I was posed a question by one of you in response to my post on simple ways to support immune function and I thought it may be a question more of you have so I am going to unpack it for you all here.
I mentioned that the gut is a major player in our immune function and that a healthy gut supports a healthy immune system. The converse is also true, an unhappy gut can negatively impact your immune function. If you have any digestive symptoms such as heart burn, indigestion, bloating, gas, diarrhoea, constipation, food pieces in your stool, or any others now is the time to listen to your gut and make some changes.
Put simply, the microbiome in your gut is composed of a variety of bacteria that are working hard for you every day. They break down food, produce nutrients, play a role in the metabolism of neurotransmitters and hormones and produce by products during metabolism that support your immune function and help maintain your gut lining integrity. We know that they do many things but we still do not know the full picture. What we do know all points to having an abundance of microbes composed of a balance of different bacterial families.
Think of your gut lining as a parking lot. There are a certain number of spaces in the parking lot. If you have loads of pathogenic or commensal bacteria taking up the parking spaces you will not have enough spaces left for the symbiotic bacteria to 'park.' Conversely, if you have an abundance of symbiotic bacteria taking up the spaces there will not be space for the pathogenic bacteria to adhere ('park') and you will stand a much better chance of preventing an infection.
So how do you fill up your parking lot with the 'right' microbes? Why, diet and lifestyle choices of course. It is my philosophy that we do what we can with diet and lifestyle first and if supplementation is necessary it is short term and carefully chosen. So, how can we support gut health with diet and lifestyle? Today I am going to focus on the diet aspect and another time we can look at lifestyle changes to support gut health.
To keep numbers of symbiotic bacteria up we need to eat prebiotic and probiotic foods daily. Let's start with the prebiotic foods...
Prebiotic foods are foods that promote the growth of symbiotic and commensal bacterial growth in the gut. They are the food that feeds our microbes. Think fibre. Fibre comes to us in many plant foods but not in foods that are highly processed, refined or 'food-like' substances. Fibre comes in natural whole plant foods that look like they do in nature. If you look at your food and can see what plant (or part of a plant) it has come from you are good. We need both soluble and insoluble fibre to keep our gut healthy. Think of the two types of fibre as one for flushing (soluble) and one for scrubbing (insoluble). Soluble fibre (flush) absorbs water, slows our chewing and helps us to feel full sooner, allowing us to extract more nutrients from our food. It also feeds our microbes. Insoluble fibre (scrub) gives bulk to our stools and helps to keep them moving through our body 'scrubbing' the intestines as they go. Making sure you are eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds and legumes with help you get enough of both types of fibre in the correct ratio. As a guide, the recommenced daily intake of fibre for an adult in the UK is 30g with the majority of the population consuming 20g or less.
What does 30g of fibre look like? This chart taken from Plant Proof shows you the levels of total fibre (soluble and insoluble) in some common foods.
Aiming for at least 30 different plant foods per week is a great way to make sure all your fibre bases are covered. Try making a simple chart numbered from one to thirty and for one week write each different type of plant food you consume. If you have any repeats do not write it on a second time. Say, you have oatmeal for breakfast and a homemade flapjack for your afternoon snack that is the wonderful fibre rich oat both times but you can only add oats to your chart once. The goal is to eat 30 different plant foods each week. Seeing as the latest recommendations for a healthy diet are to consume 8-10 portions of fruit and veg per day, once you add in your whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds you should have all the fibre you need.
Great sources of soluble fibre include:
apple
artichoke
asparagus
avocado
beans
blueberries
broccoli
Brussels sprouts
cabbage
carrot
celery
chia seeds
collard greens
cucumber
fig
flaxseeds
garlic
hemp seed
kale
lentils
oatmeal
onions
pear
peas
pumpkin
raspberries
sesame
spinach
strawberries
If you are increasing your fibre intake it is best to increase it slowly to allow your gut time to adjust and make sure you increase your water intake at the same time in order to keep everything moving as it should. As your microbiome changes your body's response to the increased fibre will too and over the long term you should not experience any digestive symptoms resulting from an intake of 30g of fibre per day.
Probiotic foods are foods that actually contain the bacteria that you are trying to colonise your gut with for their beneficial properties. Probiotic foods have been fermented with the bacteria that are happy and helpful in your gut. It is easy to make some sorts of probiotic foods at home and even easier to buy them now that they are gaining recognition. As with the fibre, it is best to go low and slow to begin with. A tablespoon of raw sauerkraut a day to begin with is plenty. See how your body reacts and adjust accordingly. If your diet has been low fibre and non probiotic to begin with you may get some gas and bloating while the colonies in your gut try to establish their new normal. And also, as with the fibre, it is best to have a variety so that you are introducing different bacteria to try and achieve that optimal, for you, balance of different families.
It is important to note that for a food to be truly probiotic the cultures in it must be live. Therefore if it is something like sauerkraut it needs to be raw and unpasteurised as pasteurisation and cooking kill the bacteria.
Some great food sources of probiotics include:
sauerkraut
kimchi
kombucha (avoid sweetened varieties -- the bacteria need sugar to feed off of in the making of kombucha but it does not need to be added afterward. Kombucha is not a naturally sweet beverage. Check the ingredients and the amount of calories in it -- kombucha is naturally low in calories if it is not low calorie it is sweetened after the fermentation process and should be avoided.)
organic kefir
organic yogurt
organic raw cheese
coconut kefir (made with coconut water)
natto
miso
organic fermented versions of pickles
apple cider vinegar
I hope that thoroughly answers your question. Keep them coming. Until next time go forth and populate your gut!
To wellness!
April
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