and gut health, and lifestyle, and really, anything and everything that you need to know.
But today’s questions are all centered around nutrition. So, I have quite a list of questions. I am going to get through as many as I can today, and if there’s any left, I can always save them for a future episode as well. Now, if you don’t know this already, I do have a transcript going on for each episode.
So in case you’re driving and don’t want to… have to take notes along the way. Don’t feel like you need to. Just do what you’re doing. Go on your drive or your walk or however it is that you like to consume podcasts. I know I’m pretty much always multitasking when I listen to podcasts. I love listening while I drive or while I cook dinner or while I go on a walk.
So I totally understand if you’re doing that. Don’t feel like you need to take all the notes. I’m going to link in the show notes. Where you can go and find the transcript of this episode if you want to go back to that at a future date. Okay, I want to get through as many questions as I can today. So let’s dive in.
The first question I have today is what foods should you avoid to limit bloating? And I love this question. Again, I, this is the EndoBellyGirl podcast. So bloating is something that I work on a whole lot with my clients. It’s something I’m super familiar with. Now, the short answer to this question is that it’s all bioindividual.
I know that’s probably not the answer that you wanted to hear. You probably wanted to have an exact list of foods to avoid, but I am going to give you some guidance on that. Now, just to be clear on that, when I say it’s bioindividual, what I really mean by that is that many people have some sort of food sensitivities.
That’s why in my practice with my one on one clients, I like to use the MRT food sensitivity test so we can quickly get to the bottom of what foods your unique body might be reacting to. Now, when it comes to bloating, though, I actually am going to even take that a step further because if you’re experiencing bloating on the regular, most likely ties back to some kind of underlying gut imbalance.
That SIBO, which is small intestine… Bacterial overgrowth. It could also be something like IBS. And so if you really want to address the bloating, it’s going to be more than just avoiding certain foods or eating certain foods. You’re going to need to actually address the underlying gut imbalance. Now, I’ll link in the show notes back to episode 3 where we really dug into how I support my clients with bloating and other symptoms like that.
So if you’d like to go back to that episode and give it a listen as to how to actually address underlying gut imbalances, please feel free to check that out. And the reason for that is sometimes if you’re eating certain foods and you immediately experience bloating afterwards, it can be that you’re feeding certain types of bacteria in your gut.
So when you’re looking at those imbalances like SIBO or IBS, what really happens is there is an imbalance of the gut bacteria. So there can be… more of the bad gut bugs, less of the good gut bugs. And the thing is that the bacteria in your gut actually feeds off of the food that you eat, which can be a good thing.
The good kind of gut bacteria actually helps to break down certain types of food, fiber especially, that we can’t break down on our own. There’s only so much that your digestive system is able to do. And then beyond that, the gut bacteria in your intestines actually further breaks down the food. So that’s why we need those good gut bugs in there.
But oftentimes what happens is that you end up with an imbalance of that. So you end up with more of those bad gut bugs in there, and that’s when it can really contribute back to the bloating. So what happens sometimes is you’re eating certain foods, those foods are eating the bad gut bugs. And then you can end up experiencing more symptoms like bloating or abdominal pain and things like that.
Now, there are certain things that you can do to help to address, even through diet. Although, again, I don’t recommend doing this just through diet alone. There are things like, for example, the low FODMAP diet can be beneficial. Although this, I will say, caveat on that, it should be temporary. A lot of people I hear talk to are doing the low FODMAP diet long term.
Just, okay, it worked, so I’m going to do it forever. And that’s not really going to work because it is a restrictive diet. It is going to end up leading to nutrient deficiencies. And, again, diet alone is not going to address those underlying gut imbalances, which is really the issue. The food is not the issue.
The gut imbalance is the issue. Okay, now the low FODMAP diet, basically it avoids certain types of sugars, so a lot of that comes from fruits, there’s a whole long list of fruits and even some vegetables that you want to avoid if you’re doing the low FODMAP diet, so that’s going to be things like apples, mangoes, Pears, watermelon, any dried fruits, canned fruits, lactose, which is any dairy products, stone fruits like avocado, peaches, plums, nectarines, cherries, vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, garlic, onion,
If you’re listening to this and thinking, wow, that is a long list, you can see where this diet becomes overly restrictive and. can lead to nutrient deficiencies. And again, still doesn’t address the underlying imbalances. But it can be a tool to use temporarily while you’re working on healing those gut imbalances.
