E4: Mastering Ingredient Lists for Optimal Gut Health

Wave goodbye to a bloated belly and say hello to gut health mastery! I'm Karlee, your trusty navigator through the complex world of food labels, and this episode is your ticket to unmasking the hidden foes in your pantry. We're popping the lid off the marketing tricks that keep you second-guessing at the grocery store and delivering you the know-how to choose foods that truly nourish your gut. From decoding the deceptive 'low-fat' claims to identifying those sneaky sweeteners, join me as we arm ourselves with the wisdom to make every bite count toward a happier, healthier you.

The podcast aisle is brimming with actionable advice today, as we break down the essentials for a bloat-free existence. Learn which ingredients could be sabotaging your gut and how to swap them out with gut-friendly superheroes. I'll also share a sneak peek of my free webinar "Bloat Be Gone: Mastering Ingredients Lists for Optimal Gut Health," where live demonstrations will transform you into a food label deciphering pro. With a handy grocery guide in tow, you'll leave this episode equipped to make informed decisions that support your wellbeing, meal by meal. Ready to revolutionize your approach to eating for a vibrant gut? Press play and join the gut health revolution!

Struggling with bloating and tired of strict diets and expensive supplements? Download my free Ultimate Guide to Bloat Busting and discover simple, effective strategies for a healthier, bloat-free life. Learn about mindful eating, hydration habits, gut-friendly foods, and stress management. Get your free copy today at beyondbloated.com/ultimate-guide. Transform your gut health and feel lighter and more energized!

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Website: www.beyondbloated.com
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Email: karleeclose@beyondbloated.com

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Transcript

Karlee: 0:02

Welcome to the Beyond Bloated Podcast. I'm Karlee, a certified health coach, helping women under 50 ditch their bloat without having to follow super strict and stressful protocols. As someone who's struggled with all sorts of digestive issues for over five years, I know exactly how you're feeling. I also know that there's a way to feel better, and it doesn't have to involve tons of expensive supplements and insanely restrictive diets. Join me as I share all of my bloat-busting wisdom to help you say goodbye to that bloated belly and regain your confidence. It's time for you to move beyond bloated. Hello everyone, today is actually the launch day of my podcast, so, as you know, I record these in advance. This is episode four, but I'm recording this on the launch day of my podcast. So, as you know, I record these in advance. This is episode four, but I'm recording this on the launch day of my podcast. So episodes one and two were just released this morning and I want to thank you guys so much because the response has actually been really great.

Karlee: 0:59

I didn't expect so many people to be interested right away. I don't know. I guess it's always. You have a little self-doubt when you try to do something new. It's like is anyone even going to want to listen to me talk, but you guys do. You do want to listen and you've been reaching out to me telling me that you've been listening. You've been telling me that you're enjoying the podcast, and I've also gotten some requests on different topics that you guys want me to cover. So I'm definitely going to be listening. If you have a topic that you want covered, please Instagram me at beyondbloated. Send me an email carlyclose at beyondbloatedcom. I made this podcast for you, so tell me what you're interested in, what you want to learn more about. I'm very happy to make that happen. I'm very excited about today's episode because it's the first time that I'm going to be introducing you to my newest offer.

Karlee: 1:51

April 23rd it's a Tuesday at 4 pm Pacific time. I live in BC, so I'm going to be hosting a free webinar. I haven't done a webinar before, so this is going to be my first time. I'm a little nervous, but I'm also very excited. The webinar is called Bloat Be Gone Mastering Ingredients Lists for Optimal Gut Health.

Karlee: 2:14

I really, truly believe that being able to read an ingredient list is one of the skills that everyone needs to have. Unfortunately, big companies lie, labels lie, everything lies. So if you don't actually know what you're looking for. What ingredients mean, what labels mean. You could believe that you are eating healthy, when in fact, you are doing the complete opposite. I'll give you an example from my own life. So, as many of you know, I've been gluten and dairy free for five and a half years now.

Karlee: 2:49

Before I went gluten and dairy free, my life was a disaster. Hit up episode two if you want to learn more about that. But I ate a lot of processed foods, boxed foods. I didn't know how to cook. I just ate takeout and garbage. So I became intolerant to gluten and dairy. Long story short. So I cut it out and I started eating gluten and dairy-free products.

