What is an endotoxin?

Endotoxin is simply the toxins that are released by bad bacteria in your gut. These can be absorbed into your bloodstream and travel throughout the body wreaking havoc, and are especially bad for mitochondria. 

We have already discussed how your energy levels are governed by your mitochondria. We need them to be as healthy and as efficient as possible. This produces a high metabolism, which means our body has the means to grow, digest, detoxify, regenerate, repair, build and function at the highest level possible. 

Endotoxin is very harmful and can even kill your mitochondria. Mitochondria are very similar to bacteria in many ways. So it is no surprise that they are vulnerable to toxins leached from bacteria. So we want to maintain a healthy gut microbiome where the endotoxin is minimal and there is just enough (but not too much) of the right types of fiber to absorb and remove it. 

How do we do this?

First let’s discuss how human guts are different than other animals. 

The cow, that wonderful magical animal, has a HUGE stomach. We like to say it has 4 stomachs, but it really has 4 compartments in a massive stomach. Each has an enormous amount of bacteria that put the grass through various levels of fermentation. They consume an entire fiber diet that these amazing bacteria are able to convert to short-chain fatty acids that the cows use as fuel. 

We can’t do that. 🐄

Gorillas have a very big large intestine full of bacteria that is able to ferment fiber into short-chain fatty acids for their energy supply. That’s why they have those huge bellies.

Our large intestines are very small, relatively. 🦍

In fact, we are more like chimps, who have a much bigger small intestine than gorillas. They rely much less on fermentation, and more on digestion and easy to absorb foods. So they eat less fibrous foods and rely mostly on fruit. In fact, when ripe bananas are in season where they live, that’s all they will eat, preferring those over anything else. 

And guess what - when the body doesn’t have to waste precious energy fermenting food, it can spend more energy on other more expensive tissues….like the brain. Chimps are much smarter than gorillas.

More fruit, bigger brains. 🍎

And we are much, much smarter than chimps.

Our small intestines are much “bigger” relative to other animals. Our large intestines are much “smaller” relative to other animals. This tells us that we don’t want to be fermenting a lot of food, instead we want to consume things that are easily digested, and we want to absorb most of our nutrients higher up in our small intestines. 

In other words, the foods we want to be relying on are the easily digestible ripe fruits, honey, maple syrup, some cooked starches, and easily digestible protein from animal sources. When we eat these foods primarily, our gut stays “happy” and we keep our endotoxin levels low. 

When we try to eat low-carb or tons of raw plant matter, raw veggies or grains, we are NOT giving our body the optimal fuel and our GI tract can’t handle it. The bacteria in our guts will be unbalanced, and the bad bacteria will overgrow the good (because the good cannot operate optimally in that environment). And our endotoxin will go up substantially. This will affect our entire body, inhibit our energy production, and lead to chronic disease.

Our GI tract is designed to rely primarily on stomach acid, pancreatic enzymes and bile to digest our food - Upper GI digestion. Our fermentation should take place only in the large intestine, and just enough to keep our guts healthy and happy. We want microbiome diversity, balance and no overgrowths of either the good or the bad. 

If we focus on good ripe fruit and some well-cooked roots, tubers, fruits or mushrooms, we will provide the large intestines with the polyphenols (natural anti-microbial) and fiber (bacteria make butyrate from these to feed themselves) it needs to stay healthy. Raw carrot salad (made with raw carrots, vinegar and coconut oil) will absorb toxins as well as promote motility, plus the vinegar and coconut oil will naturally inhibit the growth of bad bacteria. 

But don’t forget - a healthy gut begins with a healthy and high metabolism. And as we have been talking about recently, that means more glucose-centric carbs that can be digested and absorbed quickly.

So the solution is not to eat hard-to-digest complex carbohydrates or green smoothies made with kale, but the simplest carb there is:

Sugar.

For more information on this topic, check out this video.