I will link in the show notes to Monash University, which is the place where they kind of came up with the low FODMAP diet. They have a lot of guidance on there if that’s something that you’d like to try. Although I really would recommend working with a practitioner on that. So, I know this wasn’t a direct answer to that question, but It’s one of those things where there isn’t, I, I want to give you the answer that’s going to be most helpful for you in the long run, and just giving you a list of foods to avoid is not going to be the most helpful option for you, so I hope that still gives some valuable information.
Okay. And then question number two is really along the same lines. What are some healthy snacks? And what are some suggestions that don’t give you endobelly? So, the second part of that question I’m going to refer back to my answer on question one there about foods to limit bloating. But I do definitely have a lot of recommendations when it comes to healthy snacks.
Now, when it comes to snacking, when you have endometriosis, honestly though, really this goes for everybody. If you just want to be healthy, I definitely have some wonderful suggestions on snacking. The first is that you don’t want to rely on snacking. I know it’s a common thing to just, I’m going to snack around for lunch or snacking instead of meals, snacking to avoid having to have a meal, that I don’t recommend.
Because you actually do want to have some nice, healthy spacing between your meals. And we’re going to talk about that actually a little bit more later with one of our other questions. But basically, you want to use snacking just if there’s some sort of a delay before you can have your meal. You don’t want to have too much time in between where your blood sugar starts to crash.
That’s where snacks come in handy. My best recommendation when it comes to snacking… is no naked carbs. So what that means is that if you’re going to have any sort of snack that involves carbohydrates, which is most snacks, just to be super clear, anything that, most of the things that come in a package and has a list of ingredients, odds are it is carb based.
Not always, but most things. So if you’re eating any kind of chips or Even snacking on fruit, you know, the healthier version of carbs or vegetables, all of that is carbs. If you’re going to be snacking on carbs, you have to always pair that with protein and or fat. If you’re eating carbs by themselves, it’s going to spike your blood sugar.
That creates a whole cascade of events in your body that you don’t want. That’s something we’re going to touch base more in a future episode, actually a little bit in one of our questions for today also. So you want to always pair. Your carbs with protein or fat, or just have a high protein or fatty snack, rather than the carbs.
The reason for that is that carbs burn up very quickly in your body, it’s like the quick burning energy. So it can give you that quick boost in blood sugar, but it also gives you a quick crash and it’ll leave you feeling hungry again in an hour. Or hangry, even better. If you’re focusing on protein, or fat, or both, that’s going to give you that much longer sustained energy.
It’s going to actually fill you up. It’s going to give you fuel to be able to get through the next few hours or so until you can have a full meal. So, some high protein snacks, I recommend protein in particular because most of us don’t get enough protein throughout our day. Okay? That’s another conversation that we’ll have.
But some of the high protein snacks that I really like and recommend are things like a boiled egg, that’s really easy. Something like nut butter or hummus with some veggies, you can have some, you know, carrots or cucumber along with some nut butter or hummus. Avocado is a good snack, that one doesn’t have the protein but it’s a nice, healthy fat.
Jerky sticks, this is not something that I recommend. on a day to day basis because they are more processed and you do have to look at the ingredients. So I have some specific brands that I like if you’re looking to have some jerky, and that can be beef or turkey or chicken, whatever you like. Some of them even have some salmon jerky, which is fun and different.
The two brands that I really like, and I have no affiliation, I just like them. These are the ones that I use personally. I like Chomps and I like Epic, and I can link those into the show notes as well so that you can have a reference on that. I do also like snack bars. I try not to eat those again on every single day because they are more processed than just eating whole foods.
But I do have a particular bar that I like. It’s called a Yes Bar. I buy those on Thrive Market and they are pretty good with the whole foods. They, they use coconut sugar, so it doesn’t, it has a much lower glycemic impact. You do want to be very careful with reading ingredient labels on these snack bars.
A lot of them have very high sugar content, even if they Look healthier? What are the actual ingredients? What’s in it? Can you recognize the ingredients? Or is it a bunch of weird stuff that you don’t know what it is? Because the whole point is to not spike your blood sugar and if you’re eating a bar that’s just full of sugar, then of course that’s not going to really work.
