During July I am doing everything I can to optimise my gut health. I’ve gathered the below gut healing recipes and supplement recommendations from my 8-week Restore Your Gut programme. 

I’ve included here a few gut-healing teas, a classic chicken bone broth recipe as well as a couple of ideas of how you can use the bone broth in soups. For all the recipes and the full 8 week course you can click the link above.

GUT HEALING TEA – LIQUORICE & PEPPERMINT

Liquorice is a demulcent herb which will soothe the gut lining and peppermint will help with digestion. 

• 1 licorice root tea bag
• 1 peppermint teabag 

Method: 

Pour boiling water into a large mug and add the tea bags and steep for at least 3 minutes (the longer the better), then remove and discard the tea bags.

IMMUNE BOOSTING TEA 

This is an amazing antiviral tea that is wonderful to boost the immune system. It will also aid in digestion. You need to juice the ginger first to get the full benefits. Leftover ginger juice can be stored in ice cube trays in the freezer. 

• 500g fresh root ginger
• 1 lemon 
• Cayenne pepper
• Manuka or raw honey 

Method: 

Juice the ginger in a juicer. Add 2 tbsp. of the strong ginger juice to a mug with the juice of ½ fresh lemon. Add a pinch of cayenne pepper. Top up with boiling water. Add honey to sweeten. 

ANTI-AGEING TEA

Green tea and Earl Grey tea made with bergamot oil have anti-ageing properties. The coconut oil has antimicrobial properties and will give your gut health a boost. 

• 1 green tea bag
• 1 whole citrus bergamot Earl Grey tea bag
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon or 1 cinnamon stick

Method: 

Pour boiling water into a large mug and add the tea bags and cinnamon or cinnamon stick. Let steep for at least 3 minutes (the longer the better), then remove and discard the tea bags.

Add the coconut oil. Mix it all together for 20 to 30 seconds. You can also blend the tea to help mix the flavours and emulsify the oil.

YOUR NUMBER 1 GUT HEALING FOOD: BONE BROTH

Bone Broth is rich in collagen, minerals and gelatin – components that are key for rebuilding the gut and gut lining. This beautiful broth can be sipped throughout the day or made into soups and stews.  

Bone Broth should even be considered a supplement because it is so medicinal when it comes to gut restoration and repair. The amino acids in the bone broth support the healing of your intestinal lining. The gelatin in the bone broth also supports your joints and skin health and reduces cellulite.

Bone broth is loaded with calcium, phosphorous and magnesium, and is great for those who have suffered from mineral deficiencies or often feel weak. This is also the ideal food if you are training for competitions and want to add a boost of liquid fuel to your diet.  

I love to add sea vegetables such as dulse or nori flakes to my bone broth as this is another way to add the vital minerals we do not get from water these days. 

Chicken Bone Broth

Ingredients: 

• 1 x 2kg chicken (or 1-2 raw or cooked chicken carcasses)
• 1 onion 

• 2 carrots 

• 2-3 celery stalks 

• 1 tbsp. whole peppercorns 

• 2 cloves of garlic 

• 1-2 bay leaves 

• Fresh herbs – thyme, rosemary etc. 

• Sea salt

Method: 


1. To begin poaching your chicken, first take out the little bag of giblets, rinse the chicken under cold running water and let it drain for about five minutes.
2. Roughly chop the onion, carrots and 2-3 celery stalks (no need to peel).
3. Transfer the chicken to a large pot. Add the chopped onion, carrots and celery, along with a tablespoon of whole peppercorns; 2 cloves of garlic (peeled and crushed); 1-2 bay leaves and some fresh herbs. I usually add a sprig or two of fresh thyme, but rosemary, marjoram, oregano, tarragon or even fresh parsley also work well.
4. Cover the chicken with cold filtered water, add a tablespoon of sea salt, and bring it to a boil. Then lower to a simmer, cover with a tight-fitting lid and cook for about an hour and twenty minutes. You’ll see a few bubbles rising up gently, but the water will be well short of a full rolling boil.  
5. After 1 hour and twenty minutes, remove the chicken and transfer it to some sort of big roasting pan, a baking sheet or even a large bowl to cool. 
6. Let the poached chicken cool for about five minutes and then pull it apart into the main eight pieces (two each of breast, thigh, drumstick and wing). Strip the meat off the carcass. 
7. To make your bone broth put the chicken carcass back into the pot and put the pot back on the heat.
8. Cook on a gentle simmer for a further 6-8 hours. You can also make this in a slow cooker for 8-12 hours, or an Instant Pot on the stew setting for 2 hours. 
9. Strain and cool the stock. This is the base of your gut healing soups and stews for your intermittent fasting days. 

