The present-day hectic lifestyle has taken a toll on our overall health and wellbeing.
Although people are becoming more health-conscious and getting into gym and workouts, until and unless you have a healthy gut you can't be healthy. An important keynote to remember while thinking of eating healthy is, that it's not always about eating nutritious foods but it's about eating what your gut can digest. Loading your diet with healthy foods that contain a lot of macro and micronutrients may be necessary, but it's not everything that your body needs. Until and unless your body can break down the consumed foods and give your body the required energy, eating healthy foods may not help you.
Many of us might be dealing with various health problems like, poor digestion, bloating, leaky gut inflammation, and a bad immune system. These diseases may occur due to various reasons like overconsumption of processed foods, bacterial infection, consumption of excess sugar, etc. but the good news is, most health experts in Health Canal suggest eating gut-friendly foods can help ease most of your health issues, improve your immune system and reduce inflammation. Here is a list of the seven best healing foods for better gut health and overall wellness.
Fermented foods
Fermented foods are the kind of foods that contain bacteria and microbes in it. The best categories of fermented foods include kimchi, sauerkraut, tempeh, etc. Fermented foods contain probiotics, vitamin B, and other beneficial acids in it. As a result, consuming these foods helps your stomach digestion process and improves the level of stomach acids and pancreatic enzymes.
As our gut is home to billions of bacteria, keeping a good balance of these healthy bacteria is very important to promote gut health. So, consuming foods that are rich in probiotics is the best choice to improve your gut health and boost the immune system.
Seafood
Seafood is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, minerals, and protein. Hence, consuming an insufficient amount of seafood can increase the level of omega-3s in your body to prevent digestive issues and reduce inflammation. But while buying seafood, one must be extremely careful to get only wild-caught and not farm-raised fish. The farm-raised fish instead of improving your gut health can instead wreck it. It's because of the antibiotics that are given to these fish. The best examples of wild-caught seafood include scallops, cod, oysters, salmon, etc. these are the seafood that is low in mercury and good for your gut health.
Healthy’ Foods That Are Unhealthy
Bone broth
Bone broth is a very essential food to support your gut health. It contains all the important nutrients and amino acids to heal your gut lining. So if you are suffering from the leaky gut syndrome, bone broth loaded with amino acids is the perfect solution to rebuild it.
Glutamine is one of the amino acids that is found in bone broth. This category of amino acids plays an important role in building up the intestinal wall. So, consuming more of it will eventually seal up your gut lining and lead to healthy gut flora.
Coconut products
The MCTs or the medium-chain triglycerides that are found in coconut are an excellent ingredient to help gut healing. While on one hand, it can improve the ine=tegrity of your gut lining, on the other, it also helps reduce inflammation as well. The lauric acid usually found in coconut-based products is also helpful in killing harmful bacteria and yeast.
Apple cider vinegar
The consumption of apple cider vinegar can offer you an array of benefits. Most importantly, the acid present in the vinegar can help boost your stomach acids. Hence helps your stomach to properly break down and absorb nutrients like calcium, iron, protein, zinc, and Vitamin- B. Besides, the increased level of stomach acids also helps to kill the excess candida bacteria present in your gut to cure health issues.
Ginger
Ginger is a must-eat food when it comes to gut health. It is very well known to either soothe or upset your stomach. It is a great source of all the necessary compounds that have anti-parasitic, anti-fungal, and anti-viral properties. Hence, adding it to your daily diet not only helps you get rid of the unfriendly bacteria in your gut but also helps reduce inflammation and boost your immune system.
Soups and stews
Soups and stews can be the best food option to ease your gut when it's tough for you to digest raw vegetables. People with leaky gut or SIBO have a risk of further inflaming their gut if they consume raw vegetables. It is where a better digestible food like soup or stews comes in. eating a bowl of veggie-filled soup or stew will still provide you with the same fiber, vitamins, and minerals.
The bottom line
To enjoy great health and keep your gut healthy, consuming the above-mentioned list of foods can be the best way. While it may look like consuming healthy foods loaded with vitamins and minerals could help achieve your health goals, taking care of the digestive process is equally necessary. Expert perspectives are expressed in this article on why eating healthy is no more sufficient until and unless it's gut-friendly.