Another snack that I really like, if you tolerate it, is goat cheese. Or even sheep or goat’s milk yogurt. Those are both high protein. The goat and sheep’s milk can be easier to digest. Like, for me personally, I can’t tolerate cow’s dairy, but I actually do just fine with goat or sheep’s milk. So, that can be something to experiment with, if that works for you.
If you can’t tolerate any kind of dairy, of course, then just don’t use that option. I also really like smoked salmon as a wonderful snack. I like to have smoked salmon with some gluten free crackers. I like simple meals. Again, gluten free crackers are more processed, but you do kind of need to have some kind of vessel with the smoked salmon.
And I even will combine, I’ll smear some goat cheese on a cracker and then put some smoked salmon on top and just eat the whole thing. I think it’s delicious. That’s me. You can even slap a little slice of cucumber on there too to really round it out. I will say, though, just when you’re choosing snacks, even the healthier ones, be aware of your labels.
Just relying on products that say that they’re gluten free… It’s not always going to be your best bet. Look at the ingredient labels. Is it made of whole foods? What’s the sugar content? And also, very important, does it have vegetable oil? You want to try to avoid those at all costs. But those are some of my personal favorite snacks that I really like.
If anyone else has suggestions, feel free to hit me up on Instagram. Always open to more suggestions as well. Okay, question number three. How do I decide what kind of diet works best for me? This is a great question. I am going to link back to episode two in the show notes. That was a whole episode about how to create the best diet.
For your unique body, so that can be a wonderful reference that really goes more in depth on this shameless plug here. I’m also going to put out there working with a practitioner can really help you to dig in and figure out exactly what works best for you as well and take out that guesswork. So, if that’s something that you really find yourself struggling with and you need someone to guide you and help you out with that, I’ll also put the link to book a free consultation with me in the show notes.
I can give you some guidance on that as well. That being said, I do want to give you some guidance here as I’m answering this question. So, the basics to start with, if you’re just trying to figure out what kind of diet works best for you, just start with eating a whole food, nutrient dense diet. Keep it simple.
Is it a real food? Can you find it in nature? Eating a wide variety of those types of foods gets you a nice nutrient dense diet. That’s a good place to start. Do that for a couple of months at least, see how your body feels, and then if you’re still having certain symptoms pop up, you find that you need deeper support, then we can go from there.
I will also say, you want to learn to follow your intuition. Right. It’s especially these days with the internet. It’s so easy to just read what other people are doing and try that and just assume that that’s going to be the best thing for you. But really what. What you’re trying to do is figure out the foods that work best for your unique body, and you’re just not the same as anybody else.
So follow your intuition. If you’re eating a food and it just doesn’t feel good to you, you know that you feel yucky when you eat it, you can feel that you’re having some kind of reaction, cut it. If you’re eating a food and you feel like it makes you feel really, really good, listen to that intuition as well.
And along with that, you want to work on having an actual plan. Right? You want to do your best to not just try random things that you read on the internet, but have an actual plan to your diet, even if it’s that simple, what I mentioned before, just starting with the basics of creating a whole food nutrient dense diet.
That’s a plan. Right? The plan can get more complicated from there, absolutely, but that’s always a good place to start. A whole food, nutrient dense diet, and then from there it’s a matter of just pinpointing what foods work really well for your body and what foods your body may be sensitive to and may be mounting an immune response to.
Question four, do the glucose goddess methods help with endometriosis? This is a great question and the short answer to this is yes. Now, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, there is an account on Instagram, the Instagram handle is at GlucoseGoddess and it’s a woman who has a lot of really wonderful information about blood sugar and she actually does a lot of blood sugar charts where she’ll show the actual impact of foods when you eat a food, how it impacts your body, and even if you eat this food before that food, how that impacts your blood sugar.
If you eat at certain times of day, she has all kinds of information about blood sugar, and I actually really like her account. I think she shares wonderful information on there, so that can be a wonderful resource to check out. And blood sugar is a really important piece of the puzzle when it comes to endometriosis.
When your blood sugar is out of whack, it causes your adrenals to fire, which impacts your hormones. It impacts your nutrients because when your adrenals are constantly firing and you’re in that fight or flight mode, it can really burn up key nutrients like magnesium and zinc in particular. And so it ends up having this downstream effect on your body.
So absolutely keeping your blood sugar in check is super important. Because even things like your reproduction is not going to be prioritized when your body is under stress, including internal stress. When we say stress, it’s not just the stress coming from the outside, like the stress from your job or your relationships or traffic.