You can use the succulent poached chicken meat in all kinds of recipes, like chicken salads and soups.

The chicken bone broth can be used as the base for the Chicken Bone Broth Soup recipe on the next page, or you can use it as the liquid base for any flavour of soup you would like to eat on your Gut Healing, Intermittent Fasting Days. 

Basic Vegetable Soup Technique

Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:

• Olive oil 
• 100g onion
• 100g potato or sweet potato
• 300g any vegetable of your choice, or a mixture
• 1.2 litres stock
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to season

Method:

1. Add the oil to a heavy bottomed saucepan. Add potatoes and onions and turn them until well coated. Sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper. 
2. Cover and sweat on a gentle heat for 10 minutes. Add the vegetables and stock. Boil until soft. Do not overcook or the vegetables will lose their flavour. Adjust seasoning.
3. Blend until smooth. 

Chicken Bone Broth Soup

Makes 4 bowls of soup

Ingredients: 

• 1 onion 
• 2 stalks celery 
• 2 carrots
• Extra virgin olive oil 
• 1 litre bone broth 
• 200g cooked chicken 
• Sea salt 
• Freshly ground black pepper

Method: 

1. Finely chop the onion, celery and carrots. Add to a saucepan with a little oil and sauté for 5 minutes. 
2. Add the cooked chicken and bone broth, season with salt and pepper, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. 
3. You can eat the soup as it is, or blend until smooth if you prefer a blended soup. 

Asian flavour: Add a can of full-fat, additive-free coconut milk with a pinch of chilli flakes, a thumb-sized piece of grated fresh ginger, 1 grated garlic clove and a pinch of turmeric and ground or fresh coriander and blend until smooth.

SUPPLEMENTS TO REPLACE BONE BROTH: COLLAGEN OR BONE BROTH CONCENTRATE

If you don’t want to make bone broth (although this is one of the key aspects of this plan), you can get some of the same benefits from collagen. Collagen should be on your list of gut-health foods because it helps heal your gut lining. In addition, it’ll boost your metabolism, increase your energy, diminish cellulite, and help detoxify your body.

I love the collagen from the companies Great Lakes or Edible Health.  

Add one tablespoon to your coffee, smoothies, cup of water, green juice or even mix it into coconut or almond milk yogurt for a boost of protein.

Gevity Rx (previously Meadow & Marrow) Bone Broth Concentrate is another alternative for you (albeit an expensive one) if you do not have time or do not want to make your own bone broth. Simply add 1 teaspoon to a cup of hot water for instant bone broth.

ALOE VERA JUICE FOR GUT HEALTH

There is one food-supplement that you may find helpful and that is Pure, Organic Aloe Vera Juice. 

In a 2018 meta-analysis entitled ‘Aloe Vera is Effective and Safe in Short-term Treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome’, researchers looked at 3 Randomized Controlled Trials including 151 patients with IBS. They found that patients who used aloe vera had a significant reduction in IBS symptoms compared to placebo groups. The researchers concluded that aloe vera is a safe and effective short-term treatment for IBS. 

If you suffer from constipation or IBS with constipation, consider pure aloe vera juice for 4 weeks. I like Fushi’s Organic Aloe Vera Juice. Take 1 tbsp. about 15 minutes before each meal. 

Two kiwi fruit a day to keep constipation at bay!

Several studies have examined the role of kiwi fruit in the management of constipation and/or IBS-C. Kiwi fruit appear to be a safe and effective treatment for constipation. They are also low in FODMAPs, healthy and relatively inexpensive, making them a great addition to your everyday diet. 

You could also try prune juice for constipation (an age-old, tried and true remedy), or eating whole prunes. You could consider adding stewed prunes to your stewed apples if constipation is an issue for you. 

