Ep. 53: Favorite gut health products of 2023

Tune into this episode where Dr. Heather Finley shares her favorite gut health products. Everything you need from personal care to her favorite foods! Tune in and grab your favorites for some last minute stocking stuffers!

 

Personal Care

• Queen of thrones castor oil pack: this is a great way to support your detox on a daily basis. Use for an hour or sleep with it overnight!
• Rise Well Oral care (FINLEY10) (the best toothpaste, floss and mouthrinse!): Oral care is often one of the missing pieces for your overall gut health.
• Roots Apothecary (HOLIDAY2023 for 20% off): Amazing bath soaks, adaptive cacao, etc!

 

Home/Kitchen

• Caraway Pans: High quality non-stick ceramic pans but without all of the endocrine disrupting chemicals. I use my pans daily!
• Thrive Market Subscription: The best place for all your favorite products, but at a lower cost!

 

Food Products: 

• Fresh Herbs and Spices from Mountain Rose Herbs
  • Happy tummy tea
  • Grilling herbs
• Mold free coffee beans (DRHEATHER): I drink this decaf daily and have great peace of mind knowing that it is tested for and mold free!
• Purely Elizabeth Granola (DRHEATHERFINLEY10): Try the salted chocolate granola. You’ll thank me later!
• Fond Bone Broth: The best base for soups + sauces or on its own as a snack during the day!
• Struesi: Amazing, grain free granola that I have LOVED on chia pudding, smoothies and yogurt bowls.
• Olipop (DIETITIAN20) : Great tasting prebiotic “sodas” that are a fun alcohol alternative and also a great way to support your gut.

 

Supplements: 

• Collagen Protein (DRHEATHER15): This chocolate collagen  is my favorite collagen protein + they have some amazing superfood blends. This makes an amazing stocking stuffer!
• Perfect Supplements
  • Hydrolyzed collagen
  •  Mushroom Immunity
  • Magnesium Citrate
• Organifi ($25 off first order): Amazing superfood powders for times where you just need an extra “boost”
  • Love their reds powder for gut health and gold powder for sleep
• Beam: 40% off your first order and enjoy your best night sleep ever!
• LMNT: get a free sample pack with purchase + fuel your workouts with the benefit of minerals

 

Transcription

Speaker

Dr. Heather Finley

 

