What is the Best Diet for Digestive Health?

For optimal digestive health, you need to eat the right foods.

Optimal digestive health requires a diet rich in fiber.

Fiber is beneficial for digestive health, but increases the gut transit time to allow sufficient time to digest and absorb nutrients from food before releasing the waste in a bowel movement. Normal gut transit time is eight to twelve hours. 

For optimal digestive health, your diet should be rich in easily digestible proteins and fats made up of mid-chain triglycerides.

Meals high in protein and trans fatty acids are difficult to digest and can cause inflammation. Probiotic foods are also important for digestive health. Probiotic foods are foods that are fermented with friendly flora for your gut like lactobacillus and bifida species. Fermented foods include sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, tempeh, and kombucha. Your gut also needs prebiotic foods which are basically the food for the probiotics. Prebiotics are rich in inulin, a carbohydrate that your friendly bacteria needs in order to function normally. Prebiotic rich foods include Jerusalem artichoke, onions, garlic, leeks, asparagus, apples, oats, whole grains, avocados, peas, soy beans, chicory root, and jicama. 

Your diet should also be rich in antioxidants.

Your gut is lined with epithelial cells that shift constantly and need antioxidants to stay healthy. You get the most antioxidants from a colorful, plant-based diet, meaning fruits and vegetables in a wide variety of colors: greens, yellows, orange, purples, reds. Apple cider vinegar is well known to help digestive health, and can act as a prebiotic as well. Spices like ginger can aid in digestion. Bone broth provides collagen to help heal the lining of your gut. 

Remember, you want to be sure that you’re getting enough fiber, about 20 to 25 grams a day. That’s at least 5-7 servings of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and whole grains. Animal products do not have fiber, nor do highly processed simple carbohydrates.

But go slowly when you introduce fiber to avoid bloating.

If you start slowly eating a gut-healthy diet, and you still become bloated and gassy, you may have intestinal dysbiosis, which means that your microflora is out of balance. Your gut may be harboring pathogens, or just unfriendly bacteria or fungi that’s fermenting the foods that you’re eating and producing excessive gas. You may need to get a digestive stool analysis to find out what’s going on in your gut. 

If you have any questions about the best diet for gut health, please join me in our Hormone Support Group, where you’ll get access through our free Hormone Reboot Training. I hope to see you there