About Me

Hello, I’m Chloe. I’m a nutrition and health coach and I’m on a mission to inspire & support women so they can go from feeling fatigued to feeling fabulous! 

I help women who are FED up of being overweight, addicted to sugar and feeling tired ALL THE TIME to lose weight and optimise their health by fixing hormonal, digestive, autoimmune and energy issues.

My step-by-step programme, Revitalise, will help you lose weight, get back your energy, restore vitality and create lifelong health using the power of beautiful & delicious REAL FOOD. 

I’m here to make it easy for you to eat healthy, delicious food without counting calories or feeling deprived. You’ll reset your relationship with food, shift your mindset and build new habits for a complete health transformation!

Disclaimer: All information provided is for informational purposes only, and is not to be construed as medical advice or instruction. Please consult your GP or a qualified health professional on any matters regarding your health and wellbeing. I am a nutritional educator and do not dispense medical advice nor prescribe treatment. While nutritional support can be an important complement to your medical care, a nutritional therapy program is not a substitute for the diagnosis, treatment, or care of a disease, illness, or injury by a medical provider. Nutritional evaluations and lifestyle assessments are not intended for the diagnoses of disease. 

Disclaimer: chloearchard.com is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk. Buying through our affiliate links does not cost you anything but helps us keep this website up and running. Thank you!

All information provided within this blog post is for informational purposes only, and is not to be construed as medical advice or instruction. Please consult your GP or a qualified health professional on any matters regarding your health and wellbeing or on any opinions expressed within this blog post. The information provided in this blog post is believed to be accurate based on the best judgment of the author. However, you as the reader must be responsible for consulting with your own GP or other health professional on matters raised within. chloearchard.com will not accept responsibility for the actions or consequential results of any action taken by any reader.

The material in this blog post may include information, products or services by third parties. Third Party Materials comprise of the products and opinions expressed by their owners. As such, chloearchard.com does not assume responsibility or liability for any Third Party material or opinions. The publication of such Third Party Materials does not constitute our guarantee of any information, instruction, opinion, products or services contained within the Third Party Material. Publication of such Third Party Material is simply a recommendation and an expression of our own opinion of that material.

It’s the last day of the month so today I thought I would reflect on June. I committed at the start of June to blog every day for an entire year, and I am pleased to say I have managed to stick to this throughout this first month. I’m calling this project ‘The Year of Health’ and so far I’ve blogged everyday, and it has really helped keep me accountable and to stay focused on my goals. 

Health 

I wanted to focus in June on optimising my nutrition. I’ve been following a low-carb diet along the lines of the Ketoflex diet recommended by Dr. Bredesen. My aim was to eat 6-9 different types of vegetables, fresh herbs and fruit everyday, to avoid gluten, grains and sugar and to use lots of high-polyphenol extra-virgin olive oil. 

I have been writing down the fruits and vegetables that I eat each day, and I have usually been eating 10+ types each day. This is massively helped by foraging – I collect small handfuls of different wild greens on my daily walk with my dog, and I add them to salads, coleslaw or fry them up with mushrooms for breakfast. Often I will have 3-5 different types of wild greens in a day. 

This was a salad I had this week made from dandelion, garlic mustard, fat hen, ox-eye daisy and ground elder. 

In my work as a health coach I try to encourage my clients to increase the number of different fruits and vegetables they eat over the course of a week. This increases the amount of micronutrients you are consuming, and is also beneficial for gut health – increasing the amount of prebiotic fibres you are eating which will feed friendly bacteria in the gut. 

I have avoided gluten completely throughout June. Although I haven’t been tested for gluten intolerance, I am pretty sure I am intolerant to it as eating it makes me feel terrible. I usually get my clients to cut out or cut down on gluten and I am yet to meet anyone who doesn’t feel better with less gluten in their diet. I’ve avoided nearly all grains, although a couple of times I have had some white rice. 

I was going to eliminate dairy, but have found this harder. I ended up having Parmesan cheese, mainly because it is a good source of calcium. I realised after tracking my food using Cronometer I was generally low in calcium most days when I had no dairy. Although you can get calcium from plant foods, it is often less bioavailable.

And some good sources of calcium such as tinned fish with the bones are not something I eat. I also had some feta on salads, because it’s creamy, saltiness is the perfect accompaniment to the bitter taste of wild greens!  