Karlee: 3:13

Now, in my mind, I was thinking this is healthier because I'm not eating gluten and dairy anymore. In a way, that was true, because I was eating so much processed food and takeout that I could no longer eat those things easily. Right, I was obsessed with Harvey's, for example. Harvey's doesn't have a gluten and dairy-free burger, so I couldn't eat that anymore. So it did help a little, in the sense that all of the trash food that I was eating was no longer as easily accessible to me. That I was eating was no longer as easily accessible to me, but I would go to the grocery store and I would just replace my Eggo waffles with the gluten-free version.

Karlee: 3:53

Different brand name, but same concept, right? Maybe it's a little healthier because it doesn't have enriched bleached wheat flour in it, but instead of that it still has a lot of sugar, probably still has seed oils in it, has ingredients that I can't pronounce and don't know what they are, but because I didn't have the knowledge on what I was putting into my body, why it mattered, I just replaced all of my gluten and dairy products with the ultra-processed gluten and dairy-free alternatives. So I was swapping one for one. That's why, initially, yes, my symptoms did ease up, because I was experiencing a lot of gut pain and diarrhea after eating gluten and dairy products because I had become intolerant to gluten and dairy. But my other symptoms did not go away. I was still bloated, I was still constipated, I did still have occasional diarrhea, not as bad as it was, but it didn't completely go away. I had seasonal allergies that have since disappeared. Lots of things that I have now cleared up were not leaving because I was still eating trashy food.

Karlee: 5:02

It just had the gluten and dairy-free label on it, which is a big misconception of oh, it's healthy. Brands know what you're looking for. They spruce up their label, put some green shit on there and they think, duh, it's healthy. But you flip it around and you read the ingredient list and sometimes my eyes pop out of my head. I'm like you put how much sugar in this. You're trying to kill me.

Karlee: 5:23

We need to know how to read an ingredient label. It is a basic skill that is not taught to us, but it really should be. My boyfriend's name is Liam, and when I told him that I was going to host this free webinar on how to read an ingredient label to increase your digestion, improve bloating, overall gut health, all that stuff he was like, oh my God, that makes so much sense. You are the queen of reading ingredient labels. You're obsessed with it. You'll pick up a product on the shelf and be like, hey, this looks like it's healthy. What do you think? And I turn it around and I'm like, boom, boom, boom, you can't eat it because look at this Now. I know I sound crazy, but I'm telling you there's so much garbage out there that's hidden in the ingredient label. They hide it on purpose. So ask, liam, I am the queen of ingredient labels. I will help you. I will teach you what you need to know so you are not purchasing trash day in, day out and thinking it's healthy. If you're thinking this sounds great, I want to be at this webinar but I'm busy on April 23rd. No problem, register for the webinar and once it's done, I will be sending out the recording to everyone who registered. If you are free on the evening of April 23rd, I would love for you to show up to the live webinar. I'm going to be doing a Q&A session at the end, so if you're there and you have questions, I will answer them. But that's not all. Everyone who registers for the webinar gets the live recording. If you show up, you get the Q&A session and you also get my optimal gut health grocery guide.

Karlee: 6:59

I've created a seven page guide that includes a list of foods that you should be wary of. So these foods you should probably limit them or try to avoid them completely. I've given the list and I've also given what that food is, why it should be limited or avoided, and examples of what kind of foods it's found in. So here's an example. Number one on the list is artificial sweeteners. The reasoning is they can disrupt the balance of gut bacteria and may contribute to digestive issues. Examples are aspartame, sucralose and some word that I can't actually pronounce, but it's also known as ACE-K just the fancy science term is out of my wheelhouse. So I have two pages worth of that type of information ingredients that you should limit or avoid for optimal gut health.

Karlee: 7:51

And then we move on to potential carcinogens in our food, because, yeah, they literally put carcinogens in our food. A lot of these have actually been proven to cause cancer and they just put it in our food anyway. That is messed up, but also something that we need to be aware of. So here's an example from this section, number one. We have carrageenan. I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. If not, so sorry. The concern is that some studies suggest potential inflammation, digestive issues and a link to colon cancer.

