Prunes and Plums

I was listening to a lecture by my good friend Ellen Jensen at an iridology conference last year, and I noticed that her health recommendations for clients always included recommendations for specific foods. I think many of us in natural health give general dietary guidelines to clients, but I've never recommended specific foods the way I would recommend specific herbs or nutritional supplements. Since then, I've been working to add foods to my herbal database that can help specific conditions. This week's article is an easy example of a food you can recommend for intestinal issues, plums and their dried version, prunes.

Not all plums can be dried to make prunes. Prunes are made from specific varieties of plums (Prunus domestica). The varieties that are easy to dry are freestone, meaning the pit does not cling to the fruit and can easily be removed. Most plums we eat fresh are clingstone, which means the pit does not separate from the flesh. Also, the plums used to make prunes have less moisture and don’t ferment during drying.

The Laxative Action of Prunes

Prunes are a great food to recommend for people who are constipated, as they are known to encourage healthy elimination. However, they are not laxatives in the common sense of the term. Most laxative herbs contain anthraquinone glycosides, compounds that directly stimulate peristalsis in the large intestine. And, they are not bulk laxatives, like psyllium hulls, either. Although they do contain fiber, their fiber content, when dried, is only 7%, which isn't that high. Besides, prune juice aids elimination but doesn’t contain prune fiber.

Prunes are more correctly classified as aperients, remedies that have a gentle laxative action. The exact reason that prunes encourage healthy elimination is not completely understood. One current explanation is that they contain the sugar alcohol, sorbitol. However, they also contain neochlorogenic acid and chlorogenic acid, which may also contribute to the laxative effect. Sorbitol does have a laxative effect, and like other sugar alcohols (xylitol, mannitol, and erythritol) sorbitol can cause gastrointestinal distress in some people. This usually takes the form of bloating, belching, and gas.

Gut Microflora and Elimination

Sugar alcohols are considered FODMAPs, fermentable substances that cause some people GI tract distress. Fermentable means that various intestinal bacteria can feed off of them, producing intestinal gas and other symptoms. Many healthy foods contain FODMAPs, including legumes (beans), cabbage, garlic, raw beets, and bananas. Different FODMAPs feed different species of intestinal bacteria, so when you're not used to eating a particular food with them, they alter the intestinal microflora. This problem typically goes away, however, as the gut microflora readjusts to them. This is true for sugar alcohols.

We know that the balance of microbes in the GI tract plays a role in immunity and mood, but it also helps regulate intestinal peristalsis. That's because some bacterial species produce compounds that speed up intestinal peristalsis, causing diarrhea, while others slow it down, causing constipation. My theory is that plums are helping to balance the microbiome and increase the health of intestinal tissue, helping to restore normal bowel function. I suggest this because eating them regularly helps maintain healthy bowel function without causing diarrhea, which definitely happens if you take too much of a stimulant laxative.

Suggesting Prunes for Bowel Health

My first herb teacher falsely taught me that herbs like cascara sagrada did not create dependency, but the fact is that overuse of stimulant laxatives create dependency on them. I've observed this dependency in both myself and others. So, I'm very interested in herbs (and foods) that can help people who have become dependent on these herbs restore normal bowel function. I believe that prunes (and fresh plums) may be helpful here.

The property I currently have has three plum trees, and for the past couple of weeks, we've been harvesting fresh, tree-ripe plums, and I've been eating some every day. My bowel function, which has often been problematic, has been functioning perfectly for this entire time. I've been preserving the plums in various ways, so it will be interesting to see if the preserves continue to help bowel function.

Other Benefits of Plums and Prunes

Of course, fresh fruit, like plums, are helpful for general health. They are good sources of vitamin C and their slightly sour flavor is associated with a cooling effect, making them a good food to use in the summer to combat the heat. They are also good sources of antioxidant nutrients which protect body tissues from free radical damage. Plums are good sources of potassium, vitamin K, iron, and boron, and eating prunes may help keep bones strong as we age. Both prunes and plums tend to reduce appetite, which can make them helpful for weight loss, too. (I have lost a couple of pounds in the last few weeks while eating plums.)

Using Plums and Prunes

I’ve seen prune used in herbal formulas, but the amount you would get from a capsule is not sufficient to have much effect. It’s easier to drink unsweetened prune juice or to just eat the prunes. One way to use them is to make stewed prunes and eat them for breakfast. I do this by putting a few prunes in a bowl and pouring some boiling hot water over them. I then leave them in the fridge overnight and eat them in the morning.

But there are other ways to use them. For instance, they are a key ingredient in a Slavic salad that I love. It is a great salad for bowel and liver health. To make it wash and cook 5 medium beets until they are tender. Peel the cooked beets and grate them. To the grated beets, add ½ cup chopped walnuts and about 20 pitted and chopped prunes. Mix and add ½ cup mayonnaise (to taste). I personally like less mayonnaise. My wife also adds 2-3 cloves of pressed raw garlic, but I like the flavor better without the garlic.

This week, my wife is making and bottling pickled plums, a traditional Ukrainian dish, and I plan to make a plum chutney to eat with Indian food. While I like plums, I rarely purchase them from the grocery store, because they are almost always picked too green, which means both the flavor and the nutritional content never fully develops. So, if possible get locally grown plums that have been allowed to ripen properly, or stick to prunes.

So, suggesting someone who is regularly using stimulant laxatives start using prunes (or fresh plums) to restore bowel function could be one suggestion as a food that can be used to heal the body. The nice thing about using food as medicine is that there are no negative side effects, but plenty of positive health benefits.