October 8, 2024

Taking a Look at the Best Foods for Gut Health

Reviewed by Anneleen Segers, PhD

If you are looking for ways that you can naturally support your gut health through your dietary intake, then you are on the right track. In addition to a prebiotic or probiotic supplement, there are ways that you can support positive gut health by eating a diet that is rich in plant foods, including foods that are rich in prebiotics and probiotics.

We take a look at how your diet can affect the microbiota in your gut, impacting your gut and your overall health and well-being.

The Importance of Achieving Good Gut Balance

Improving your gut bacteria is important in supporting not only your gastrointestinal health but also your immunity and overall health. Your microbiota in your gut can paint a pretty good picture of your overall health and wellness. There are many factors that affect your gut microbiota balance.

Sometimes our gut ecosystem is disrupted by environmental factors, stress, medications, nutrient-sparse diets, and even poor sleep hygiene. That is why we want to be sure that we can support our microbiome by choosing a lifestyle that supports a diverse, nutrient-rich diet with prebiotics and probiotics, regular physical activity, and stress management.

Positive balance includes an ecosystem with a diverse population of beneficial bacteria or probiotics. Some probiotics in the gut biome include Akkermansia muciniphila, which promotes health by protecting the host from harmful pathogens and maintaining a strong intestinal barrier. When supplementing, to ensure probiotics reach the intestines without degradation, researchers discovered a way to pasteurize Akkermansia muciniphila. In doing so, this probiotic, through the pasteurization process, becomes a postbiotic, which has a higher success rate of reaching the gut due to its stability. This postbiotic is called Akkermansia MucT™.

Ways That Foods Support Gut Health

Increase Your Dietary Fiber

If you’ve heard this your ‘whole life,’ get ready to hear it again — increase your dietary fiber. There is much credit to be given to the role of fiber in our diets. It helps to keep your gastrointestinal (GI) tract healthy and also may support the gut in your gut microbiome.

Most plant foods provide dietary fiber, which is found primarily in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes, and should be part of your daily dietary intake. In addition to fiber, these foods also provide important nutrients like vitamins, minerals, and even some macronutrients like carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.

Consuming adequate fluids with fiber may help to facilitate the movement of digested food through your digestive system and out of your body. The transit of waste material daily is important to alleviate hard stools or constipation. In fact, there are two types of dietary fiber that both play an integral role in our gut health.¹

Soluble Fiber

Dietary fiber like soluble fiber dissolves in water and may support certain processes in the body. For example, soluble fiber may help to keep blood glucose levels homeostatic and also support healthy lipid metabolism. Sources of soluble fiber include apples, figs, pears, avocados, black beans, kidney beans, lima beans, Brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, and broccoli.

Insoluble Fiber

This type of fiber doesn't dissolve in water and remains intact, thereby helping to move material through your GI tract to support healthy stool consistency and frequency. Try adding foods that are good sources of insoluble fiber to your diet, like nuts, seeds, wheat bran, whole grain foods, and quinoa. Some foods with soluble fiber, such as legumes, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and apples, also contain insoluble fiber.

So what’s the goal? Well, according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), the recommended amount of dietary fiber is about 25 grams for women and 38 grams for men each day, though each person’s nutritional needs are different.²

Increase Plant Polyphenols

Cheers to plant power! Another reason to incorporate more plant-based foods into your diet is to increase your intake of beneficial plant nutrients called phytochemicals or phytonutrients. These plant components, like polyphenols (powerful antioxidants), are found naturally in fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, and beverages like coffee and green tea.³, ⁴

Plate Up Some Prebiotics

A diet that is rich in fiber can help support your gut microbiome by providing prebiotics and probiotics through your daily diet. Prebiotics are substrates selectively utilized by host microorganisms that confer a health benefit.⁵

Consuming certain foods that provide prebiotics naturally includes plant-rich foods like onions, garlic, bananas, chicory root, and Jerusalem artichokes. Prebiotics are also added to some food products you may routinely buy, like certain yogurts, cereals, breads, or beverages. You may see scientific terms like galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS), fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS), oligofructose (OF), chicory fiber, or inulin in the ingredient list.⁶

Eat Fermented Foods

According to a Harvard Health article, Stanford School of Medicine researchers found that eating fermented foods with live probiotics increases gut microbe diversity. These foods include yogurt, kefir, fermented cottage cheese, kimchi, fermented vegetables, vegetable brine drinks, and kombucha tea, which may help to reduce inflammation.⁷

Ditch the Processed Foods

Do you have a diet that is high in conveniently prepared or packaged food items? Have you checked the labels? Are the foods that you predominantly eat high in added sugars, sodium, and fat? Foods that are processed or ultra-processed may inhibit gut health.

Ultra-processed foods do not take much work for the GI system to break down and digest. They are not fiber-rich foods that support gut microbiota, but rather are nutrient-sparse. Most come with a label that reveals the addition of sugars, trans fats, saturated fats, sodium, and preservatives that help to extend shelf life. These foods are engineered, not provided by nature.

Eating a large quantity of ultra-processed foods may increase the risk of obesity, raise blood glucose levels, and lead to cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, among other health conditions.⁸

So, the next time you reach for a snack or pack a lunch, opt to peel a banana, grab an apple, add some pears to a salad, or toss berries into your oatmeal. Limiting ultra-processed foods may be challenging, but being mindful of what you are eating and purchasing is a great start.

References

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