I found out before starting the month that I was low in vitamin D, so I started on the ‘Vitamin D & Co-factors Protocol’ which I wrote about here. I was hoping to get some vitamin D from the sun this month but the weather in Kent has been pretty rainy! 

Happiness

As well as working to optimise my health as part of this project (and pass on useful takeaways to my health coaching clients and anyone reading this blog), I am also using Action for Happiness’ monthly calendars to focus on the 10 Keys to Happier Living over the course of this year. 

Their theme for June was Joyful June: daily actions to help you appreciate the little things and find more joy. Each day I have been trying to complete the suggestion from the calendar. The most impactful thing that boosts my feelings of happiness is ‘Taking in the Good.’ 

I learnt about this in Rick Hanson’s wonderful book Hardwiring Happiness. 

In effect, the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones. This is such a shame, because most of our daily experiences are positive, or at least neutral. We generally have fewer negative experiences, but these are the ones that we focus on. 

Here’s how Rick Hanson describes you take in the good:

• Look for good facts, and turn them into good experiences.
• Really enjoy the experience.
• Intend and sense that the good experience is sinking into you.

Some of the Good Things that I experienced in June were:

• An amazing experience foraging and feasting with my sister and friend at a Nomadic Dinners event  
• Celebrating the Summer Solstice
• Picking elderflowers 
• Watching Andy Murray win at Wimbledon on the first day 
• Foraging for seasonal wild greens
• Eating & enjoying seasonal food – strawberries, asparagus, tomatoes, broad beans, peas etc 

So that’s it. June has been a good month 🙂 

Now bring on July! 

Freebies for You

I created two freebies this month.

FREE June Recipe Book

And a one week Low Histamine Meal Plan. You can also read my post about histamine intolerance here. 

Until tomorrow,

Chloe x

About Me

Hello, I’m Chloe. I’m a nutrition and health coach and I’m on a mission to inspire & support women so they can go from feeling fatigued to feeling fabulous! 

I help women who are FED up of being overweight, addicted to sugar and feeling tired ALL THE TIME to lose weight and optimise their health by fixing hormonal, digestive, autoimmune and energy issues.

My step-by-step programme, Revitalise, will help you lose weight, get back your energy, restore vitality and create lifelong health using the power of beautiful & delicious REAL FOOD. 

I’m here to make it easy for you to eat healthy, delicious food without counting calories or feeling deprived. You’ll reset your relationship with food, shift your mindset and build new habits for a complete health transformation!

Disclaimer: All information provided is for informational purposes only, and is not to be construed as medical advice or instruction. Please consult your GP or a qualified health professional on any matters regarding your health and wellbeing. I am a nutritional educator and do not dispense medical advice nor prescribe treatment. While nutritional support can be an important complement to your medical care, a nutritional therapy program is not a substitute for the diagnosis, treatment, or care of a disease, illness, or injury by a medical provider. Nutritional evaluations and lifestyle assessments are not intended for the diagnoses of disease. 

Disclaimer: chloearchard.com is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk. Buying through our affiliate links does not cost you anything but helps us keep this website up and running. Thank you!

All information provided within this blog post is for informational purposes only, and is not to be construed as medical advice or instruction. Please consult your GP or a qualified health professional on any matters regarding your health and wellbeing or on any opinions expressed within this blog post. The information provided in this blog post is believed to be accurate based on the best judgment of the author. However, you as the reader must be responsible for consulting with your own GP or other health professional on matters raised within. chloearchard.com will not accept responsibility for the actions or consequential results of any action taken by any reader.

The material in this blog post may include information, products or services by third parties. Third Party Materials comprise of the products and opinions expressed by their owners. As such, chloearchard.com does not assume responsibility or liability for any Third Party material or opinions. The publication of such Third Party Materials does not constitute our guarantee of any information, instruction, opinion, products or services contained within the Third Party Material. Publication of such Third Party Material is simply a recommendation and an expression of our own opinion of that material.

I went out for a forage today, something I love doing on Sundays when I have more time to wander along slowly. 

Growing abundantly in a field close to my house was one of my favourite plants: Fat Hen. The latin name for this plant is Chenopodium album. 

