Apple Pectin Benefits For Gut Health (Recipe Included!)

Author's Bio: Jessie Gutsue, MA, RDN, IFNCP

Hey, today we're going to talk about Apple pectin and its benefits for gut health.

I'm Jesse Gutsue and I'm a functional medicine dietitian with Oswald Digestive Clinic.

If you want to learn more ways for quick gut healthy cooking, check out our link HERE for 5 tips for quicker gut healthy cooking.

Now let's get on to apple pectin and its benefits for gut health.

[Video Transcript Below Video - it is the same information]

So first we are going to talk about

What is apple pectin?

You've probably heard of pectin in terms of making jams or jellies, and this pectin is a type of manufactured pectin that is actually found in plant cell walls, but its benefit is that it helps to bind and gel things like a jam or a jelly.

But in apples, pectin is highly concentrated in the skin and is further increase by heat. So we're going to make a really fun recipe as we go along that will really help amp up the pectin in our easy warm apple.

Okay, so first let's get into chopping up our apple.

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I have honey crisp apples here. You can use your favorite apples. You can even use bruised and blemished ones because you're heating them, and then it doesn't really matter as much about what they look like.

So we're going to chop about two or three cups of apples, and I have warmed my skillet on medium and I add those to the skillet. You just want nice bite-sized pieces.

These will cook down, so they'll soften and they'll get a little bit smaller. This is a great recipe for fall because it's really simple. It's a little bit sweet and only takes about 10 minutes.

So now with the apples in, I'm going to add a couple tablespoons of water and we're going to stir these around and put the top on. So let's get back to apple pectin.

Apple Pectin Benefits

So pectin is a type of prebiotic and a lot of the benefits of pectin really come from the fact that they are a prebiotic.

So what's a prebiotic?

A prebiotic is a type of fiber that is indigestible to humans, which means it transfers down through the small intestine into the colon, and ultimately it's acted on by our gut bacteria and they ferment and then extract the nutrition from that way.

And one of the main benefits of prebiotics and the fermentation of them is the production of short chain fatty acids. You may have heard of this.

It's abbreviated SCFA short chain fatty acids. And so a lot of the benefit comes from that and the fact that it's a prebiotic. Now, pectin is a prebiotic, which is a type of fiber and specifically soluble fiber, but not all fibers are prebiotic. So that's important to remember.

All fiber is beneficial for us, but not all of them act like a prebiotic in the way that apple pectin does. So apples actually are one of the highest concentration foods with natural pectin source. So that's why we're talking about this today, and it's a very simple fall favorite and how can you not love apples and all the spices that go along with it.

So I am going to use just a little bit of ginger here, and one of the easiest ways to peel ginger is actually by scraping it with a spoon and it really doesn't get much easier than that.

So let's mince this down, and I'm going to add this to the cooking apples.

You can also use dry ginger here, and you would just reduce the amount by about a third. We're adding ginger to add a little bit more spice, but also this will help with digestion as well. Nice small pieces and then we'll add them. So now we're going to talk about the five main benefits of pectin.

There's a lot of other ways that pectin and prebiotics benefit our body, but we're going to talk about the five main. So the first benefit of pectin is its prebiotic properties.

Prebiotics

So prebiotics, like I mentioned before, are non-digestible or indigestible by humans and therefore benefit our bacteria. One of the ways that we can increase good bacteria in our microbiome is by feeding them, and the way we feed them is by prebiotics.

Improved Digestion

The next benefit is improved digestion, and this goes hand in hand with the fact that it is a fiber.

So the pectin being a soluble fiber helps to slow and bind various things in digestion. This works both ways. It sort of balances either a fast or slow transit and soluble fiber slows and pulls in water into the digestive track and increases the amount of nutrient absorption, but it can also pull things in like various toxins.

Detoxification

That actually leads me to my third benefit. It's a natural detoxification because it works by pulling toxins. Maybe something that you ingested is pulled in and excreted via feces rather than being allowed to go to our bloodstream. So that's the third benefit.

Strengthens Gut Lining

The fourth benefit is that apple pectin helps to strengthen our gut lining. So think of our gut lining mount the anus as one long tube, and this is our first stop of our immunity.

So if that tube isn't strong, then there's going to be issues with things coming in that shouldn't and things going out that shouldn't, and that can lead to various immune responses like food sensitivities or maybe inflammation throughout the body.

So really this is a widespread issue if we have poor gut lining health, and that can also be called leaky gut, which I'm probably sure you heard of.

So this apple pectin helps by being a prebiotic to feed our gut bacteria, which create a short chain fatty acid or a variety of short chain fatty acids, namely butyrate.

That helps with strengthening our gut lining. So that leads me to we're going to add a little bit of butter because butter is actually one of the natural sources of butyrate. So we're now going to add a little bit of butter.

We're just going to stir in the butter and let 'em cook down a little bit longer.

Satiety

And the fifth and final benefit of our apple pectin is that it's a slow moving soluble fiber, and therefore it helps to create gird satiety, which can lead to more stable blood sugars and therefore better weight management.

So there's lots and lots of benefits that come from Apple pectin and not just its gut health support, but also the plethora of other things that we've talked about. It's a prebiotic, so it's a fiber that helps to regulate digestion, help with detoxification, improves our gut lining strength and help with many other things like blood sugar, weight management, and overall satiety. Who can't want that?

So how do we add in more apple pectin into our day?

Well, you can make this really simple recipe. You saw how quick that was and it's fall.

So apples are great and they work in any type of apple works great in this recipe. Pick your favorites and go with it. You can also try something like applesauce, but do make sure that the apple sauce or your recipes include the skin since pectin is highly concentrated in the skin of apples.

Another way is to have apple cider vinegar and there are supplements, apple pectin supplements, and of course, I always recommend food first, but if you need a supplement, then make sure you talk to your healthcare provider about what is right for you. So let's put this in a bowl.

Now I added the butter and cooked this down with a little bit of cinnamon and the ginger because I had whole ginger too, so I wanted that to soften a little bit. If you use dried spices, you can add them now or you can add them throughout like I did.

And now is when I would add your vanilla extract. If you get a good vanilla extract, you don't want to heat that because those components are volatile, which means if you heat it, a lot of it just goes up in the air. And then we'll also add a little bit of maple syrup.

Totally not necessary if the apples are one of your favorites, but it adds to a little bit of the tasty treat. So these are really simple. They just took about 10 minutes and they're a great way to benefit your overall gut lining, support, detoxification, weight management, blood sugar control.

The list goes on. If you'd like a full 30 minute cooking demo where I walk you through various recipes and talk about the nutrition aspects and some food science that goes along with it, then make sure you

Email us at cookingdemos@oswalddigestiveclinic.com.

I hope to see you next week. Thank you again for watching.