Endo Belly Friendly Brownie batter smoothie

This smoothie is part of a series of short chain fatty acid boosting recipes. These good guys are produced by healthy bacteria and can actually help us to fight endo. OF COURSE, a brownie smoothie can’t cure endo, but there are processes like specific inflammatory pathways that contribute to endo growth rate and symptoms, and foods we eat, supplements and lifestyle changes can all play a role in calming these contributors down.

This brownie batter Smoothie…

• Helps boost certain types of good bacteria that are low in people with endo.

• Helps to increase short chain fatty acids - that many with endo are low in.

• Helps to fight inflammatory LPS that are linked to endo development (read the caption!).

• Even helps heal leaky gut!

• Contains chia, an effective evidenced based food to help ease constipation, which is common with endo, SIBO and in the luteal phase!

• Uses low FODMAP serving sizes, to prevent triggering endo belly or SIBO flares - though I am not suggesting we all go low FDOMAP, I’m just trying to make this recipe as endo belly friendly as possible. Remember, the low FODMAP diet isn’t effective for everyone, and isn’t a long term solution.

• Can be tailored to your personal endo belly triggers.

• Is high fibre, high protein and high in healthy fats (including anti-inflammatory omega 3), so won’t spike blood sugar (in theory, remember everyone is different and blood sugar reactions are incredibly individual).

• Contains around 30g easy to digest protein, to aid recovery after surgery and keep hormones stable.

• Is rich in polyphenols from dark chocolate, antioxidants which are fantastic for gut health and overall health.

The science of how it helps

You can read or listen to my podcast episode about short chain fatty acids and endo here (it’s a quick read, promise!), which also contains all the references in the show notes, if you’re interested.

But in short, people with endo are low in bacteria that make short chain fatty acids.

This is a problem, because these guys keep the intestinal barrier healthy and keep bacteria and LPS (toxins from certain type of bacteria) INSIDE the intestines, rather than outside in places like the pelvic cavity. This matters for endo because some strains of gram-negative and pathogenic (a.k.a) bad bacteria and the toxins they shed, known as LPS, have been found in high numbers in the pelvic cavity and genital tract of people with endo, and these suckers trigger an inflammatory reaction that plays a lead role in endo growth.

Here’s the good news.  Short chain fatty acids keep the intestinal barrier sealed, help to keep bad bacteria in check AND inhibit those inflammatory reactions to LPS that contribute to endo.

We can boost these endo super stars with certain types of plant foods, including chickpeas, black beans and kidney beans (as well as other foods I am going to be using in upcoming recipes), and so these beans (whichever you prefer/tolerate) are our lead players.

But I’ve worked hard to still keep those endo belly bloating triggers low, because I know many of us are scared of beans because beans = bloating and gas. Beans actually play such a big role in endo belly healing (as I hope you’ve started to understand) that avoiding beans and lentils entirely can actually cause our gut more problems in the long-term.

Of course, I am not saying start binging on beans and ignoring symptoms, instead, it’s always best to work on your root cause of your endo belly, whilst testing, if you can, beans and lentils in serving sizes you can tolerate. I’ve given you three options here to play with, so have a read of the notes below to understand how to personalise this recipe for you and your gut.

Important notes to help you tailor this smoothie for your own body and needs (and tastebuds!)

How to Keep the Cacao and Dark Chocolate Amounts Low FODMAP

FODMAP stacking is when the types of fermentable carbohydrates in different food, stack up, to become moderate or even high FODMAP, even though your serving size of each food was green. If you’re not on the low FODMAP diet officially (you should be doing this with a doctor or dietician if you are), don’t worry about it! If you are officially on the low FODMAP diet, speak to your practitioner about how to manage FODMAP stacking. If you’re curious to learn more, this is a great blog post.

However, back to the smoothie. In this recipe, I am using a low FODMAP serving size of cacao per person, and you also have the option of adding dark chocolate. A low FODMAP serving of very dark choc, like 85%, is 20g. There’s a chance that if you have the top end of both of these ingredients, your belly may not love the combined amount of FODMAPS, even though both of these servings are in the green (meaning low FODMAP).

So, my advice is to start low. If you want to keep the flavour more chocolatey, go for the full serving size of cacao, but just do a small amount of dark chocolate - a couple of grams just to sprinkle it with chunks or chips. If you find that doesn’t work well for you, maybe lower the cacao serving a bit but keep the dark chocolate serving size the same. Basically, play around with what works for you.

