In my twenty plus years as a herbalist, there has been one class of remedy that people have complained about consistently – the digestive bitter.

We, as herbalists, are not being cruel or perverse when we recommend that you take one. We know the bitter flavour can come as a bit of a shock to folks used to the average North American diet, but bitters have a plethora of benefits that really do make them worthwhile.

Let’s begin with a little science. When the taste buds on your tongue encounter a  bitter flavour, a cascade of effects known as the ‘bitter reflex’ is stimulated. This causes the nerve endings that surround your taste buds to signal the vagus nerve that runs from your brain to many parts of your digestive system. The signal essentially tells your body to get ready to digest food.

The salivary glands in your mouth produce more saliva that will help you begin to digest starches, your stomach kicks up production of stomach acid, to enable you to break down food more easily. Your intestines become more active, moving food through them by the wave-like motion known as peristalsis. Your liver and gall bladder work to produce and release more bile that helps digest fats, and your pancreas releases more enzymes that help regulate digestion and absorption of nutrients. Even your circulatory system begins to shunt more blood to the digestive system, the better to carry away nutrients, and provide extra oxygen to hard works tissues and cells.

In short, tasting a bitter flavour help you digest and absorb food more efficiently.

So what does this mean for you, the person taking the bitter?

The immediate benefits are a reduction in symptoms of indigestion – bloating, heartburn, cramping, bad breath and discomfort. As your digestive system is primed and ready for digestion, food no longer sits around, undigested and causing these problems. It is broken down, digested, absorbed and eliminated with far more ease.

The second benefit takes a little longer to become evident, but it is a crucial one for many people. As bitters prime our gut for digestion, we are able to absorb more nutrients – more of the building blocks our bodies need to maintain and repair our cells and tissues. As our bodies accumulate more of these building blocks, we are able to heal faster and better, to grow and repair tissues, to ward off infections – a well nourished immune system is far more effective, that an underfed one. We have more energy to expend in our daily lives.

In short, a well functioning digestive system is the foundation of health. And it doesn’t matter how much healthy food we consume if we are not able to digest it well enough to make use of it. Bitters help our digestive systems do just that, and while we may not enjoy the taste, the benefits can be profound. This is not a new discovery; many cultures start their meals with bitter foods. Our great grandmothers did not perhaps understand the science, but they knew that a salad of bitter greens before a meal helped everyone avoid indigestion.

Today, herbal bitters are often in the form of a tincture; an alcohol based preparation taken in a relatively small dose. On a practical level, it is so much easier to convince someone to take a teaspoon of a digestive bitter tincture, than to drink an entire cup of a bitter tea – both have approximately the same medicinal strength.

Bitters are best taken about 15 to 20 minutes before a meal, to allow some time to bring the digestive system up to full efficiency. The dose can be taken in a little water – a tablespoon or two, but if you disguise the taste by adding the bitter to something sweet such as fruit juice, it won’t work as well. Remember, you need to taste the bitter for it to do its job. If the taste buds on your tongue do not sense the bitter taste, the rest of your digestive tract will not receive the message that food is on its way.

There are many, many different herbs that have bitter properties, from mild bitters such as Dandelion root, to moderate such as Milk Thistle, to strong bitters such as Gentian, so depending on your need and tolerance there really is a bitter for everyone.

A few of notes of caution.

As these herbs increase stomach acid, they are not helpful if you already have high stomach acid. However, if your heartburn or acid reflux is due to a lazy sphincter muscle and/or low stomach acid, they can be very useful.

Likewise, use caution or talk to your herbalist if you have acute digestive issues such as stomach or duodenal ulcers, or have Crohn’s Disease or IBS-D.

As some bitter herbs can also stimulate the uterus, while others are perfectly safe, talk to your herbalist before taking a bitter during pregnancy.

Finally, some people find that taking a bitter first thing in the morning makes them a little queasy. It’s best to start off with pre-lunch and dinner doses, and add the pre-breakfast dose in after a week or two, to allow your body time to get used to the taste. And if you just can’t tolerate them first thing, the lunch and dinner doses will still give you plenty of benefit.

If you’d like to find out more about other medicinal herbs, you can read this article about springtime wild medicines, or this one about summer wild medicinals.

Or if you’d like to find out more about how bitters or herbal medicine in general can benefit you, you can book a free 20-minute consultation with me.

Rebecca