Welcome back to the Bite Me Nutrition podcast. Today we're talking about two of my favorite things, kiwifruit and poo. maybe not even in that order, which is, it doesn't matter. I, I apologize in advance if there's some slightly longer pauses than usual in this. I do have the baby monitor in front of me. I am on active duty. both kids are asleep and actually neither of them are babies. So I guess it's the kid monitor now, but just keeping an eye on things, but I wanted to record this pretty short podcast about something that I think could actually help quite a few people. it's certainly been really effective and helpful with a number of my clients. And I also think it kind of flies under the radar a little bit. and that is about kiwi fruits, pretty awesome potential to improve or rather reduce your constipation. Does improve your constipation mean make you more constipated? Anyway, I don't know. but that's not what Q will do, which is the good news. Now, the first thing is, the, the normal caveat about anything related to constipation, diarrhea, IBS, all of those sorts of things. First and foremost, please make sure that you have talked to your GP about these symptoms. Make sure that you've had the appropriate tests. I don't want to be dramatic or scary, but, changes in gut behavior and bowel movements can sometimes be related to some very serious medical conditions. So it's important to make sure that you've chatted to a medical professional who has effectively ruled those out. Now, if that's what's happened, you've been ruled out of those things, but you're still struggling with constipation. It's still like, kiwifruit has, like I said, quite good potential, but make sure you're focusing on the big rocks first. Some of those... things for constipation are your fiber intake, making sure you're getting enough fiber, making sure there's some good soluble fiber as part of that. And then of course, you are absolutely making sure that you're pairing that with enough water. Increasing your fiber without increasing your water could actually make your constipation worse and make sure you're doing both at the same time. You're getting in regular movement that can be really, really valuable for constipation as well. So if you're doing all of those things and you're still not quite getting the... the change in your bowel movements that you would like. Kiwifruit has actually kind of come to the fore as quite a really, I think a really valid and potentially impactful strategy. There's some well -controlled studies that give kiwifruit. Kiwifruit has almost pharmaceutical, like drug -like effects on your constipation, which is pretty wild for food. Like food is not medicine. You might've heard me read about that before but in this instance, kiwifruit could have a similar impact to medication, which is pretty wild. it, there's some great studies, which as always, I'll put in the show notes if you want to investigate them a bit further, but show really great improvements in conservation symptoms with two kiwifruit a day. It doesn't seem to matter if it's, it's green or gold, like the all kiwifruit seems to help. and there's two kind of very strong, I guess mechanisms or explanations as to why this might be occurring. Sorry, monitor flashed. The first thing is that kiwifruit is just a fantastic source of soluble and insoluble fiber. So like I've spoken about in other podcasts and other posts, and like I even alluded to initially in this podcast, your fiber intake is very, very important when it relates to constipation. So a good intake of.. insoluble fiber, make sure that your body is forming the stool, the poo adequately. And a good intake of soluble fiber means that enough water is being drawn into your large intestine to soften the stool, which makes it easier to pass. Right? So, you know, intakes of soluble and insoluble fiber are important. And if you've got a food that's giving you good amounts of both, you can see why it's going to help constipation, right? And that's exactly what kiwifruit is. So that's pretty cool. Now there's a even slightly more in depth reason, which is pretty cool as well. And that is that kiwifruit contains a, an enzyme called actinidin. And now actinidin seems to promote bowel motility. Bowel motility is just a fancy way of saying, it helps move things along. Right. So it stimulates, you know, the muscle contraction, it stimulates the, the action of the bow to move the poo. I probably should say stool. I think that's the scientific, but stool just feels weird. Where it's like poo. just poo, real poo. And so anyway, actinidine can stimulate the bowel, simulate those muscle contractions to move the poo through the bowel, which is going to help reduce that constipation, right? So for those two reasons, that's why I'm actually very, like, I really like getting most of my clients who are struggling with constipation, especially if they've already worked through all of those things that I talked about earlier, and they're still kind of they're just not quite there yet. to kiwi for today can be really, really valuable and really helpful. so because of the whole enzyme thing, right. as is often the case, if we find something specific in a food that might be beneficial, we like to extract it, concentrate it, put it in a pill and sell it separately. Right. So, if anyone remembers the whole resveratrol craze, you know, we, we found that there's this in antioxidants in grapes and grape skin rather and we took it out and we concentrated it and we made this rose veratrol supplements and it turns out they weren't even that helpful anyway but it's slightly different with the kiwifruit supplements there are these concentrated like essentially it's not kiwifruit supplements it's actinidin supplements right so they've they've taken the enzyme from kiwifruit and they've really concentrated it, they put it in those supplements. In terms of as far as supplements for constipation go, these supplements look reasonably okay. Like on paper, these studies behind them aren't terrible. They get some decent results. So I'm certainly not saying that there's no benefit to these supplements. I guess my main query or concern is that regular kiwifruit is just as effective. And also, gives you that really great benefit, like I spoke about of a good source of soluble and insoluble fiber, which is a separate mechanism that can also improve your constipation symptoms. So to me, I'm hard pressed to see why I wouldn't instead recommend someone just has two kiwi fruit a day versus buying what is going to be a much more expensive supplement. Of course, the supplement is easier to take than eating two kiwi fruit, but I guess you like, you know, you've got to weigh up your own financial cost and all of those sorts of things. So like if you absolutely hate kiwifruit, you cannot find them in your region or they're insanely expensive, then potentially an actinidin supplement is going to be like a good bet for you. But I think for most people, I would just stick to the kiwifruit. Anyway, kiwifruit and poops, good link, really great intervention for those struggling with constipation. So if that's you, give it a try to KiwiFree today. Make sure, like I said, please do not pass go, do not collect $200. If you've never chatted to your GP to investigate the symptoms, do that first. But if you've tried a few other things and you're still kind of not there yet, to Kiwi Free today could be the thing that you need. So thanks for listening and I will chat to you next time.