Though it is often overlooked, gut health is an extremely important aspect of your body’s overall well-being. Your gut contains a complex microbiome containing probiotics, prebiotics, and postbiotics that help you absorb the nutrients from food. If you don’t get the proper nutrition to support this microbiome, you may develop digestive problems.
But how can you support your gut health? In this post, we’ll show you how. Expect to read about the following topics:
- What is Gut Health?
- What Foods are Best for Gut Health?
- Our Top 10 Best Gut Health Recipes
What is Gut Health?
Gut health involves the fostering of the microbiome within the colon, the stomach, and the intestines. Your gut is responsible for digesting food and absorbing nutrients, and your gut can only do this thanks to the trillions of microorganisms that live there. These microbes are responsible for breaking down the food and carrying the nutrients into the rest of your body.
Gut health also has a significant impact on other aspects of your health.
- Immune Health - your gut works closely with your immune system to ensure harmful toxins don’t affect your body.
- Mental Health - the condition of your gut microbiome can affect the way you feel day-to-day physically and mentally.
- Metabolic Health - your gut also has a hand in blood sugar levels, weight distribution, and insulin.
If you neglect your gut health by not eating enough gut-healthy foods and eating too many processed foods, then your gut health will decline. Poor gut health can then result in some very noticeable issues.
- Frequent stomach aches and other stomach problems
- Constipation and diarrhea
- A decline in mood
- Weight gain
So, how can you ensure that you maintain a healthy gut?
What Foods Are Best For Gut Health?
In order to cultivate a healthy gut, the most important thing to do is to eat a gut-healthy diet. A gut-healthy diet consists of a good amount of fiber and fermented foods, as well as prebiotics and postbiotics. Foods high in fiber include:
- Vegetables
- Beans
- Legumes
- Fruit
- Bread and whole grains
- Nuts and seeds
Fiber is the nutrient that aids most in the digestion process and ensures that food is able to move smoothly through our bodies. Eating enough fiber also prevents diabetes and other gastrointestinal conditions like bowel cancer. For a healthy gut, you should be eating around 25-30 grams of fiber every day which looks like about 3 cups of nuts, 5 servings of leafy greens, or 6 cups of oatmeal.
Another food group that is essential for gut health is fermented foods. These foods contain microbes that help foster and diversify your gut microbiome.
- Yogurt
- Sauerkraut
- Miso
- Kimchi
- Tempeh
You don’t typically need to eat very many fermented foods daily in order to improve gut health, a cup of yogurt or a good serving of sauerkraut as a side dish will do the trick.
There are also plenty of drinks that work for your gut health. Certain drinks contain polyphenols — compounds naturally found in plants that contain antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Chances are you already consume some of these beverages on the regular!
- Water (hydration is important for everything!)
- Coffee
- Green tea
- Black tea
- Hot chocolate
- Chocolate milk
- Kombucha
There are plenty of foods to incorporate into your diet for improved gut health, but it’s much easier to do so when they are in the form of a delicious recipe! Next, we’ll show you our top picks for gut-health recipes.
Our Top 10 Best Gut Healthy Recipes
This smoothie bowl is a great way to start your morning. It’s loaded with tons of gut-healthy ingredients like yogurt, bananas, oats, nuts, seeds, and fruit. This is a versatile recipe as well, you can make this smoothie bowl with any kind of fruit, nuts, and seeds that you have available to you! It’s easy too, just blend the yogurt and fruit in a blender then top with the oats, nuts, and seeds!
Overnight oats are some of the easiest recipes you can possibly make, but that doesn’t take away from how healthy and tasty they are! This particular recipe is packed with gut-healthy foods like oats, yogurt, bananas, coconuts, and dates. All you need to do for this recipe is to combine the ingredients in a cup or jar, leave it in your refrigerator overnight, and you’re set!
Mug muffins are another one of the easiest yet tastiest recipes to make. If you’re looking for something healthy that will satisfy your sweet tooth, we have you covered. This is another recipe loaded with gut-healthy fruits and oats, but you won’t even notice you’re eating healthy! All you need to do for this recipe is to blend all of the ingredients, put it in a cup, microwave for a couple of minutes, and you’re done!
While this is a more complicated recipe, it contains basically everything your gut needs. Just eating this alone will satisfy your daily requirement of fiber! The ingredients include sweet potatoes, broccoli, beans, salmon, grains, and any other vegetable you may want to add in! Though there are a lot of ingredients involved, the preparation is as easy as can be. Just place the ingredients in a pan, season them, and bake!
Banana bread is a tasty and healthy treat that you can never go wrong with. This vegan option without milk or eggs contains even more gut-healthy ingredients than usual. The recipe contains bananas, flaxseed, almond milk, and coconut oil to support your microbiome while you’re chowing down.
Soups and stews containing lots of nutrient-rich ingredients are one of the easiest ways to fit in your daily nutrients. If you decide to make a large quantity, you can also knock out dinner for the next few days! This stew is loaded with ingredients to support both your gut health and overall health like black beans, onions, sweet potato, quinoa, and peppers.
Sauerkraut is one of the best foods for your gut, so finding a way to incorporate it into your diet is a lifesaver for gut health. This simple and easy sauerkraut recipe will make it easy to start eating sauerkraut more. All you need to do for this recipe is to layer the sauerkraut and vegetables over the pork in a pan and throw it in the oven for about 2 hours.
You can never go wrong with a salad. Well, all salads may be healthy, but they all definitely don’t taste good. This is a salad that will do both your stomach and your taste buds good. The ingredients include kale, apple slices, apple cider vinegar, celery, honey, and dijon mustard. This salad is a perfect mixture of good taste and good nutrients.
Sometimes you just can’t beat some good old fried potatoes. But instead of grabbing some french fries from McDonalds, try this much healthier option instead. Potatoes are one of the most nutrient-dense and satisfying foods, including lots of carbohydrates and fiber. For this recipe, just slice your potatoes, season with spices and parsley, fry, and enjoy!
The award for the easiest gut-healthy recipe goes to this sweet treat. This peanut butter banana ice cream only requires 3 ingredients and no cooking or waiting! Just combine peanut butter, frozen bananas, and shredded coconut in a food processor until smooth and creamy.
Other Ways to Improve Gut Health
If you are having gut issues or are just looking to improve your overall health, then the first step in your journey should be to improve your diet and incorporate more gut-healthy foods. But there are plenty of other daily habits, tips, and tricks that you can implement to improve gut health in addition to your diet.
- Exercise - regular physical activity promotes smoother digestion, decreases your risk of weight gain, and promotes weight loss.
- Eat slowly - when you shove down a lot of food at once, your gut can have a difficult time digesting. Your gut may have an easier time extracting nutrients from your food if you chew and swallow before taking another bite.
- Use gut health supplements - there are also supplements available that supply your gut microbiome with the microbes it needs to stay healthy and diverse. Dr. Emil offers a great option, Dr. Emil’s Total Gut Complex. Dr. Emil also offers a gut-health drink mix, Multi Collagen Plus Gut Health, if you’re looking for an on-the-go option.
Gut health is not to be overlooked. While gut health is just one aspect of your overall health, it is deeply connected to many other aspects of your health too. Poor gut health can quickly lead to a decline in your overall health, so if you’re having trouble with your gut, try out some of these recipes! A diet rich in fiber and fermented foods will transform your health for the better.
