Which Bitters?

[Shapeshifter]

Hi everyone. Hi James.

I have been taking the Planetary Herbals Digestive Grape Bitters for a few months now on a regular basis. I feel I have had some digestive improvements from this, at least I felt that way at first. But now I feel it is actually contributing to gas and bloating rather than helping reduce it. So I did a search on CureZone Truth in Medicine and found this post by James-

"I cannot think of any way bitters would do this unless they had added sugar or possibly an antacid like ginger."

In response to a poster's question about the same (gas/bloating from the bitters).

So turns out this formula I have been taking (which I thought James recommended) does indeed have ginger in it. This, I believe, is clearly not helping with my low stomach acid situation. So what to do?
The other available bitters I have seen and tried have laxative herbs in them. Even though I am taking small doses, I don't want to use the laxatives and I also am concerned about overuse of some other herbs in my Grape bitters formula like Goldenseal.

I am not sure if the alcohol may also be bothering my stomach as I feel particularly sensitive to alcohols. So maybe a non alcohol base bitters would be beneficial as well.

Can someone help with this please? James? Anyone? Is there a blend that does not have anti-acid herbs AND does not have laxative herbs??

Thank you!!

[Anderson]

Making your own bitters can be a solution:

http://medcapsules.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=5149

[Shapeshifter]

Thank you. I may try that. I am also interested in bitters without alcohol however and I am not sure how I could make those. and it's also not very clear from that post which herbal blend would be best. ...

[anost]

Hey Shapeshifter,

I don't think the ginger root or goldenseal is going to be a problem for you in the dosage James recommends; half a dropper as opposed to Planetary Herbals suggested serving size of 1 tsp. I also take the Planetary Herbals Grape Bitters and I just don't think their formula is all that bitter personally, I get better results from singular bitter herb tinctures. Another thing you can do, that works just as well at stimulating the vagus nerve is to simply suck on some bitter herb; I like andrographis "the king of bitters", but it's an acquired taste.

[Anderson]

(03-10-2014 06:57 PM)anost Wrote:  Hey Shapeshifter,

I don't think the ginger root or goldenseal is going to be a problem for you in the dosage James recommends; half a dropper as opposed to Planetary Herbals suggested serving size of 1 tsp. I also take the Planetary Herbals Grape Bitters and I just don't think their formula is all that bitter personally, I get better results from singular bitter herb tinctures. Another thing you can do, that works just as well at stimulating the vagus nerve is to simply suck on some bitter herb; I like andrographis "the king of bitters", but it's an acquired taste.

I agree. I also prefer to take only one herb as a bitter. I have bought once gentian root in tincture form.

I also used tablets before and they work fine. It was also gentian root. I will not link it here since it was a Swedish company and I don't think they sell it outside Sweden.

[Shapeshifter]

Thank you both. This is helpful info. I was doing the half dropper dose for the most part but I think even then James had said the ginger could be a problem for some people (and other anti acid herbs), although if it has been a problem for me then doubtless some of the spicy foods I have eaten on occasion are causing more problems for me with my low stomach acid.

I will look into trying single bitters, thank you!

[audible]

(03-11-2014 08:07 AM)Shapeshifter Wrote:  Thank you both. This is helpful info. I was doing the half dropper dose for the most part but I think even then James had said the ginger could be a problem for some people (and other anti acid herbs), although if it has been a problem for me then doubtless some of the spicy foods I have eaten on occasion are causing more problems for me with my low stomach acid.

I will look into trying single bitters, thank you!

I have been using the Planetary brand since James first mentioned it on CZ, still do. The only problem I had in the beginning I took the 1/2 tsp and James said that was too much. Since I got light headed he said it might have lowered my blood pressure. I now take less than 1/2 dropper and have no problems. He also said when I did find the bitters not bitter anymore that was ok they are still bitters.

[Shapeshifter]

Thank you Audible. I might have been taking too much of the Planetary bitters since I wasn't using a dropper to measure (as it doesn't come with one) and so was just tilting the bottle and winging it, hoping it was close to that. But now I have been taking Gentian tincture on it's own since I got the recommendations here. (Half a dropper) And it seems to be going well with that. It definitely tastes much more bitter than the blend. And since taking it I tried the blend again (using a dropper to measure) out of curiosity and you know it tastes so sweet compared to the gentian! Also I noticed that this last batch I received tasted different (and I think sweeter in particular) than previous batches I had. So it's possible that the ratios were different this time (of the blended herbs) and that I wasn't doing as well with this batch as a result. So I don't know if for me I was having issues with a particular herb in the blend or them not being bitter enough or what, so I am going to stick with the single herb for now. Anyway thanks for sharing.

[Anderson]

The reason why I don't like to use different herbs as bitters is because I'll probably be under the influence of different herbs and that makes it difficult to figure out things when problems show up.

I once bought bitters from a Swedish company. It worked well but I stopped buying it after I emailed the company to know which herbs it contained since it doesn't say anything on the bottle and got this answer:

Senna alexandrina folia
Angelica archangelica
Rheum officinale
Manna cannelata
Aloe cupensis
Elletaria cardamomum
Camphor Natural BP
Curcuma zedoary
Commiphora molmol
Cinnamomum verum
Carlina arculus radix
Valeriana officinalis
Taraxacum officinalis radix
Saffron

14 herbs! Can you believe it?

[Shapeshifter]

Yes, that's a lot! Also there at least two of them are laxative herbs (aloe and senna).
I looked at my bottle of Planetary Herbs again last night and figured out why this bottle/batch tasted so much sweeter than previous ones I have had from them. Apart from all of the herbs (there might be 10 or so in their formula too, just without the laxative, but there are anti-acid herbs like ginger and anise), I noticed that there was grape juice concentrate as the base (in addition to the grain alcohol)! No wonder it was so sweet! And for me grape juice is way too much sugar, no wonder it was causing me problems. It's so irritating that these companies feel they have to always add so much sugar or else customers won't want it. So even 'bitters' can't be bitter because people won't like the taste, it's ridiculous!

[James]

(03-06-2014 11:10 PM)Shapeshifter Wrote:  Hi everyone. Hi James.

I have been taking the Planetary Herbals Digestive Grape Bitters for a few months now on a regular basis. I feel I have had some digestive improvements from this, at least I felt that way at first. But now I feel it is actually contributing to gas and bloating rather than helping reduce it. So I did a search on CureZone Truth in Medicine and found this post by James-

"I cannot think of any way bitters would do this unless they had added sugar or possibly an antacid like ginger."

In response to a poster's question about the same (gas/bloating from the bitters).

So turns out this formula I have been taking (which I thought James recommended) does indeed have ginger in it. This, I believe, is clearly not helping with my low stomach acid situation. So what to do?
The other available bitters I have seen and tried have laxative herbs in them. Even though I am taking small doses, I don't want to use the laxatives and I also am concerned about overuse of some other herbs in my Grape bitters formula like Goldenseal.

I am not sure if the alcohol may also be bothering my stomach as I feel particularly sensitive to alcohols. So maybe a non alcohol base bitters would be beneficial as well.

Can someone help with this please? James? Anyone? Is there a blend that does not have anti-acid herbs AND does not have laxative herbs??

Thank you!!

Anything bitter tasting will work. You can simply get some gentian root powder or other bitter herb and put a pinch on your tongue, suck on it a few seconds and swallow. This will give the same vagus nerve stimulation with no berberine and no alcohol.