Karlee: 8:22

What is it found in Some processed foods, dairy products, and it's used as a thickening agent in certain beverages. Information like this is important. I know we can't avoid every terrible ingredient out there, because there's sadly too many, but if we know what to look for, we can limit it. I personally will pick a product that doesn't have carrageenan in it if there's an option. If I go out for dinner, I'm not asking the waiter hey, can you list every single ingredient in this meal that I just ordered? Because I'm avoiding this, this, this, this, this, because it's going to kill me. You won't make friends doing that, but I don't eat out that often. So if on occasion I eat a little carrageenan, oh well. But the products that I buy regularly, I want to make sure that there's no harmful ingredients in those, because that's something that I'm eating on a daily basis and then it starts to add up.

Karlee: 9:18

So the purpose of those two sections is not to scare you and make you afraid of everything. It's simply for information. These are things that most of us don't know about. We don't know that carrageenan can cause colon cancer. Right, it's not advertised. And we think why would they put ingredients in my food that's going to cause me cancer? That doesn't make any sense Because sadly, they don't care about you. They care about making money, and to make money they use cheap, really garbage quality ingredients, put it in your food and advertise it as a health food. So those first two sections again foods you want to limit, avoid. They could be causing you digestive issues, apparently cancer scary stuff. But then the third section.

Karlee: 10:00

I've got foods to include for optimal gut health, so this is a more positive. I want to end on a positive note in the guide. So these are foods that are going to improve your digestion. They're going to improve the diversity in your gut microbiome. Ultimately, they're supporting overall digestive well-being. So obviously not everyone is going to like these foods. Everyone has different tastes. Some people might be intolerant to these foods. If you're really having a lot of digestive problems in your early days into your gut health journey, you might not be able to tolerate some healthy foods that you later will be able to Keep that in mind. So don't just look at this list and think I have to eat every single one of these for good gut health.

Karlee: 10:44

I made it two pages on purpose. That way you have a good variety of things you can pick from. There's going to be stuff on here that everyone likes. So start with a few. Add them into your diet, weekly maybe. Then it becomes daily. Then you pick a few more and start adding those in. Change doesn't have to happen overnight and it should be gradual. That's the way we're gonna have long lasting change. If we try to do everything at once, it's not gonna last.

Karlee: 11:09

And to make your life even easier, the last page is an example of a one week grocery list for optimal gut health. So I've sectioned it off into your proteins vegetables, fruits, whole grains, some fermented foods, optional snacks that you can have. Of course, you can sub out some things if you're not interested in eating those, like I have in the fruit section some blueberries, some apples and some bananas. That's going to be your fruit for the week. If you were like me a few years ago and bananas make you super gassy and bloated, switch that out for something else an orange, who cares? The point is, I just created this list as an example for you to see. This is how I can prepare for the week. I can get these healthy whole foods. It doesn't have to be super complicated. It doesn't have to be super complicated to avoid all the nasty shit in our food. Simple, basic whole foods like bananas, apples and blueberries are literally the best thing for us.

Karlee: 12:10

So register for my webinar. You'll get this guide. You'll get the live recording once the webinar is over and if you're able to attend the live webinar, we can have a little chat Q&A session. Now you can register at beyondbloatedcom slash webinar. I'll drop the link in the show notes for you as well, and now I would like to talk a little bit about what's going to be in the webinar.

Karlee: 12:33

The main topic is obviously how to read an ingredient list to optimize your gut health. So that includes how to actually read an ingredient list. Do you know what you're looking for? Do you know that the first ingredient in an ingredient list is the most abundant ingredient in that product? No shade if you did not know that, because, once again, not something we're taught. Yeah, it's true. So if you look at your favorite product in your cupboard, flip it over what's the first ingredient, because if it's glucose, frucose or whatever that's called, put it away. Put it away, that's so bad we don't want to eat that.

Karlee: 13:14

I'm actually planning to do a live demonstration in the webinar as well, using an example from you. So if you have a product that you love, you think it's healthy, or maybe you don't think it's healthy, or maybe you truly just don't care and you just love that product. But you're curious, send it to me. So email me carlyclose at beyondbloatedcom. Dm me on Instagram at beyondbloated. Tell me the product name, like the company name and what specific product. If you could send me a link to it, that would actually make my life easier. I'm going to pick a few and I'm going to do them live.

Karlee: 13:51

So we'll go through the ingredient list. We'll talk about what's maybe a little bit alarming in that ingredient list, or maybe it's perfect. Maybe it's the perfect product and everyone should eat it. I'm also going to go over ingredients to look for specifically for bloating. So there are certain triggers for bloating that are very common. So these are things that you might be missing. Like you might be thinking you're eating a healthy product, but there's a specific ingredient in there that's been known to cause bloat, and so I'm just going to point that out something to look for.

