Nutrition for Gut Health
Nutrition is one of the best ways to address issues with the microbiome. Nutrition has a direct effect on gut health.
The first step in healing the gut is to remove the things that are causing problems. We need to eliminate anything that is irritating the gut or causing inflammation, before adding in nutritious food or supplements. It’s important to figure out any potential food allergies. The top offenders that wreak havoc in the gut include grains (gluten), dairy, corn, and soy.
Artificial sweeteners are another danger to the health of the microbiome. They are not recognized by the body as “normal food.” However, when they get into our gut, they interact with our bacteria. This leads to a disbalance in our metabolism and leads to obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.
Animal products that come from conventionally raised animals have traces of antibiotics. When we consume meat, eggs, cheese, etc. that comes from these animals, we are taking small doses of antibiotics that are killing off our microbiome and causing dysbiosis. Disbalance in the microbiome means poor gut health.
Top things hurting our gut health
Antimicrobial foods
As soon as we stop causing more damage to our gut, we need to address the bad bacteria. Implementing antimicrobial foods in order to start killing off the pathogens, or the bad microbes is critical for gut health.
The safest way is using natural antimicrobials, such as fresh garlic, ginger, and various spices such as cinnamon, turmeric, and oregano. Coconut oil is another great antimicrobial food which has anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral properties.
The best thing about natural antimicrobial foods is that they are gentle and do not affect the good bacteria negatively. On the other hand, synthetic antibiotics are generally more harsh. They simply go in and wipe out everybody – not just the the bad guys but the good guys as well.
When we are dealing with digestive issues, it’s important to stop whatever is making the problem worse before adding in the things that will enable healing.
