Why You Should Prioritize a Gut Healing Diet
Optimal digestive health is key in maintaining a healthy functioning brain and body. Poor gut health can contribute to all types of physical and mental problems, such as inflammation, depression, anxiety, skin rashes, malnutrition, and more. In this article we’ll go over a gut healing diet that can help you improve your overall health and well-being. I’ll go over 10 ways on how to heal your gut.
How to Start a Gut Healing Diet
Below we’ll discuss 10 ways on how to heal your gut, but if you are experiencing any digestive issues or food sensitivities, then I encourage you to try a total elimination diet as your first step. This will help jump start your gut healing diet.
How to Heal Your Gut
1) Maintain a diversified diet
Maintain a diversified diet of many different types of foods. Avoid eating the same foods over and over again. For example, if you eat almonds every day, you’re increasing your chance of developing a food intolerance or allergy toward almonds. Switch it up by rotating almonds with other nuts, like walnuts or cashews.
2) Prepare food at home
Prepare food at home rather than using packaged foods or going out to a restaurant.
3) Take a digestive enzyme
Take a digestive enzyme with each meal. Those with digestive issues may have problems digesting and metabolizing food. Digestive enzymes will help break down food and increase nutrient absorption.
4) Take a probiotic
Take a probiotic every morning on an empty stomach. Probiotics line the gut with healthy flora which help fight bad pathogens. It also strengthens the immune system, making it stronger and better able to handle food intolerances and allergies.
5) Drink bone broth
Drink bone broth daily and preferably on an empty stomach. This is not the chicken or beef broth that you buy in a can. This is chicken or beef bones simmered for 4 – 12 hours. You can also use an Instant Pot for bone broth which should only take about 2 hours to get the same result. Bone broth is super nutritious and packed with vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and collagen. This can help strengthen joints, bones, heal the gut, reduce inflammation, promote better sleep, and even prevent aging. This can be a powerful tool for the gut healing diet. It improves gut health due to its richness in glutamine which can help heal the stomach and intestinal barrier. This can help improve the absorption of food while getting rid of inflammation, which are both necessary in gut healing.
6) Reduce Inflammation
Reduce inflammation through exercise, stress reduction, and eating more anti-inflammatory foods like omega 3 fatty acids, while decreasing your intake of pro-inflammatory foods like sugar, processed and fried foods.
7) Buy organic
Buy organic so you reduce your exposure to fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides.
8) Supplement with colostrum
Supplement with colostrum – Breastfeeding in early stages of life is extremely important for immune and digestive health. Breast milk contains colostrum, which is also known as nature’s vaccine due to its high level of antibodies and white blood cells. Colostrum coats and seals the digestive tract. This helps protect against future digestive issues, such as food intolerances and allergies. Colostrum supplements can be taken at any age, and it can help jumpstart the gut’s healing process.
9) Reduce irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
Reduce irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptoms as much as possible. You can do this by healing the damaged lining of the gut through incorporating a healthy diet that excludes all known triggers. Drink bone broth 3 times per day on an empty stomach, and take a digestive enzyme, and probiotics. Those with IBS may be deficient in vitamin D, zinc, and magnesium so you should have your levels checked to confirm, and then supplement if necessary. The digestive tract consists of trillions of microorganisms and thousands of different species, which include bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses. There are good guys and bad guys in the digestive tract, and they can live harmoniously together as long as the good guys dominate this relationship. Chronic IBS damages the intestinal lining, allowing the bad guys to take over. The bad guys can now enter the bloodstream, triggering an immune response. The idea here is to get the bad guys in check, which will allow the intestinal lining to heal. You can check whether the bad guys have taken over through taking a breath test. The bad guys feed off of sugar, resulting in fermentation. So, the test involves drinking a sugar solution and then taking a breath test to see how much fermentation has occurred.
10) Eliminate Candida
Eliminate candida yeast overgrowth by implementing a strict sugar free and low carb diet. Candida is an overgrowth of yeast within the body and can usually be identified through recurring yeast infections, oral thrush, digestive issues, jock itch, and athlete’s foot. If you have more than one of these symptoms, then you most likely have a candida overgrowth. Candida feeds off of sugar and carbohydrates so they should be avoided at all costs. Probiotics feed on candida so taking a supplement can help fight yeast overgrowth.
Learning how to heal your gut can be a challenging process filled with trial and error. It may take some time, but I encourage you to incorporate a gut healing diet as soon as possible to help your body function at its fullest potential.
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