Karlee: 14:22

I know I already mentioned earlier that artificial sweeteners are a product that you should be limiting and avoiding for optimal gut health, but they also have been linked to bloating and gas. Artificial sweeteners are often found in sugar-free products because, just because it's sugar-free, they still want it to taste good, so they sweeten it, but they use artificial sweeteners. If you struggle with bloating and you're eating a lot of sugar-free or low sugar products, you might want to check the ingredient label. Look for things like sorbitol, mannitol. Anything that ends in OL is typically an artificial sweetener and that could be contributing to your bloat.

Karlee: 15:01

Another topic I'm going to cover in the webinar is tips for navigating food labels, because food labels are confusing as shit. They specifically put confusing labels and symbols and wording on the food label so that you don't know what's going on. These big companies making all this garbage food didn't get successful by advertising their food as garbage. They hide it, for example, low-fat or fat-free products. So you're going to buy a yogurt slapped on there it says low fat, and you're trying to lose weight. So your natural response is to think I'm trying to lose weight, I don't want to eat fat, I'm trying to lose fat, and if it's slapped on there in big bold letters saying low fat product or fat-free product, it makes it sound good Like they wouldn't be advertising that if they're trying to hide something.

Karlee: 15:59

So you think this is great, I'm going to eat this. It's going to help me lose weight because there's no fat in it Whoopee. But if you know how to read an ingredient label, you turn that around. Number one ingredient sugar. I can guarantee you that eating a yogurt tube filled with sugar is not going to help you lose weight. So you've been tricked. They tricked you into thinking they're low-fat, fat-free yogurt, they're going to help you lose weight, but they loaded it with sugar. Now you're gaining weight and you're confused because you don't think the culprit is your low-fat, fat-free yogurt. So you start looking at other things like what could possibly be causing me to gain weight. That's just one example of a misleading label.

Karlee: 16:40

There are honestly so many it's scary, but I'm going to cover a bunch of them in the webinar so that they cannot trick you, because I don't want them to trick you. I don't want them to make money off of you feeling like you're doing something beneficial for your health, where you're doing the opposite. I hate that. After I give you the information on how to read a food label, what ingredients to look for for good gut health and what might be causing you to have some bloating and discomfort, you might be like, oh my God, what do I do? How do I eat? Everything that I'm eating is making me bloated. There's garbage ingredients and everything. I'm confused, so I'm not going to leave you hanging.

Karlee: 18:40

We're going to do a section on smart shopping in meal planning, so I'm going to teach you how to make thoughtful choices while shopping and planning your meals, so that you're not overwhelmed, like you have all this information but you don't know how to implement it. So I'm going to teach you how to incorporate gut-friendly foods into your diet by prioritizing nutrient-rich options. This is also where the grocery guide that you're going to get is going to help you out, because I said, the third section in that guide includes two pages worth of gut-friendly foods that you should be adding into your diet, and then the last page also includes the one-week grocery list. So that's a starting point, but then in the webinar, I'm also going to talk more about what gut-friendly foods to include, how much of them you should be eating. Like, for example, you got a plate of food. Fill about half of that with colorful fruits and vegetables. That way, you're going to get your fiber intake, you're going to get vitamins, you're going to get minerals. It's going to help you with constipation. If you're bloated, constipation is usually a culprit. Not enough fiber is a culprit for being constipated, so it all trickles down. It's all important Eating your fruits and veggies. It seems like a no-brainer, but sometimes we just need a reminder to be like yo. I put like two carrots on my plate, that's not going to do anything for me. I'll also help you out with some meal prep ideas, because I know it can be daunting as well If you're not used to eating these nutritious whole meals.

Karlee: 20:13

You're like me when I started and I was like everything came from a box. I don't know how to cook. So if someone told me, okay, this is how you should be eating, I'd be like I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to meal prep. I'm just rushed. You get hungry. You're like I want something quick. Throw a frozen pizza in the oven, boom, don't have to think about it. But we're going to try to change that and I'm going to give you some easy meal prep ideas that you can start slowly introducing. See what works for you.