It has many, many local names such as: Meldweed, Dungweed, Wild Spinach, Lamb’s Quarters, Pigweed, Muckweed, Dirty John, All Good, Dirty Dick, Bacon Weed, Frost-blite, Goosefoot, Meal-weed, White Goosefoot, White Goose. 

Someone told me that the more local / folklore names there are for a plant, the longer our history with that plant is. Common names can also often give a clue to what the plant has been used for in the past. No idea why this one is sometimes called Dirty John and Dirty Dick!

It is a summer plant found on disturbed and cultivated areas such as arable fields, vegetable gardens / allotments and manure heaps. Fat hen was famously found in the stomach contents of the Iron Age ‘Tollund Man’ a bog body dating from this period found in Tollund in Denmark.

Tollund Man: “At the autopsy, approximately ¼ liter of stomach content was found. The majority was found in his colon, and this suggests that he ate his last meal 12-24 hours prior to his death. Botanist Hans Helbæk, who concluded that the meal had consisted of seeds from no fewer than 29 different plants, analyzed the stomach content. 

Main component was hulled and pearled barley, supplemented by linseed and oats, followed by seeds from a variety of plants, which we today would call weeds. Some of the weed seeds were present in an amount that reveals they must have been gathered on purpose. This goes for knotweed, fat hen, spurrey, gold-of-pleasure, field pansy and common hemp–nettle. Other weed seeds must have been randomly harvested along with the crops thereby ending up in the meal. No traces of meat or fresh vegetables were found in the meal.” 

Rich in iron, calcium and vitamin C, its leaves are more nutritious than spinach and cabbage. It can be substituted wherever you would normally use spinach. The leaves can be eaten raw in salads, chopped into stews, or added to a wild green soup. 

Some delicious recipes using Fat Hen:

Fat Hen Pasta Bake from Eat Weeds

Fat Hen Frittata on common mallow with sorrel mayo from Appetite Mag

Creamy Lamb’s-Quarters (Fat Hen) Gratin from Epicurious

Until tomorrow,

Chloe x

About Me

Hello, I’m Chloe. I’m a nutrition and health coach and I’m on a mission to inspire & support women so they can go from feeling fatigued to feeling fabulous! 

I help women who are FED up of being overweight, addicted to sugar and feeling tired ALL THE TIME to lose weight and optimise their health by fixing hormonal, digestive, autoimmune and energy issues.

My step-by-step programme, Revitalise, will help you lose weight, get back your energy, restore vitality and create lifelong health using the power of beautiful & delicious REAL FOOD. 

I’m here to make it easy for you to eat healthy, delicious food without counting calories or feeling deprived. You’ll reset your relationship with food, shift your mindset and build new habits for a complete health transformation!

Disclaimer: All information provided is for informational purposes only, and is not to be construed as medical advice or instruction. Please consult your GP or a qualified health professional on any matters regarding your health and wellbeing. I am a nutritional educator and do not dispense medical advice nor prescribe treatment. While nutritional support can be an important complement to your medical care, a nutritional therapy program is not a substitute for the diagnosis, treatment, or care of a disease, illness, or injury by a medical provider. Nutritional evaluations and lifestyle assessments are not intended for the diagnoses of disease. 

Disclaimer: chloearchard.com is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk. Buying through our affiliate links does not cost you anything but helps us keep this website up and running. Thank you!

All information provided within this blog post is for informational purposes only, and is not to be construed as medical advice or instruction. Please consult your GP or a qualified health professional on any matters regarding your health and wellbeing or on any opinions expressed within this blog post. The information provided in this blog post is believed to be accurate based on the best judgment of the author. However, you as the reader must be responsible for consulting with your own GP or other health professional on matters raised within. chloearchard.com will not accept responsibility for the actions or consequential results of any action taken by any reader.

The material in this blog post may include information, products or services by third parties. Third Party Materials comprise of the products and opinions expressed by their owners. As such, chloearchard.com does not assume responsibility or liability for any Third Party material or opinions. The publication of such Third Party Materials does not constitute our guarantee of any information, instruction, opinion, products or services contained within the Third Party Material. Publication of such Third Party Material is simply a recommendation and an expression of our own opinion of that material.