Feed Your Gut

 

Hey BA!

This week’s health tip is to feed your gut! This doesn’t mean consuming whatever your brain says you want, but rather incorporating specific foods that foster a healthy and diverse gut microbiome. A healthy microbiome is key to overall health and longevity. It impacts your hormone production and regulation, weight management, immune system, nervous system, mental health, and just about anything else you can imagine. If you’re looking to improve any area of your health, always start with the gut. 

So let’s do a gut check! Below are factors that both hinder and improve gut health. In which column do you generally fall? The microbiome is incredibly fluid and changes quickly based on nutrition and lifestyle factors. This means that making just a few simple changes today can begin to improve your gut immediately. 

Negative Factors

  • Refined sugar

  • Refined vegetable oils (canola, corn, soybean, etc.)

  • Overconsumption of highly processed dairy

  • Refined carbohydrates

  • Conventional meat products (see meat quality blog post for more info!)

  • Trans/hydrogenated fats

  • Artificial preservatives

  • Alcohol

  • Lack of sleep

  • Chronic stress

Positive Factors

  • Fresh vegetables

  • Whole pieces of fruit (fiber content remains in tact)

  • Probiotic foods (ex. Yogurt, kombucha, kvass, kefi, sauerkraut, kimchi)

  • Prebiotic foods (ex. Jicama, Jerusalem artichokes, asparagus, apples, garlic, onions, chicory root, leeks)

  • High-quality meat (ex. wild-caught fish, pasture-raised eggs/meats, grass-fed beef)

  • Healthy fats (ex. Avocados, nuts/seeds, extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, grass-fed butter)

  • Sprouted grains, beans, and legumes (unless intolerant)

  • Adequate sleep

  • Proper stress management (ex. meditation, yoga, deep breathing, exercise)

A healthy microbiome can be achieved and maintained through proper nutrition and lifestyle. If you’ve been on antibiotics recently however, I do recommend taking a round of probiotics to quickly replenish your gut with healthy bacteria. While antibiotics are effective, they don’t differentiate between helpful and harmful bacteria. They are designed to kill everything. This leaves the gut susceptible to opportunistic pathogens. A high-quality, wide-strain diversity probiotic can help prevent this and promote a healthy gut moving forward. 

So remember, feed your gut! 

 
Park Roberts