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The foods required for body construction, maintenance, and repair must first be broken down in the digestive tract to enable the body to absorb their building blocks. These building blocks include essential nutrients (minerals, vitamins, essential fatty acids, and essential amino acids), antioxidants, and phytonutrients (healing molecules from herbs).

When asked which of their body systems is the weakest, most people point to their digestive system. This is understandable, as the digestive system carries a heavy load, day after day, for an entire lifetime.

Essential fatty acids, digestive enzymes, probiotics, fiber, greens, and phytonutrients help the digestive system stay healthy and effective.

EFAs, especially those rich in omega-3 fatty acids, such as Udo’s Choice Oil Blend, improve gut integrity and decrease inflammation, thereby preventing many digestion problems.

Digestive enzymes, such as Udo’s Choice Digestive Enzyme Blend, help make sure that foods are completely broken down, ensuring the absorption of all nutrients, and avoiding many problems arising from poor digestion.

Poor digestion leads to deficiency or malnutrition—the inadequate supply of building blocks. Additionally, undigested food molecules—especially proteins—can produce inflammation, leaky gut, absorption of undigested proteins, immune response, allergies, autoimmune conditions, and lowered resistance to infections and cancer.

Most of us should be taking digestive enzymes during our meals.

Enzymes are naturally present in raw foods (they digest between 10 and 90% of the food they are in), but cooking and processing foods destroys them. They should be replaced.
Aging slows down the digestive power of our body, but digestive enzymes can return that power to normal.
Digestive enzymes can help decrease risk of infection. They digest the protein coat of viruses and membrane proteins of bacteria. They also improve digestion, taking a load off the digestive system, which frees the immune to go after infectious viruses, bacteria, fungus, yeast, and other microorganisms instead of being tied up in digestion processes.
Digestive enzymes should be taken during meals, mixed in food. Use one to 10 capsules per meal. The exact amount needed to do the best job depends on the state of the digestive system.

Probiotics is the collective term for friendly bacteria that inhabit our digestive tract, from top to bottom. In nature, they cover raw foods. That’s where wild animals get their supply. When we process or cook foods, they are killed and should be replaced.

Probiotics do many important jobs in our body.

They manufacture B vitamins.
They make molecules that strengthen immune function.
They fight disease-causing bacteria throughout our digestive tract.
They speed healing and prevent the infection of injuries in our gut.
They improve our body’s ability to make a protective (mucin) coat, which prevents the inside of our digestive tract from being damaged by enzymes, acid, abrasion, and bacteria.
Probiotics also produce enzymes that help digest our foods.
They help heal the gut lining when it does get damage.

The most vulnerable part of our digestive system is our mouth. We can get infections in our tonsils, our sinuses, our inner ear canal, around our teeth, in our teeth, and in the lining of our mouth. For this reason, the best way to use probiotics is to brush our teeth with them and then swallow them. That way, we benefit from the work of probiotics throughout our entire digestive tract.

If we swallow capsules of probiotics, we get benefits only in the lower part of our digestive tract, but miss all of the important benefits they have in our mouth, esophagus, and stomach.

The best time to take probiotics is at the end of the meal, when stomach acid is lowest because it has been used up to digest our foods. One capsule per day, taken after a meal, and started in the mouth is good for healthy people. People with digestive tract damage may take as many as 12 per day.

The best kind of probiotics to take is those naturally present and therefore belong in the human gut. These are most resistant to acid and bile, and they implant in the lining of the gut, providing protection for up to two weeks, whereas dairy probiotics are weaker and, since they cannot implant in our gut (hence are transient), last only about one day in our gut.

Probiotics change during our life cycle, and the amount needed daily for best results increases as we age. For this reason, Udo’s Choice Probiotics Blends comes in infants’, childrens’, adults’, and advanced adults’ (over 50; also for people with esophageal damage, stomach lining damage, and bowel irritiation) versions, as well as an after-dinner dissolvable tablet (Super 5, also soothing to mouth sores), and a travellers’ formula (Super 8), which is most effective against yeast and bacterial infections.

Fiber is not absorbed into the body. It keeps things moving along, and carries wastes from the body. Fiber comes in water-insoluble and soluble forms. Udo’s Choice Wholesome Fast Food Blend contains both kinds of fiber.

Insoluble fiber scrubs the intestinal tract, keeps absorptive surfaces clear, and keeps stools bulky.
Soluble fiber, especially a form called ‘mucilage’, soothes the gut lining. It also removes toxins, cholesterol, and bile acids, as well as heavy metals from the gut, making sure that these are not reabsorbed into the body.
Mucilage fiber, taken with lots of fluid, is also a great stool softener, preventing toxicity that results from constipation. In addition, mucilage is the favorite food for probiotics, and helps them to better protect us from harmful bacteria. By slowing down sugar absorption from the digestive tract into the body, mucilage stabilizes blood sugar. This can be very helpful for those who are overweight, obese, diabetic, or hypoglycemic. By stabilizing blood sugar, mucilage helps prevent the cravings that come from low blood sugar and lead to overeating and carbohydrate addiction.

About 90% of the people in America don’t eat enough greens. For these people, Udo’s Choice Beyond Greens was developed: greens for people in a hurry.

Beyond Greens contains dried greens, fiber, good fats, and protein, along with minerals, vitamins, and some digestive enzymes.
This product is good for use in protein shakes and smoothies, and in other preparations for people who want health without having to slow down.

Phytonutrients come from the herbs and spices that added both flavors and health to traditional recipes.

Modern diets have largely lost these herbs and spices. Many of these have antioxidant, inflammatory, immune system protective, and digestive juice enhancing properties. Thus they both protect the digestive system and enhance its ability to do its job.

Udo’s Choice Phytonutrient Blend contains extracts of the most important herbs and spices for enhanced digestion and gut protection. One to 4 capsules per day can be taken with meals.