Our gut microbiome is the most important difference between good health and bad health. The type of bacteria in a person’s digestive system can cause disease or heal disease. You can create good gut bacteria just by the foods you eat and rejuvenate your body from the inside out. By creating the right types of gut bacteria, you can dramatically boost your immune system, preventing and in many cases reversing illnesses.
Do you want to to lose weight, reverse chronic illnesses, and feel great? It all starts in your gut. Creating good gut bacteria is possibly the most important thing you can do for your health. Once you learn why you should and how-to, you will be more motivated to eat the right foods and cut out the bad foods.
Certain foods and drinks can cause the good bacteria to die and encourage bad bacteria to flourish. You cannot continue to eat an unhealthy diet and expect good gut health just by taking a probiotic pill once in a while.
As one doctor put it, taking a probiotic and thinking that will create all the good gut bacteria you need, is like filling a swimming pool with an eye dropper. There are trillions of bacteria in our gut, good and bad.
Gut Microbiome and Disease
The microbiome of the gut is our gut flora or our gut bacteria, and there can be as much as 4.5 pounds (2 kg) of micro-organisms in our gut. It is up to us to make sure these micro-organisms are the good kind, and the first key to creating a healthy gut microbiome is eating the right foods and avoiding unhealthy foods.
It is known that gut bacteria can affect our health, and immune system. Having the wrong kind of gut bacteria has been linked to many different types of chronic diseases including:
- Diabetes
- Autism
- Anxiety, ADHD, and depression
- Obesity
- Inflammatory bowel diseases, acid reflux, constipation, diarrhea, and colitis
- Liver diseases
- Chronic heart disease
- Cancers
- Fibromyalgia [1]
- Multiple sclerosis [2]
To show just how gut bacteria can affect obesity, scientists took a group of clean mice (without any gut bacteria), and inoculated them with the gut bacteria from an obese person. These mice then gained an appreciable amount of weight.
They also inoculated or transplanted the gut bacteria of a lean person into clean mice and those mice remained lean as long as they continued eating a healthy diet [3].
Gut bacteria have that much of an influence with weight gain and weight loss. If you want to lose weight, you must change your gut bacteria, and that can only be done by eating the right foods and avoiding the wrong foods. Creating good gut bacteria is the best way to start losing your belly fat.
What Kills Good Gut Bacteria
There are certain foods, drinks, and products that can cause the bad gut bacteria to grow and flourish, crowding out and killing the good bacteria.
Avoiding these foods, drinks, and products is a good way to make sure you always have more good gut bacteria than bad. The foods and products that harm the good gut bacteria include:
- Antibiotics, acid blockers, and anti-inflammatory drugs: These medications destroy the good gut bacteria.
- Chemical additives: Includes artificial flavors, food colorings, preservatives, and fake sugars.
- Flavor enhancers: MSG and other flavor enhancers damage the good gut bacteria.
- Artificial sweeteners: Fake sugars with names like aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, acesulfame, and neotame all damage the healthy gut microbiome.
- Meat: Beef, pork, and chicken usually have antibiotics in them, which you then get when you eat the meat. Even if you rarely take antibiotics, it is still in your food.
- Herbicides: Glyphosate, also known as RoundUp, has been shown to disrupt our hormones and destroy the good gut bacteria.
- Refined white sugar: Having too much refined sugar or high fructose corn syrup can also damage your gut flora.
- Dairy products: Can cause problems with gut bacteria, plus there are antibiotics in dairy unless 100% certified organic.
- Too Much Alcohol: Too much alcohol can induce dysbiosis (a microbial imbalance).
- A high-fat diet: Eating too many fatty foods can also have an unhealthy impact on your gut bacteria. Recent studies found that high-fat diets, like the keto diet, can create an unhealthy gut microbiome which can lead to colon cancer [4].
The above foods and toxins will not only kill good gut bacteria, but they also cause the bad bacteria to grow out of control crowding out the good bacteria.
How Prebiotics Create Good Gut Bacteria
Many people today eat what is called the SAD way of eating, or Standard American Diet. This way of eating consists of processed foods with chemical additives, refined carbohydrates, too much oil, few vegetables and hardly any fiber.
This adds up to a very unhealthy gut microbiome leading to obesity, and other chronic diseases.
Prebiotics are the foods that good gut bacteria need to grow, multiply and thrive on. The more prebiotic foods you eat, the healthier your gut microbiome will become.
Changing the foods you eat is the first step to creating a healthy gut microbiome. And the only foods that can do this are plant foods. This does not mean you have to become a vegetarian or eat a strict plant-based diet, it means the majority of the foods you eat should be plant foods.
Best Prebiotic Foods
Prebiotic foods are all plant foods that are high in nutrients, minerals, and fiber. Some of the best prebiotic foods include:
The more plant foods you eat, the healthier your good gut bacteria will become.
- Greens like dandelion greens, collard greens, and beet greens
- Bananas
- Apples
- Garlic, leeks, and onions
- Jerusalem artichokes
- Asparagus
- Chicory root, which you can find in coffee substitutes like Teeccino, Pero and Cafix.
- Ground flaxseeds
- Beans, peas, and lentils
- Barley
- Inulin is a water-soluble prebiotic fiber that is found in plant foods and can be bought as a supplement.