Heather Finley 0:02
Welcome to the love your gut podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Heather Finley, registered dietitian and gut health specialist, I understand the frustration of dealing with GI issues because I’ve been there. And I spent over two decades searching for answers for my own gut issues of constipation, bloating and stomach pain. I’ve dedicated my life to understanding and solving my own gut issues. And now I’m here to guide you. On this podcast, I’ll help you identify the true root causes of your discomfort. So you can finally ditch your symptoms for good. My goal is to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need, so that you can love your gut, and it will love you right back. So if you’re ready to learn a lot, gain a deeper understanding of your gut and find lasting relief, you are in the right place. Welcome to the love your gut podcast. Hello, and welcome back to the love your gut podcast, I’m so glad that you’re here. Depending on where you are listening, or when you are listening, you may already be in full holiday mode. Or maybe you’re listening to this the day that it goes live. And you’re slowly wrapping up the work week, I wanted to release this episode that shares just a lot about my favorite routines, wellness products, things that I am loving. If you’re on my email list, you got a gut health gift guide last week to your email. And so hopefully you’ve had a chance to check that out. If you’re not on the email list, I will put a link in the show notes where you can subscribe to our email list so you don’t miss all the updates. And all the fun things that I share with my email list via email. And so I just thought it would be fun to wrap up the year on sharing some of the some of my favorite things and how I actually use some of these products. I know a lot of times on Instagram, I’ll share different products that I’m using or different just health hacks. And I always get questions about why I’m doing certain things or the purpose of certain things. And so there’s just as a great reference for you and to maybe some new health routines that might be supportive for you, or just some new ideas of things that you can add to your daily routine, weekly routine, monthly routine, whatever it might be. So I’m going to just kind of go through in certain categories and talk about some of my favorite products and some of my favorite subscriptions as well. So first, I want to talk about personal care. So I think this is a huge category that can be lumped into just a lot of stuff. It can be, you know, skincare, it can be even routines to support your overall wellness, like I would consider even just sleep personal care, oral care, of course, you know, mineral baths, et cetera. So there’s lots of things that are lumped into this category. But the first thing that I want to share with you that I absolutely love that I use as a personal care routine is something called a castor oil pack. So I use the queen of Thrones castor oil pack. This is one of my favorite ways to support detoxification on a daily or weekly basis. It is certainly not something that you need to use every single day. But the benefit is that you can use it you know, for an hour, you can use it overnight while you sleep. And it can help so many things. So we often recommend castor oil packs to our clients that have a lot of digestive issues. They have a lot of bloating, they have inconsistent bowel movements, maybe hormone imbalances, et cetera. castor oil packs can help with all of that and what they are doing is the castor oil pack is actually supporting your overall liver detox. So really simply put in today’s day and age, we are just faced with tons of things that we have to detox from and it is up to our liver to help us to detox your liver is like your sewage system in your body. And so one way that you can just support gentle detox I’m not talking about like, you know, taking a bunch of supplements or a juice cleanse or anything like that just supporting gentle detox is through castor oil packs, you will just put the castor oil on the pack and it’s a wool cloth. You’ll wrap it around the upper right side of your abdomen over your liver and you can you know use it for an hour while you’re watching TV or reading at night or you can even sleep with it overnight and it can be so great. Often our clients report that they feel a lot less bloated when they wake up. They have better bowel movements the next day. I know I had a family member the other day who texted me and was like wow, I slept so amazing after doing the castor oil pack, which is something that we hear a lot so all these links are going to be in the show notes. Don’t feel like you have to frantically write things down you can reference is all of this at the end of the episode. The next thing that I love as part of my personal care routine is the rise well, products. So rise well is an oral care brand. They have toothpaste, they have floss, they have mouthrinses. And what I love about these products is that they are supportive of your oral microbiome. So one thing that you may not know is that a lot of the toothpaste that we use these days actually can damage your oral microbiome. It’s going to kill off unwanted bacteria, of course, but also beneficial bacteria and just like your gut, you need an abundance of bacteria on all the surfaces of your body to help with health. And so same thing goes for your mouth. When you have good microbes in your mouth, you will help prevent gingivitis, oral infections, you’ll also help prevent h pylori and other things that can land in your gut. And so what I love about Roswell is it is very in line with exactly what we’re trying to do with gut health. So Roswell is a great product to try if you haven’t already. The next is a company called Roots apothecary. I was sent some of these products maybe two years ago from them and I was like oh here we go. Another brand you know with bath salts or whatever and I have come to really love their products. They have amazing smelling bath soaks that are like magnesium soaks. They have this adaptive cacao powder that makes amazing hot chocolate. They have so many great just personal care products. Honestly, I love buying stuff from this site to gift to other people. Their products make really great gifts.

