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Healthy Gut Flora: How to Get It
Introduction
When you have healthy gut flora, you’ve got a healthy digestive system and your body is operating optimally. When you don’t have healthy gut flora, you will be far more susceptible to illness.
70-80% of your immune system comes from your gut health. So, if you are not feeling well, there is a direct link to the health of your digestive system. It could be linked to anything from allergies to viruses, colds, and flus. It could even be linked to allergies that you can get from foods. Acne, dermatitis, rashes, and joint pain are all linked to your body’s level of healthy gut flora.
How to Promote Healthy Gut Flora
It is very possible to increase the amount of good gut flora in your stomach and, therefore, your digestive system. You need to initially check your diet. Make sure that the foods you are eating are not feeding the bad bacteria. It should come as no surprise that the foods that need to be avoided in order to maintain and enhance the health of your gut flora are the same foods that will put weight on your body. These are refined sugars, sodas, processed foods, wheat-based products, and fast food products.
Other things that you need to cut out are antibiotic medications and birth control pills. These will all disrupt the digestive process and negatively impact your good flora. You need to avoid any foods that are likely to cause inflammation. You should start by avoiding gluten-containing products. These are highly inflammatory.
To promote healthy gut flora, you should be eating a lot of green leafy vegetables. Make sure that you have at least two handfuls of green vegetables every single meal. This will provide your body with a constant stream of good quality fiber, along with vitamins and minerals to help your body produce good gut flora. This will, in turn, help you to eliminate toxins and help your body to function optimally.
To promote gut health flora, you also need to include good-quality protein sources in your diet. These come from legumes, meats, eggs, and fish. These are the building blocks of the cells in your body. You also need to be getting some good quality fats in your diet, especially Omega 3s. As a population, we are taking in far too much Omega 6 and not enough Omega 3, but the balance between these two fats is very important for optimum gut health. To get a sufficient amount of Omega 3 fatty acids in your diet, you need to be eating purslane, flax and chia seeds, or fish two to three times per week.
Fermenting
Once you have established a sound, clean core diet that includes green leafy vegetables, proteins, and healthy fats, you should start to introduce some fermented vegetables. Traditionally, fermenting foods was done to make them last longer. This would allow them to last throughout the whole winter.
The process of fermenting brings some very good bacteria into your stomach. This is nature’s way of giving your digestive system a boost. Foods such as sauerkraut, kimchee, pickled olives, and fermented carrots are very good for this purpose. Yogurt and fermented meats such as salami are also effective promoters of gut flora health. In addition to fine-tuning your diet to promote gut flora health, you should consume a probiotic supplement. Of course, there is a huge selection of probiotics to choose from in the marketplace.
Many probiotics out there offer billions of just one micro-organism. However, it is usually better to get a variety of good bacteria in order to maintain optimum gut health.