The more plant foods you eat, the healthier your good gut bacteria will become.
Probiotics and Good Gut Bacteria
Probiotics are good gut bacteria that help keep your digestive system populated with the various types of healthy gut bacteria. Fermented foods are the best probiotic foods, such as:
Eating these foods along with prebiotic foods will help build a healthy gut microbiome and keep the good gut bacteria thriving.
- Sauerkraut or fermented cabbage
- Good quality yogurt or Greek yogurt. Making your own yogurt is fun and cheaper.
- Miso, which is fermented soybeans and is usually used to make soup and salad dressings.
- Kefir
- Sourdough bread
- Kimchi
- Balsamic vinegar and apple cider vinegar
- Dark chocolate is a prebiotic and a probiotic since it is actually a fermented food. Dark chocolate must be 80% cocoa or higher to get the benefits. Since it is also a high-fat food, it should be eaten in small amounts.
Eating these foods along with prebiotic foods will help build a healthy gut microbiome and keep the good gut bacteria thriving.
How to Start Creating Good Gut Bacteria
It is fascinating to think that you have the power to completely rebuild your body from the inside out. Not only rebuild your gut microbiome but your entire body. Your organs will be rejuvenated and healed, your cells, even your DNA can possibly be repaired [5].
If you are eating processed foods, fast foods, junks foods, and sugary drinks, you will have to cut all of those out of your diet.
Those foods are just creating more bad gut bacteria, which you feel every day with stomach pains, indigestion, bad smelling gas, acid reflux, constipation, diarrhea, brain fog, aches and pains and worse.
To really change your gut microbiome for excellent health, changing to a whole food plant-based no-oil diet is the best way. The next best way to eat is the Mediterranean Diet. This is a high carb, low-fat way of eating, which is perfect for the good gut bacteria.
To really change your gut microbiome for excellent health, changing to a whole food plant-based no-oil diet is the best way. The next best way to eat is the Mediterranean Diet. This is a high carb, low-fat way of eating, which is perfect for the good gut bacteria.
My Experience with Creating Good Gut Bacteria
I decided to change to a plant-based no-oil way of eating. You can jump right in with a new way of eating or do it slowly. Since a diet for good gut health is also high in fiber, it can cause bloating at first. Depending on how bad your gut bacteria are, to begin with, this transition can be uncomfortable at times.
During the first five months, I easily lost 40 pounds. It was not hard giving up meat or dairy, once I knew how it would affect my health.
It wasn’t always easy. After about three months, my digestive system was a mess, with gas pains, roiling stomach, irregular bowels, and just a miserable digestive system. It is important to keep in mind, you are not only creating good gut bacteria, but you will also be getting rid of the unhealthy bad gut bacteria.
As your body starts to rebuild using plant foods as nutrients, your bad gut bacteria will rebel, because it needs the high-fat foods, milk, and oil to survive. You might get constipation, diarrhea, sticky bowels or a combination of symptoms. This is part of the gut healing process.
Psyllium Husk Helps
I found that psyllium husks whole flakes worked great for getting through these digestive issues and now my digestion is the best it’s ever been.
Psyllium husks are a great prebiotic that will help the good gut bacteria thrive. Do not get a fiber product like Metamucil, they have additives you don't need. The products I found to work best were the
Whole Foods 365 brand psyllium whole flakes or the NOW brand psyllium whole flakes. Make sure to drink plenty of water. When you first start, a good probiotic will help create good gut bacteria. But you won’t have to rely on those for long if you continue to eat the right foods and say no to unhealthy foods.
Is Changing Your Gut Bacteria Worth It?
It is not easy changing the way you eat or giving up the foods you really like. But changing your gut microbiome is certainly worth it for your health today and in the future. You will improve your mental and physical health immensely while boosting your immune system to resists illness.
Creating good gut bacteria is the most important thing you can do for your health, but you have to continue to eat the healthy prebiotic and probiotic foods to ensure the bad bacteria never gets back in control.
About the Author
Sam Montana is a certified Food Over Medicine instructor from the Wellness Forum Health Center and certified in optimal nutrition from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
© 2019 Sam Montana/Healthy Food and Life
Resources:
[1] PubMed - Pimentel M, Wallace D, Hallegua D, Chow E,
Kong Y, Park S, Lin HC. A link between irritable bowel syndrome and
fibromyalgia may be related to findings on lactulose breath testing. Ann
Rheum Dis. 2004 Apr;63(4):450-2. doi: 10.1136/ard.2003.011502. PMID:
15020342; PMCID: PMC1754959.
[2] Medscape - Gut Bacteria, Diet Significant in Multiple Sclerosis
[3] Science - Gut Microbiota from Twins Discordant for Obesity Modulate Metabolism in Mice
[4] The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 98, Issue 1, July 2013, Pages 111–120, https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.112.056689
[5] Forks Over Knives - Telomeres, the Key to Longevity, Show Food May Be the Best Anti-Aging Treatment
[3] Science - Gut Microbiota from Twins Discordant for Obesity Modulate Metabolism in Mice
[4] The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 98, Issue 1, July 2013, Pages 111–120, https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.112.056689
[5] Forks Over Knives - Telomeres, the Key to Longevity, Show Food May Be the Best Anti-Aging Treatment