For some of you, you might have no problem at all with both the full sizes of each, so if you suspect that’s you, or you just want to go all out on the chocolate, go for it!

Everyone has different tolerance thresholds and triggers with the endo belly, and just by following this recipe which I’ve designed to be low FODMAP already, you might find you do just fine and don’t need to make any adjustments at all.

Chickpeas vs. Black Beans vs. Kidney Beans

All three of these fabulous beans boost the three main short chain fatty acids: acetate, propionate, and butyrate. If you opt for black beans or kidney beans, they’re going to give you more of an increase in butyrate, which is the super star of short chain fatty acids for those of us with endo, as it actually helps to fight specific inflammatory processes that are involved in endo development. I’ll be doing a podcast episode especially on butyrate in the next few weeks, with recipes developed especially for their butyrate loving properties, so using chickpeas is a nice way of upping all three types overall, before we really get down to some serious butyrate boosting.

I’ve used chickpeas in my recipe testing, simply because we travel full time and in Slovenia, where we’re currently staying, I can’t get hold of black beans. In the recent past however (like last month), I’ve used kidney beans to make both brownies and brownie batter (though not this smoothie specifically), and I actually think they are superior to black beans in brownie or batter recipes, despite them being a go-to bean for brownies! They’re just denser and have more bite to them, and will make this smoothy rich and fudgy.

Anyway, many people with endo belly and SIBO, and IBS full-stop, do not do well on chickpeas. I’ve kept the serving size low FODMAP, so if you’d like, give them a go and see how you respond at this level, because you may well find you tolerate them (and they’re super beneficial for the gut!).

However, if not, I’ve provided the low FODMAP serving sizes of both black beans and the kidney beans too.

Batter Consistency

If you want to make this more like a frozen brownie batter pudding kind of vibe, just lessen the liquid and just a little liquid at a time until you get the desired consistency. Remember, if you’re using a blender over a food processor, you will need a certain amount of water to get it to blend smooth.

This is how my boyfriend likes the smoothie best - he eats it with a spoon, with huge chunks of chocolate mixed in!

Courgette/Zucchini

The courgette (zucchini to many of my readers) is added for veggie servings, as a diet high in veg and plant foods for stop is key for keeping inflammation levels low. However, if you want a smoothie that tastes super brownie like, you can omit or really cut down the serving size.

Both my boyfriend and I found that when the recipe was just dates and chickpeas as the veg/fruit source, it really tasted brownie batter like.

Chia seeds

The low FODMAP serving size for chia is 24g per person. However, I recommend my clients start lower, at 15g, as sometimes that’s all we need per day to get the bowels moving, and it may take their bodies time to adjust to the extra fibre, so we build up slowly.

Additionally, depending on your gut issues, chia may be better tolerated at lower levels. Remember, if you have SIBO, just because something is low FODMAP, does not mean it won’t trigger symptoms, so always check your tolerance levels.

Always remember to drink an extra 150ml water with chia as it is very absorbent and needs water to create the slippery gel that helps with constipation. If you don’t drink much water, chia can actually dry things up and worsen this gut problem.

Finally, it’s worth noting that whilst this may be the trick to get things moving again, it often takes consistent daily use of chia to see a difference, and even then, if you have more going on with your gut health, you might need extra help.

Blood sugar

I tend to steer clear of using a lot of sugar in my recipes to help keep blood sugar stable and inflammation low. I’ve used very dark chocolate with low sugar levels for this recipe, and deglet noor dates, which are much lower in sugar than medjool, at about 3-5g per date (medjool are about 18g per date).

You’re welcome to use a higher sugar chocolate and medjool dates if you prefer things to be sweeter (of just use an extra deglet door date), but it may result in a blood sugar spike, which can raise inflammation.

That doesn’t mean you can never have sugar or high sugar fruits, I’m just wanting to be responsible with my recipes.

Further resources

If you’re struggling with your gut health, you might find my courses and one to one coaching helpful. You can find out more here. I’ve also got endless podcast episodes on gut health and blood sugar, plus, you might find these article helpful in terms of how to manage your blood sugar levels and why:

https://endometriosis.net/living/diet-sugar

https://endometriosis.net/living/how-to-balance-your-blood-sugar-levels-to-reduce-endo-symptoms

To understand more about the low FODMAP diet, start here.