Five
Tips for Better Gut Health
We have talked and talked about why gut health is
important. The good bacteria help to
fight off the bad bacteria which can be the reason behind leaky-gut syndrome, IBS,
food allergies and even Crohn’s disease. The composition of bacteria in your
gut influences not only your digestive health but your weight, your skin, your
mental health, immune function, inflammation levels and more.
What can you do to better your gut health? I think, as
a whole, Trim Healthy followers desire to do things in a more natural way;
through whole foods, supplements and fewer over-the-counter medicines. So, what are some tangible ways to do this
through our diet?
1. Eat
more fiber-rich plant-based foods. You don’t have to be a
vegan to enhance the diversity and composition of your gut microbiome, but you
do want to up your intake of veggies, fruits, nuts, beans, whole grains and
other minimally processed plant-based foods.
Plants are naturally rich in fiber and fiber is the fuel that your good
gut bacteria need in order to proliferate. When the good gut bugs break down
the fiber, they release beneficial compounds called short-chain fatty acids
(SCFAs). These healing compounds have been shown to repair damage to the
intestinal lining (“leaky gut”).
Below are some fiber-rich foods (and
their fuel type according to THM), to add to your weekly menu rotation. What a
variety! They fall into all fuel types!
Avocado-S
Raspberries-FP
Blueberries-FP
Pears-E
Apples-E
Peas, (Yes, KJ, even peas)-FP
Broccoli-FP
Brussels sprouts-FP
Sweet potatoes-E
Squash-E or FP
Oats-E
Quinoa-E
Almonds, walnuts, pistachios-S
Chia seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds-S
Beans, lentils and chickpeas or
garbanzo beans-E
2. Eat
a greater variety of plants, too. Greater variety of foods and
not just the same can of green beans every night will increase the diversity of
bacterial species. Research by the American Gut Project suggests that the main
predictor of gut health is actually the variety of plant foods in someone’s
diet. Scientists found that people
eating more than 30 types of plants per week had a healthier biome than those
eating 10 or less. The fiber in each
type of plant foods seems to feed a unique species of bacteria in the gut—so eating
a greater array of plants results in a greater diversity of gut bacteria.
Eating fruits and vegetable in season can go a long way to improving
good gut health diversity.
3. Rid
your diet of refined sugars and carbohydrates. Eating loads of refined carbs can push your
ratio of good to bad bacteria in the wrong direction and negatively affect gut
health. One “cheat-meal” can ruin your
gut health and cause your body a significant gut-health setback of a week or
more. “There’s no reason to go off-plan!” Your gut will thank you.
4. Supplement
foods with well-researched strains of probiotics. While
eating more plant-based fiber-rich foods is important, probiotics can also be
very beneficial to promoting a diverse microbiome in the gut. They seem to be
especially important after a course of antibiotics or after an illness. It’s good to obtain them from natural sources
such as: yogurt, kefir, kimchi, naturally fermented sauerkraut, kombucha and
miso. Make your selection of fermented
foods as broad as possible as well. Each
fermented food will contain different strains of gut-healing bacteria.
5. Finally,
spend as much time outside in nature as possible.
There’s more to gut-health than just what you put in your mouth. In fact, one of the biggest changes in day-to-day
life over the last century has been the drastic decrease in our contact with nature—plants,
animals, dirt, fresh air, etc. Many modern societies are literally walled off
from it; traveling by car to an office, up an elevator, back out to the car and
home to sit in front of a TV. The need
to get outside has never been so great! Taking steps to boost your contact with
the outside world; going for a hike, playing with your dog, walking barefoot in
the grass, digging in the garden soil, spending time with farm animals, can
expose you to millions, if not billions, of beneficial microbes that benefit
your overall health. Being active while
you are outdoors and getting in some intentional movement is always good too. It's
going to be spring soon, so take a sketchbook outside and make plans for your
garden, drag out your dog’s leash and head for the hills, go visit some baby
chicks and dream of the chicken coop you might build.
Gut health is so
important to our well-being. It shows
how masterful our Creator is; everything in perfect balance. When we partake of
a variety of God’s food choices, we see the beautiful array of colors, textures
and diverse nutrition that can be gained from those foods and how healthy they
can be to our bodies. Do these five things for your health—inside and out!
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