Gut loving foods that you can find in your supermarket

We now know that when the gut is unsettled other areas of our body can suffer. An imbalance in the gut has been associated with mood disorders, weight gain, depression, auto-immune disorders, parkinson, hormonal imbalances.

This blog will cover the foods that you can find in your supermarket and easily incorporate into your diet to nourish your gut.

1) PROBIOTICS

Probiotics are live bacteria that reside in our gut and can help break down and digest our food better.

The gut should be a welcoming place where beneficial bacteria want to thrive and take up most of the space in your gut.

Digesting properly is really important as failing to do so can lead to an overgrowth of pathogenic bacteriat. Pathogenic bacteria produce inflammatory compounds called endotoxins contributing to an inflammed gut.

Over time the localised gut inflammation will damage the integrity of the gut lining allowing the endotoxins to get to the blood stream. This mechanism will often lead to symptoms such as fatigue and brain fog and also contribute to inflamation throughout the whole body. This breach of the barrier function has also been confirmed to be a contributing factor to the devopment of several auto-immune disorders. These toxins produced by pathogenic bacteria will get your immune system confused and not working as well as it should be.

Probiotics can also improved digestion of lactose; reduced digestive symptoms such as gas, bloating, pain, diarrhoea, and constipation and aid in carbohydrates digestion and the production of certain vitamins.

Probiotics occur naturally in fermented foods :

Those are some of my favourites :

Kefir a fermented milk originated in the Caucasus mountains in the former Soviet Union
miso paste or soups made from fermented soya beans
Sauerkraut or kimchi
Unpasteurised cheeses, my favourite is comte
Greek and live yogurt

1) PREBIOTICS : Prebiotics are the indigestible fiber of a plant that can fed our gut bacteria. All prebiotics are fibre but not all fiber are prebiotics. Studies have been done to ensure that the foods getting a prebiotics ‘tittle’ actually fed the bacteria in our gut.

The most common ones are :

Onion
Leeks
Garlic

Resistant starch is also a type of prebiotic found in potatoes, rice and pasta. However, the level of resistant starch in a cooked and cooled potato rice and pasta increases dramatically. So why not cook and cool a few potatoes on Sunday to use up for your dinner on Monday.

3) ANTI-INFLAMMATORY FOODS :

As previously mentionned a gut that is not working properly will be inflammed and will need a high amount of anti-inflammatory foods that can be found in the bright coloured fruits and vegetables such as berries.

Also try and include some Polyphenols into your diet. Polyphenols are chemicals compounds that come from plants and are used by our gut bacteria to make beneficial short chain fatty acids . The role os short chain fatty acids is to keep inflammation down in our bodies.

Great sources include : Cloves ( spices),Cocoa powder, oregano,Dark chocolate 70 % or higher,Flaxseed meal,Black elderberry,

chestnut ,Sage (dried),Rosemary,Thyme dried herb,Blueberries,Capers,Black olive,Hazelnut,Pecan nuts,Plum,Green olive,Sweet basil and Curry powder!

Bon appetit!

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