Stress can also be internal stress. And internal stress can be as simple as your blood sugar is dysregulated. Because, say, first thing in the morning, all you ate was a coffee. cup of coffee and a doughnut and your blood sugar spiked really high and then crashed back down and then all of a sudden you had to go get another cup of coffee just to keep you going.
That’s that blood sugar roller coaster. I’m sure you all are familiar with what I’m talking about. We want to get off of that roller coaster and we do that by eating balanced regular meals. That means getting plenty of protein, getting healthy fats, avoiding naked carbs like we talked about earlier.
Limiting or even avoiding sugar. Did you guys know that the average American actually eats 150 to 200 pounds of sugar per year? Which is insane! And a large part of that is because there are hidden sugars in everything. In sauces, in ketchup, in salad dressings, pretty much all processed foods. Not to mention the things that clearly have sugar in them that we’re eating all the time.
You know, your cookies and ice cream and all the things that are just become part of our day to day life. And when we’re eating that stuff all the time, body is constantly bombarded by sugar and just doesn’t know what to do with it all, we end up with these huge blood sugar spikes and dips, and it just puts a whole lot of stress on your body.
So yes, absolutely, check out Glucose Goddess, learn a little bit. about balancing your blood sugar, and you will definitely be a healthier human being because of it. Okay, next question. Will consuming foods with phytoestrogens increase my estrogen levels, even though I stay away from soy products? Okay, this is a great question.
The short answer to this is that it’s a gray area, and even, I’m going to even include soy in that gray area. Once upon a time, it was really thought that soy and phytoestrogens were completely on the no go list. It was thought that those foods really impact our estrogen levels, can raise estrogen in your body, which can contribute to things like endometriosis, that is, estrogen fed.
Now, what exactly are phytoestrogens? They are plants with estrogen like compounds that chemically resemble estrogen. So that includes things like soybeans are really the highest thing on that list, but can also include garlic, celery, carrots, potatoes, rice, peanuts, and more. So they once were thought to be really bad for us because they attach to estrogen receptors, which endometriosis itself has many of those.
There has been more research lately that shows that phytoestrogens may actually help to balance the estrogen in circulation. So there is a difference between phytoestrogens, which are in food, and xenoestrogens, which are Also estrogen mimicking compounds that are found in chemicals. These are two completely different things.
It’s still very much recommended to avoid xenoestrogens that are found in chemicals. So a lot of that it comes from things like your cleaning products, your personal care products. Anything that has a synthetic fragrance contains those xenoestrogens and those have been shown to directly impact your hormones.
Phytoestrogens, there seems to still be a little bit of debate on that. Some people are saying now though that the phytoestrogens can help to bring your estrogen back into balance. There are also some other cautions when it comes to soy and other phytoestrogens. One of those is that they may contain phytates, which are anti nutrients, which can end up kind of removing nutrients from your system.
They can affect your gut barrier. And a big piece is that they might also contain glyphosate, which is a very dangerous chemical. Unfortunately, it’s used on much of our food these days. Glyphosate is sprayed all over a lot of crops like wheat and soy and corn. So, the conclusion on this is consuming soy and other phytoestrogens in moderation.
So it’s not something that you need to completely, completely avoid, but it’s also not something that you want to be seeking out and purposefully trying to consume these foods all the time. When you are consuming those foods, you want to look for organic sources because that’s going to help to avoid the chemicals.
And even fermented soy can be a wonderful option if you’re, if you’re wanting to consume soy. The fermented forms of it can be really wonderful. My biggest recommendation, honestly, is just consuming a balanced diet. So, eating too much of anything can become a problem, right? But eating a little bit of it can be okay.
I’m going to tie this into our next question, because this is a question that kind of tagged off of the previous question, which was asking, I’m estrogen dominant. Will having edamame increase the estrogen? What are some foods that can help to lower estrogen? This is a great question, so this is going to be a little bit of an add on to the last question we already talked about.
The impact of phytoestrogens and whether we want those in our body, how much we want in your body. How much it actually impacts estrogen. When it comes to lowering your estrogen, honestly, this depends. And this is where a lot of people run into trouble. There are foods that can help to reduce the amount of estrogen in your system, but really what those foods are doing is helping your body to metabolize estrogen.