Heather Finley 6:45
They have some CBD tinctures that are great for sleep and anxiety. So lots of different types of products. And if you’re looking for stocking stuffers at the last minute, Have you ordered today, you probably would get them by Christmas, but you got to act fast. Next I want to talk about some of my home or kitchen favorites and just how I navigate being a busy mom and an entrepreneur and making sure that we all eat healthy, well balanced meals that are nourishing to our gut. And one of those is through switching out our pans. So I know that it’s very easy to cook with nonstick pans because it makes the cleaning a lot easier. But what we know now is that a lot of nonstick pans contain endocrine disrupting chemicals. And so I made the switch a couple years ago to ceramic pans, I also will use stainless steel pans. And one of the brands that I have come to love is Caraway. And so I have switched to using a lot of their pans. They are nonstick, but they’re ceramic. So you can still have the convenience of nonstick, but not with the endocrine disrupting chemicals. I use these pans daily to make eggs to make stir fries to cook all sorts of things. And they are really pretty, there’s lots of different colors that you can buy. But they also work really well. And so I enjoy having them as part of my kitchen routines. Another routine that I’ll be honest, I haven’t been as good at this year, but it’s still one of my go to favorites is Thrive Market. So this subscription would be an amazing gift for a mom, or it would be an amazing gift to to ask for for yourself. Because the subscription fee is not huge. And you will save that all year by ordering your favorite products. So what I love about Thrive Market is they have a lot of my favorite brands, they have the chomps meat sticks, they have paleo Valley products, they have primal kitchen products, they have the bonds and noodles that my kids love. But it’s all for a lower price. And you’re going to find at the grocery store or on Amazon. And so when you think about it proactively and think okay, what are we going to need for the month, what are we going to need for the quarter etc. They even have great cleaning products. They also have good like skincare and you know, shower products, as well. And so when you’re intentional about using the subscription, you can save tons of money. And the best part is you ordered online. They also have an app. So as you think of things that you need, you can just add them to your cart. And then when you’re ready to place an order you can so that’s what I tried to do is as we run out of our favorite primal kitchen buffalo sauce or add it to the app or as we run out of you know the chomps or whatever that we use, I add it to my cart and then place a big order you know once every six to eight weeks and all of our favorite stuff arrives on our porch and it’s just so easy and convenient. The next thing is you’ve probably seen me talk about this or post about this on Instagram but I would not live without Instacart I love Instacart This is another great subscription to use for yourself or gift to someone else. But if you do not like going to the grocery store or you feel overwhelmed by the grocery store, which is me unless it’s Trader Joe’s, I really do not enjoy going to the grocery store, it stresses me out. There’s always way too many things to choose from. And honestly, I ended up saving money by using Instacart. Because I stick to my list, I order the things we need. And then I don’t have all these excess things that I found at the store that look really cool. And so I use Instacart seriously on a weekly basis and my groceries are delivered to me, we use Instacart and you can even order from Costco and you don’t even have to have a Costco membership which is really cool. So we can get lots of things in bulk if we need them and have them for a long period of time. And it just honestly in life right now having a almost two year old and a five year old it makes life so much easier to be able to use Instacart when I need it or if I have a super busy day of calls. And I know that we need certain things from the grocery store, I can order stuff and then that gives me time back with my kids that I can spend with them versus traipsing around the grocery store trying to find things so that is one of those trade offs that I have just decided to do in this season of life is I will pay for the Instacart subscription for the convenience and honestly probably save money in the long run because I don’t order things that I don’t need. And so I love that and I also love that then it gives me my time back to spend time with my family. I also wanted to mention just some of my favorite food products and I do have subscription or sorry discount codes for some of these things but you also can buy most of these things either on Thrive cart or at your local grocery store. So one of the things that you can’t and you do have to order online are herbs and spices from Mountain rose herbs. I absolutely love this company. It is based in Oregon, I believe they have the best grilling herbs for seasoning meats and cooking with they have this happy tummy tea that is so delicious. And a lot of our clients really really enjoy and so it’s one of the the companies that I’ll just order bulk herbs from. Another thing that I love from Mountain rose herbs is the nettles tea. If you deal at all with histamine issues, making your own nettles tea can be really cheap and very easy way to support histamine response and break down and so I typically will order my nettles leave from Mountain rose herbs, and you can order it in various sizes. So those are just some of my favorite things. You can peruse the site, and you’ll see that they have probably everything and more that you could ever need. But definitely one of my favorite places. I also love buying their teas as gifts for friends. And so that’s a great little tip there as well. I’m interrupting this episode really quick to tell you about our sponsor element. You know that I am a huge fan of minerals for gut health if you struggle with constipation, bloating, acid reflux or even poor energy. Often the best place to start is by replenishing your minerals. And as we approach the summer months, this becomes even more crucial minerals are the sparkplugs of our body and help us to maintain adequate hydration and that’s why I’m so excited for you to give element a try. The ultimate mineral boost for your gut packed with the perfect balance of sodium potassium and magnesium element helps us to restore these essential electrolytes ensuring that your gut stays happy and hydrated. It’s like giving your gut the fuel it needs to thrive. So here’s the exciting part. If you want to receive a free sample pack with purchase Be sure to check out the link Dr. Heather finley.co backslash element lm n t or you can visit the link in the show notes. Now back to the episode. Next up is coffee if you know me, you know I love coffee but I don’t like mold in my coffee. I love purity coffee. It is my favorite mold free coffee. And my other favorite part of it is that it’s decaf. So I truly love coffee for the flavor. I don’t drink it for the caffeine. And I love purity coffee and that it is tested for mold and it is mold free and I feel great drinking it and it doesn’t give me the jitters and I know that the beans are really well sourced.