Karlee: 20:45

Maybe you work an office job so you can't make your lunches at home. Every day I work from home so it's easy for me to have my lunch break, whip something up real quick, I'm good to go. But if you're out of the house all day, you need lunches that are already done. You want to bring them with you. Maybe you have a microwave, maybe you don't. These are things that are all going to play a factor in how you're going to meal prep. So I've got ideas. I've got ideas for all sorts of different lifestyles.

Karlee: 21:17

Super simple one that I'll share with you now relates to the fruits and veggies. So, as I said, it's easy to say eat more fruits and veggies, but how do you make that happen? You pre-cut and wash them. So you go to the grocery store. You have your optimal gut health grocery guide list. You've got your one week's worth of fruits and vegetables. You pile them into your cart. Boom, bought them, take them home. They sit in your one week's worth of fruits and vegetables. You pile them into your cart. Boom, bought them, take them home. They sit in your fridge at the back. They go moldy Shit. I just wasted $20 on produce. That's not what we want to happen.

Karlee: 21:51

So when you buy them, you want to pre-cut and wash them in advance so that they're ready to go. For example, you buy a bundle of carrots. You don't just put the carrots in the fridge advance so that they're ready to go. For example, you buy a bundle of carrots. You don't just put the carrots in the fridge and forget that they exist. You wash them, you cut them, you throw them in a little container so they're easy to snack on. Maybe you bought a hummus to encourage you to eat them, because you don't want to eat them on their own, but you like them with hummus. There are little things that we can do to make our lives easier in the future.

Karlee: 22:21

Basically, by the end of the webinar, what I want you to have knowledge on is I want you to understand the significance of gut health and its impact on bloating, because if you don't even recognize that what you're putting into your body is impacting your gut health and that's causing you to bloat, then there's no hope for change. Because me telling you, this is going to happen. If you do this without any background information, you probably won't believe me. So I'm going to educate you on why this actually matters. I also want you to be able to decipher an ingredient list to make informed food choices. I'm going to make sure you're not confused at what you're looking at. You know the first ingredient is the most abundant ingredient in the product, things like that. I want you to be able to identify specific ingredients that may trigger your bloating. So, like I said, the artificial sweeteners. Maybe you're eating lots of products with artificial sweeteners because you're thinking they're healthy. They're causing you to bloat. You had no idea. Now you will. I want you to be able to navigate food labels effectively to prioritize your gut-friendly options. So this includes not being tricked by the big companies that are trying to sell their shitty products to you as a health product. You're going to know. You're going to know that that fat-free product is not going to help you lose weight because it's loaded with sugar. And finally, you're going to know how to smart shop in meal prep so that you can support your gut health.

Karlee: 23:50

This is all going down April 23rd, 4 pm Pacific time. You can register now beyondbloatedcom slash webinar. Once you register, you're locked in. Even if you can't make the live session. You'll receive the recording of the webinar Once it's done. You'll also receive the optimal gut health grocery guide. But if you are free on April 23rd, I'd love to see you there. I'm doing the Q&A session at the end of the webinar. So start brainstorming your questions now and don't forget to send me your products that you want analyzed. So in the webinar I'm going to be looking at a few product ingredient labels and if you have a specific product that you're curious about, send it to me at beyondbloated on Instagram or email it to me carlyclose at beyondbloatedcom.

Karlee: 24:43

I really want to reiterate the importance of being able to read an ingredient label. I personally think it was the turning point in my health journey. If I didn't learn about reading an ingredient list, I would still be chronically bloated, I would be constipated, I would have dry, itchy skin all the symptoms that I was experiencing early on. They would not have gone away if I continued to eat ultra-processed food that I believed was healthy because that's how it was marketed to me. Gluten and dairy-free does not automatically mean healthy. Just because they slap a green tree on the label does not mean it's organic. There are so many misleading things out there on packages that companies do on purpose to take your money and ruin your health. So please join the webinar for yourself so you can learn how to read an ingredient label to optimize your gut health, get rid of your bloating and just feel good about the food that you're eating. If you can think of anybody else who would benefit from this webinar, please send this episode to them or send them the link to the registration.

Karlee: 25:50

I want everyone to know how to read an ingredient list. No more getting tricked by big companies. We're going to ditch our bloated bellies, we're going to eat well, we're going to feel awesome, so I can't wait to see you there and I'll talk to you later. Thank you for listening to the beyond bloated podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review, and don't forget to share this podcast with your fellow gut goddesses. If you'd like to chat about today's episode, send me a d DM on Instagram at beyondbloated. Until next time, bye.