Now, your body metabolizes estrogen in three different ways. There’s three different pathways that your body can send the estrogen down to be metabolized. What really matters is which one your body is currently favoring because if your body is currently favoring a certain pathway I’m not going to go into the whole science of it today, but if your body is You’re already sending estrogen down a certain pathway to be metabolized, and you’re eating those foods that contribute to that same pathway that can actually end up being harmful in the long run.
Right? So cruciferous veggies are a wonderful example of that, like broccoli, cabbage, kale, cauliflower, things like that are cruciferous vegetables. Some people even use the extracted form of broccoli, which is called DIM. It’s a supplement that you can buy. That stuff can, can be really helpful, but only if your body is currently metabolizing estrogen in a certain way.
How do you know that? The only way to know is to test for it. I use a test in my practice called the Dutch test. It’s a dried urine analysis of your hormones. And that is really the way to find out how your body is metabolizing estrogen. If you struggle with estrogen dominance, doing a test like that can be really beneficial because then you can really see what foods are going to be most helpful for you.
Because, for example, with my clients, sometimes I’ll recommend more of the cruciferous vegetables, sometimes I’ll recommend more of the alum vegetables, like onion and garlic and leeks. It really just depends on how your body is metabolizing at the moment. I will say, step one, if you’re working on estrogen dominance, is to support your digestive system.
Because really the way that your estrogen ends up being eliminated from your body is through your poop. So, if you’re supporting your body’s digestive system and your ability to eliminate well and be able to release toxins including excess estrogen from your body, first step is to support how your body’s doing that, your body’s ability to, to poop.
Like I said, phytoestrogens are a gray area. So start by focusing on the basics. Again, eating a whole food, nutrient dense diet, managing stress and blood sugar can have huge impacts on your hormones, supporting your digestive health. Really focus on your body as a whole, rather than just addressing that symptom of estrogen dominance.
So, short answer to that question, don’t use food to lower estrogen unless You have tested to see how your body is metabolizing. And again, even then, I really recommend working with a practitioner who can guide you through that process and kind of keep an eye on things over time. But, that being said, food can be a valuable tool if you understand the inner workings of your body.
Okay, next question. How does eating meat and dairy affect endometriosis? Now, meat and dairy are two things that have been completely vilified, not just in the world of endometriosis, but the world as a whole. Here’s the thing. Most of the studies that show the quote unquote dangers of meat in particular are, have not been randomized controlled studies, meaning All the other factors are kept completely the same and the only change has been meat.
That type of study will actually show us the results. Instead, what they’re showing us in many of these studies are correlations between people who eat meat and the symptoms that they’re experiencing. But they’re not taking into consideration all of the other factors. If they’re eating meat, are they also eating, consuming vegetable oils?
What is their lifestyle like? There are so many other factors that they’re not looking at that can vary from person to person. Another thing that’s not really taken into consideration here is the sourcing of the meat because that makes an enormous difference in how it impacts your body. If you’re eating conventionally raised, CAFO meat, raised on those big, giant…
cattle farms where they feed the cows grain and things that they shouldn’t be eating and they never get to go outside, guess what? The quality of the meat is going to be much lower, it’s not going to contain very many nutrients, and it may in fact be inflammatory on your body. If, however, you’re eating meat that is grass fed and finished, it’s organic, the Cows raised were happy cows and got to enjoy sunshine and the outdoors and lived happy lives.
That meat is going to be much more nutrient dense. That meat is now going to actually contain omega 3s where the conventionally raised meat does not. That meat is going to be an excellent source of bioavailable protein, zinc, iron, forms that your body can really use and absorb. So, it can have a lot of benefits to your body that so many people miss out on because told about these studies that are actually just correlations.
Now, I personally used to be a vegetarian. I thought this was important that I share this story with you. you. When I was about 16 years old, I decided to stop eating meat altogether. I went off all meat, everything. I was complete vegetarian. And I actually did that for about six years. It was from age 16 until I was in my early 20s.
And what really happened during that time, and granted, I was not doing vegetarianism very well. I was eating processed fake meats. I was Basically, just eating things that didn’t have meat in them, rather than being very intentional about getting protein sources in the ways that I could. And that, unfortunately, is not always going to be the best bet, and I ended up feeling not very well.
I had no energy, and I was way too young to have that little energy. I was tired all the time, I was losing weight, I was having trouble building muscle, and I was actually a… a professional classical ballet dancer at the time, so building muscle was really important to me. I ended up becoming somewhat anemic because I wasn’t getting enough iron.