Heather Finley 14:41
So purity coffee is another great food products that I love. The next thing that I know so many of you I’ve tried is purely Elizabeth granola so they have this salted chocolate granola that is so good. I have a discount code actually for the money Little free coffee and for purely Elizabeth that you can order from their site. But you can also buy the granola on Thrive cart or Thrive Market and it is so good on to putting on smoothie bowls, yogurt bowls, etc. It is a great, just delicious snack. So obviously they have other flavors, but you will thank me later when you try the salted chocolate granola. The next one is maybe surprising or just different is the fond bone broth. So this bone broth is far superior to probably any bone broth I’ve ever tried. It makes the best base for soups, sauces, I drink this often I’ll drink a jar of it as a snack during the day. They have like 14 grams of protein in one jar, depending on what flavor. And so it’s a great way to just get some really good collagen really good minerals are really good protein during the day. And I just love their flavors that they have. So definitely one of my favorite products. Another product that I love that actually was sent to me not that long ago is called strew. See, and this is this amazing grain free granola that I have loved putting on chia pudding smoothies, yogurt bowls, same thing as the purely Elizabeth one has a bit different of a flavor in that it’s more it has more nuts in it. And so definitely different both delicious, but really love it, they have a coffee flavor that is super good. So I thought I would add it to the list. And then the last food product that I want to mention is all a pop. So I know that prebiotic sodas are for sure having a moment these days. But this is a really fun alcohol alternative. At the end of the day, it’s a great way to support your gut with some prebiotic fiber and just a fun switch up from your normal water. You definitely do not have to drink prebiotic sodas to have a healthy gut. But one of my fun just little things that I’ll do at the end of the day. I know I’ve shared this on Instagram but I really don’t drink alcohol very much anymore. I when I was dealing with mold, it just really affected me. And since then I just haven’t really picked it back up. I’ll have an occasional glass of wine, but it’s pretty rare and honestly I love some of these other alternatives like lollipop or Poppy or just just straight up mineral mocktail instead. And so it’s been a fun way to just have something that tastes different. So all these food products would be great stocking stuffers gifts for people, things that you know might be a little bit different from your typical like underwear and socks that you might get in your stocking. Next I want to talk about some of my favorite supplements. You certainly don’t need all of these or any of these really but can be really convenient things to have on hand to use for either travel or just daily use depending on what you’re using it for. But number one is the further food collagen protein so they have this chocolate collagen protein that is so good. It mixes super well. They also have some amazing superfood blends that can be great for travel or just when your fruit and veggie intake is a bit lower. But this would make an amazing stocking stuffer. They also have travel sizes of all of these things, which I love to have, especially when I travel. Next supplement that I’ll recommend are just kind of group of supplements is a company called perfect supplements. They have a hydrolyzed collagen that’s really good. They have this mushroom immunity. They also have a mushroom immunity with Asadullah cherry so