The Benefits of Bitters

An easy way of getting more bitters into your diet is simply to add more bitter greens to your salads, and eating your salad first. (Ratov/Shutterstock) Maxim

There’s a good chance you unconsciously avoid it, linking it to toxicity. Yet it actually stimulates bile, preventing the accumulation of waste in your liver while also lessening symptoms of constipation, gas, bloating, loose stools, and food allergies.

Story at a Glance

• Bitter herbs, spices, and foods offer valuable benefits and can go a long way toward improving your overall health by improving digestion, gastrointestinal health, and absorption of nutrients.
• Historically, bitter herbs have been primarily used as cleansing agents, vitality builders, and digestive support.
• Many bitters have been shown to have antifungal, antiseptic, anti-protozoal, and even anti-tumor activity.
• Much in the same way bitter compounds help protect the plant from harmful influences, they can be helpful in your body by inhibiting microbe growth, oxidation, and inflammation.
• Commercially available bitter tinctures include Swedish Bitters and Underberg. Another easy way to get more bitters into your diet is simply to add more bitter greens to your salads and eat your salad first.

Bitter flavors are perhaps the least appreciated and sought-after, yet bitter herbs and spices offer valuable benefits and can go a long way toward improving your overall health. Historically, bitter herbs have been primarily used as cleansing agents, vitality builders, and digestive support.¹ According to a paper published in the European Journal of Herbal Medicine:²

“With so many bitter herbs, most with a long history of medicinal use in multiple cultures, it is not surprising to read that ’the urinary system seems to be the only system that does not derive direct benefit from the administration of bitters.'”

As noted by the Weston A. Price Foundation, an organization dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research, and activism:³

“It is unfortunate, then, that our modern diet seems to be completely lacking in the wild bitter tasting plants our ancestors considered so fundamental to their health. Many of the diseases riddling our modern culture—from indigestion and gastric reflux to metabolic disorders … seem to all point back to the deficiency of bitterness in our diets, and the lack of the protection and tone it imparts to our digestion and metabolic functions.”

Bitters Are an Important Part of Optimal Health

As noted by the Weston A. Price Foundation, bitter-tasting foods are not necessarily “medicine” as much as they are a necessary part of a healthy diet, providing your body with components you cannot get elsewhere, and these components are important for overall good health.