What are you eating today? Right now. This minute. Is it green juice? A smoothie? An herbal concoction? Does it taste good? Do you feel better?
Food is at the heart of so many health issues and the old maxim, you are what you eat, is pretty much always the case. In my case, I mix collagen into my coffee, have done multiple courses of Chinese herbs to heal various situations with my digestive system, recently completed a two shake-a-day regimen as part of a liver detox, and regularly drink a poly-prebiotic powder to boost my fiber and antioxidant levels to match the need of the microbes in my gut to build ever more healthy bacteria.
All this in the name of regular digestion. Mind you, I love a good cookie or piece of cake. But sugar is my kryptonite. A piece of cake – even a gluten-free vegan cake – throws a sugar bomb into my digestive tract, feeding all the bad bacteria and undoing all the good work I do by consuming the good stuff. This makes me human, I guess. But reduces the wellbeing of my digestive tract. When a chance to trial Morning Complete was offered to me, I jumped at it.
As a food writer and someone with food issues (no gluten, dairy, pineapple, or eggs for me!), I’ll try almost anything to keep my digestion in good working order. Morning Complete, a new supplement developed by Dr. Frank Lipman, an M.D. and functional medicine practitioner, for Activated You, a gut supplement company, ticked all the boxes.
What’s In Morning Complete?
There’s a little bit of everything in Lipman’s mix – prebiotic fiber, a blend of probiotics, superfoods like spinach and barley grass, turmeric and ginger for metabolic balance, fennel and gymnema sylvester for sugar balancing, an antioxidant blend, adaptogens like astragalus root and rhodiola rosaea, even aloe vera leaf. It’s an all-in-one, shoot-the-moon wellness powder that, like many powders, is mixed into water before drinking.
Wow, can I just be impressed for a minute at what Lipman packed in here? Many of these items are typically sold individually and taken individually. Most of these ingredients have been part of my health and wellness regimen at one point or another on my wellness journey. And I could not find a single item on the list of ingredients to which I am allergic or sensitive (no thank you, ashwaganda and echinacea).
Supplement Facts: Read the Label
So, I tried it. Citrus flavor, not Apple Cinnamon. I mixed a scoop of the powder with water as directed. At first, I thought I tasted stevia, as the mix had that tongue-coating sweetness that is not exactly white sugar. I re-read the ingredient list. Nope, no stevia in the ingredient dek. In a narrow band along the side of the Supplement Facts table, there is some guar gum, though and luo han guo, an ingredient I was unfamiliar with and had to look up. It is the Chinese name for monk fruit, which I do not like.
What Is that Flavor?
Luo han guo, a.k.a. monk fruit, has that same unpleasant tongue-coating quality that stevia has. It is very popular for use in keto products as it adds a lot of sweetness without boosting up sugar numbers. Bummer. I do not like it, Sam I am. I do not like green eggs and ham.
I sallied forth, however, drinking Morning Complete each morning for a month. Though I still do not want to drink anything with monk fruit or luo han guo and still do not like the taste of monk fruit, the benefits of this product on my gut were immediate: less gas, fewer afternoon cravings for sugar. Since I already eat a high fiber diet (sooo many dark, green leafy vegetables, so much wild rice), the fiber boost didn’t noticeably impact my bowels. What it did impact (as far as I can tell) was the bacterial growth in my gut. I feel better. Maybe more energized, too.
Taking care of your gut biome is not sexy, not cocktail conversation. But if you struggle to get as much fiber as your prehistoric gut signals you that it needs, Morning Complete may be the solution.
Go Away, Monk Fruit
Would I buy it again? Not until they remove the monk fruit. Please, monk fruit, go away. Just call it Citrus flavor and be done with it.
I received a free sample of this product.
