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Do you have gut troubles bringing you down? Here are the best gut healing foods to heal your microbiome and get you back on track to health.
Researchers have discovered that we have a ‘second brain.’ This is quite interesting if not frightening. Your gut has a nervous system that communicates with your actual brain.
The human gut is, in essence so complicated that it will not be shocking to find even further scientific revelations. It contains an excess of 30 million microbes. Microbes are bacteria that help in the digestion of that slider you probably grabbed for lunch.
A healthy gut would, therefore, mean a healthy brain and body. Your gut health is dependent on what you consume. Studies show that over 70 million Americans suffer from digestive issues every day. This is quite worrying.
How can you keep your gut healthy? Your choice of food gives the best answer. Follow this guide to learn about the gut healing foods you should be taking.
Effects of the Food You Eat on Your Gut
The gut contains a host of microbes that help in digestion. Every meal you take affects these microbes either positively or negatively.
The nature of foods that help these microbes dictate your gut. The bacteria in the gut require two types of foods for optimum functionality.
These types of foods contain bacteria or food for the bacteria in the gut. This is getting quite easy. To use more biological terms, foods that contain bacteria are called probiotics. Those that provide nutrition to the bacteria in the gut are called prebiotics.
A healthy gut requires a combination of these two sub-categories of foods.
What Type of Foods Are Prebiotic?
These are foods that are good for microbes in the gut. Prebiotics are present in foods rich in fiber. Microbes essentially feed on fiber. Well-fed microbes remarkably improve the healthy gut.
Fiber for a Healthy Gut
This is a nutritional component that shouldn’t miss on your table for a healthy gut. Surprisingly it is a diet that, more often than not, is absent for many Americans. Only a meager 3% of Americans truly appreciate the value of fiber for their gut.
The larger population is missing out, no wonder the many cases of reported digestive issues. Nutritionists recommend daily intakes of 40g of fiber each day. However, from statistics, you can tell America is suffering from fiber deficiency.
What Foods Are Richest in Fiber?
Fibers can be classified as soluble or insoluble. Soluble fibers help maintain blood glucose level. Insoluble fibers are also referred to as roughage or cellulose.
Roughage is a part of your food that does not get digested. These are the foods that will ensure your gut is healthy.
Microbes in the gut feed on these cellulose fibers. It is, therefore, essential to include roughage in your diet for a healthy gut.
More so, roughage will also significantly reduce the risk of diverticular disease. This is a disease that causes inflammation as well as infections of the gut.
These are definitely foods you need to get in your shopping bag for a healthy gut. Foods that pride themselves as rich in cellulose fiber fall into two categories. They include vegetable and fruits, and we will look at specific foods that fall under these two groups.
The choice of the best vegetables depends on their color. The darker the color of the vegetable, the richer they are in fiber. However, there are vegetables particularly grown for their fiber content. These include:
Seaweed for Gut Healing
Seaweed refers to numerous species of sea algae. They grow in the oceans, but their high fiber nutrition has attracted commercial production. They are also quite tasty as much as they are highly nutritious.
Report by Griffin shows that seaweed popularity in America grows by 7 % annually. Restaurants around America are now offering seaweed on their menu. This indicates a positive step towards healing gut disorders.
Take Green Peas for a Happy Gut
Green peas contain fiber composition of 6g for every 100g consumed. Nutritionists recommend 40g of fiber each day. Consuming a small proportion of green peas would, therefore, give a considerable fiber intake.
Green peas should be part of your diet for a healthy gut.
Broccoli Heals Your Gut
Broccoli appears in many headlines as one of the most nutritious foods. Its health benefits go further to include healing your gut.
For every 100g of broccoli taken, 3g contains fiber. This is one vegetable that should top your shopping list for a healthy gut.
Fruits Will Do a Gut Good
Fruits will always keep you healthy and fit. In particular, exotic fruits have the highest levels of fibers. These include mangoes, persimmons, guavas, apples, oranges, and bananas.
For the apples, always take them with their peel: that is where fiber is most concentrated.
Probiotics Are Gut Healing Foods
This is the second sub-category of foods that heal your gut. As mentioned earlier, these are beneficial bacteria to your gut. They include fermented foods that encourage the growth of bacteria.
They include:
Tempeh Is Beneficial for Your Gut
Tempeh is a fermented soy food. It increases the levels of healthy bacteria in the gut. Studies highlight that soya beans increase the level of Lactobacillus. Lactobacillus is a good gut bacteria for a healthy gut.
Kimchi for a Healthy Gut
This is a fermented vegetable and contains probiotic lactic acid bacteria. This bacteria is beneficial to ensure the proper functioning of the gut. The bacteria is most beneficial when the vegetable is taken raw.
Plant Diet for a Healthy Gut
Suppose you already have a gut problem, you now know how to heal your gut. It is important to keep your gut healthy. This is by ensuring that the bacteria in the gut are performing at optimum conditions.
These bacteria will require both probiotic and prebiotic diets.
The most important step for a healthy gut is shifting to a plant diet. Plants form the bulk of gut healing foods.
A healthy gut will mean general body health and mental health. It is time we change the statistics of digestive disorders. This is by consuming foods that improve gut health.
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