if you need extra vitamin C this time of year with getting sick, it’s a great product. Mushrooms are so beneficial for gut health, for cognition, for memory, so many things. So that’s one of my favorites from them. And then a lot of our clients that have GI issues specifically constipation, love their magnesium citrate powder, it is the most affordable as far as like cost per scoop. And so it’s a great magnesium citrate powder if you’re struggling with constipation, they have it in capsule or powder form, which is great. Next up is Organa phi. And I know I’ve talked about this before, and it’s something that we share with our clients often as well. But it is an amazing superfood powder for just times when you might need a little extra boost. One thing that we typically will see on testing with our clients is low akkermansia. And akkermansia is a keystone strain of bacteria. And the interesting part about akkermansia is we’re finding that supplementing with probiotics is actually not necessarily helping to repopulate akkermansia Even when you’re using the akkermansia probiotic. And the reason being is that if your diet isn’t adequate and poly phenols and the foods that feed akkermansia That you won’t establish akkermansia in your gut. And so, the first step in helping to repopulate this is actually to encourage the use of deep red poly phenol foods. And they actually have a reds powder that is great, you can add it to water, I just use one of those like little frother sticks to froth it up, or to mix it up and drink it throughout the day. And then they also have this gold powder for sleep. My daughter thinks that this gold powder is hot chocolate, I’m not sure where she got that from, because it’s not brown, and it’s gold. But she loves it. She always asked me for hot chocolate and I know that that’s what she’s referring to. But it’s like a golden milk latte that is amazing for sleep. It’s just like such such a warming beverage. Um, it’s something that I keep in my cabinet, just as a treat every once in a while. I know I’ve posted about the rest of these a lot. But beam is one of my favorite newer products that I’ve used this year. It is a CBD sleep supplement. It does have melatonin in it. And so it’s not something that you want to use consistently. But for nights where you know, you want to get a good night’s sleep or you’re struggling with sleep beam can be a great way to just wine down in the evening is they have a lot of different flavors. But the chocolate one definitely is my favorite. I know right now they’re doing I think 40% off of your first order. So again, all these links are going to be in the show notes of this episode. elementi is another one. You have heard me talk about this a million times. But minerals are so important for your gut. And especially if you struggle with fatigue, constipation, diarrhea, hormone imbalances, more than likely you need mineral support and elementi can be one of the great ways to get more support for your minerals. Fuel your workouts. If you’re someone that does hot yoga elementi is a great thing to add to your routine. Not everybody needs that high of sodium and so I have some other electrolyte options. But if you’re a really active person, you struggle with really pebbly poops, I have a whole mineral guide. If you just DM me the word minerals on Instagram, you will get the guide for free. And in there, it will list off if elementi would be beneficial to you. So I won’t bore you with those details, you can just go grab the guide and decide if elementi is something that you might need. But some of the ones that we typically across the board recommend to clients. Number one is pickleball cocktail from Jigsaw Health.