So I ended up, in my early 20s, I went back to eating just poultry and fish for a while, years actually. It wasn’t until my early 30s that I ended up adding in red meat, and I have to say I actually feel enormously better eating red meat, and that was post endometriosis diagnosis for me. So just to share a little bit with you, there is a wonderful book that I really like.
It’s called Sacred Cow by Rob Wolfe and Diana Rogers. I’ll link that in the show notes as well, and that’s a wonderful resource where you can learn more about the benefits of meat, how to source it well, and it kind It’s a nice myth busting book. It goes through a lot of the things that we believe about meat and why that’s not necessarily true.
So it’s a super interesting read. Dairy, I will say that’s more on a case by case basis. Dairy certainly can be inflammatory for some people, but that doesn’t mean that everybody needs to avoid it. Dairy does have a lot of health benefits. It has a lot of nutrients in it, it’s high in protein, so it can be very good for you if you can tolerate dairy.
However, that may not be the case for everybody. I personally have not been able to tolerate cow’s dairy since I was a young kid. I think I was about 4 or 5 years old when I first had to go off dairy. I know for my body it doesn’t work well, definitely does lead to inflammation, causes digestive issues.
It’s not good for me personally, but that doesn’t mean that every single endo warrior needs to go off dairy. If you’re not sure, dairy is definitely something that you can include in an elimination diet and then try adding it back in and see how your body response. So really that’s a bioindividual piece of the puzzle.
Our next question and actually last question for today kind of ties on to the last question. What types of meat are better to eat, poultry or red meat? Short answer to this question is the more variety in your diet that you’re getting, more nutrients. Again, this all comes back to sourcing. We talked a little bit about sourcing for red meat.
Why that’s important. It’s very similar for poultry. If you’re eating poultry, you want to look for organic and pasture raised poultry. That’s going to be best for, for the animals, especially if you’re someone like me who really cares about the impact that we have on our environment and the animals and the way that This whole ecosystem works.
It’s also important for your own personal nutrient status. So it’s a win win. I always say with protein just like with everything else that you eat, you want to just try to get as much variety in as you can, right? So that doesn’t mean You’re eating chicken, you’re just going to eat chicken all the time, that’s all you eat.
You want to be incorporating poultry as well as red meat as well as fish as well as, and fish is another thing that we want to be aware of the sourcing. Can you look for wild caught fish because again that’s going to have much more nutrients and much less toxins in it than the farm raised alternatives.
It’s important to know, too, that animal sources of protein are much more bioavailable than plants, meaning you get much more bang for your buck. So, there can be certain plant sources that may, on paper, be high in protein, but if your body is not able to actually break that down and use it, it’s not going to be as helpful.
Again, going back to that book, Sacred Cow, which I’m going to link in the show notes, explains a whole lot about that if you want to get more in depth than what we’re going to go into in this episode today. There are a few sources that I really like for high quality meats that I have used personally. My favorite is called Cook’s Venture.
I can also put a link to that in the show notes. I’ve also used Wild Pastures. I’ve also used Butcher Box. And those are all three. Sources where you can actually order meat online, which I know sounds super weird. I thought it was so bizarre at first, but now I love it. But they send you well sourced, high quality meats.
You can actually see the difference. They look way different than they do at the grocery store. If that’s not your jam or you’re not in a place where you can have this stuff delivered to you, you can also even check out local farmers. You may have sources right there in your area where you can buy meat directly from Farmers who know how to raise their animals in a humane way and and be kind and feed them well and all the things and if you have a personal relationship with the farmer, hey, all the better.
So find what works for you. But definitely look into the sourcing of any animal protein that you’re consuming. Okay, my friends, that is all that I have time for today as far as questions. Again, feel free to find me on Instagram at EndoBellyGirl and connect there. I put out shoutouts occasionally for questions or you can just DM me any time and I collect them along the way.
I do also have a Facebook group where you can find me which is
I will link to both of those places you can find me in the show notes, and if you need to submit any questions for future Q& A episodes, feel free. I would love to hear your questions. The more questions that you submit, honestly, the better it helps me to serve you, my wonderful audience. And if you haven’t already, please leave a review.
I read every single review. I love seeing them. Those reviews help your fellow endo warriors find this podcast so that I can help more people, which is really my mission here. All right, my friend. Have a wonderful day. We’ll talk soon.