Heather Finley 22:31
I also have a discount code for this company. But everybody needs more potassium. And they actually did a study recently and found that most Americans we’re not meeting their daily potassium needs. And some of that has to do with our soil quality. And also some of it has to do with just what we’re eating on a daily basis. But most people need more potassium. Potassium is great for thyroid health for blood sugar balance for hormone health. And like I said most people do not get enough. And so what actually happened as a result of this study is they lowered the recommended daily allowance of potassium, not because we don’t need it, but because no one was meeting the mark, which is honestly so confusing to me. Like why would you lower it if you know that we need that much. And so one way that you can go above and beyond and make sure that you’re getting the most potassium, something that I definitely consume quite a bit is something called pickleball cocktail to higher potassium supplement. I really love it. And honestly it tastes like orange Tang. So it is one of my favorite things. And other products that Jigsaw Health has is the adrenal cocktail. It’s a blend of potassium, sodium and vitamin C. If you’re feeling stressed, if you’re feeling anxious, you have hormone issues, you have gut issues, this can be a great place to start, I will warn you that it doesn’t taste great. It’s kind of just a salty addition to your water. So adding that with pickleball cocktail can be a great little concoction. Again, on my mineral guide, I’ll walk you through if you need these things. And so you can DM me the word minerals on Instagram if you want to grab the guide. And then lastly from Jigsaw Health is mag soothe. It’s one of the best ways to wind down the day. It’s magnesium glycinate. And it helps with stress it helps with sleep. And it’s just one of my favorite products. And then the last supplement company that I’ll recommend on this episode at least is earthly. So this was a brand that was newer to me. Last year I believe and we’ve started incorporating some of their products with our clients and then I’ve used them personally personally but they have three products that I really love and they have more but three that I’ll mentioned today. Number one is the infant tummy relief. This is actually great for adults to do you struggle with gas bloating sour stomach, this product is amazing. It would be a great stocking stuffer. to somebody that you feel comfortable adding this to. They also have some digestive bitters products, digest support and digest ease, which are just a little bit different than the infant tummy relief but, but can be great for supporting digestion. And then honestly, my favorite product is this good night lotion that they have, I put it on my kids before bed, and it smells better than anything I’ve ever smelled in my entire life. It is so amazing. So sometimes I use it on myself because it is so good. So it helps with sleep and relaxation. It’s a magnesium lotion, I highly, highly recommend it smells so good. And then some higher ticket items that I have really loved this year and even years prior to this. The aura ring, or a ring has been one of my favorite wellness tools. I’ve had one for over three years. I started using it in the infancy of that brand. But it is a great way to track your sleep, your stress your recovery and more. I love looking at my heart rate variability. I know I’ve talked a lot about this on other podcast episodes. But when I was dealing with mold, I knew something was wrong because my heart rate variability was just so low, and I couldn’t figure out why. And as I’ve healed from mold, my heart rate variability has gone back up. As I’ve learned to support my nervous system, it has gone back up. And so I just love it. It’s a fun little gadget. I’m definitely a gadget person. And I love having data. And so I have a link in the show notes to save $40 If you want to splurge this Christmas and buy something really fun for yourself or for a friend. And then the last thing that I’ll mention is the higher dose sauna blanket. So I actually got this for Christmas last year for my husband, I personally have it, I love it, I use it multiple times a week, it helps me so much when I was going through mold, I also have their PMF mat and I love sitting on that in the morning while I’m reading doing devotionals setting intentions for the day. The PMF mat is amazing as well. And so a lot of their products are great. The other product that they have is their red light face mask, I got that as a gift this past year and is also one of my favorite tools as I’m trying to maintain skin health as I get older. And so all their products honestly are amazing. And so all the links are in the show notes. So I hope that this is helpful just to hear about some of my favorite products. I know I love when other people do these episodes, because I’m nosy and I love hearing about what other people are enjoying what they’re using, maybe learning about some new brands. So most of these things, I do have discount codes. So be sure to check out the show notes to see the discount codes and make sure that you can get the best price on some of these products if you’d like to try them. I would love to hear if you try any of these. If you incorporate them if you notice a difference. Of course, if you have any questions are welcome to jump on over to Instagram and ask me any questions about this. And then if you got our gift guide email, you’ll see that you actually can gift someone an HTML test. And you can also give someone a membership to get together. I got this idea actually, because someone on my email list, responded to an email a couple of weeks ago and said I really want to buy the membership for my mother. She could really benefit from this program. She’s struggling with gut issues, and she doesn’t know why she’s having these gut issues. And so is there a way to purchase this as a gift for her? And the answer is yes. So if you want to purchase the membership, or an htma test for you or your loved ones for Christmas and give the gift of gut health, which honestly, in my opinion is the gift that keeps on giving. You can click the links in the show notes to purchase those. And of course if you have any questions you can reach out to our team and we can make sure that you get sorted and get the gift to the exact right person that needs it. But really this episode The purpose of it was just to be fun and to be a little bit different from what I typically do. I’d love to hear if you enjoyed this episode. If you try any of the products and you find them helpful then please reach out and let me know and have a wonderful holiday season and I will see you next time on the next episode of the love your gut podcast. As always, please note that this episode or anything discussed on this podcast is not a substitution for medical advice and you should always consult your health practitioner before trying anything new. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the love your app. Podcast. I love to help you understand why you’re bloated and so that is why I have created my free quiz. Why am I bloated? In this quiz, you will learn what could potentially be causing your bloat and what you can actually do to fix it. So if you want to learn why are bloated and how to fix it, visit www.DrHeatherFinley.co/quiz, or visit the link in the show notes. I’ll see you next time.