Eating for Digestive Wellness
Your gut is essential for immune function and disease prevention. Discover which foods support gut health and which may not. We’ll cover the benefits of a fiber-rich diet, prebiotics, probiotics, and the importance of regularly eating a variety of whole foods to keep your gut thriving.
Important Education Takeaways
Understanding the gut-health connection. Research shows that the digestive tract plays a crucial role in determining whole body health.
Your gut is important for digestion of food, absorption of nutrients, and for the excretion of waste. Many fail to realize that your gut is also closely connected to mood, inflammation, immunity, and disease prevention. Prioritizing digestive health can help promote better overall health.
Your “microbial ecosystem” consists of trillions of microorganisms, most of which reside in the large intestine. These microorganisms influence various aspects of health including:
Digestive Health: The GI tract is necessary for food breakdown, nutrient absorption, GI transit, and waste excretion.
Mental Health: Gut health has a strong connection to sleep and mood due to hormonal influence and shared neurologic (brain-gut) pathways.
Immune System: The gut acts as the entrance to your body and the gut microbiota helps the intestine act as a strong barrier against entering pathogens. A healthy gut is better able to protect your body from infection and illness.
Whole-body Health: Gut microbes produce and modulate hormones, influence metabolism, impact blood lipids, and influence cardiovascular, liver, kidney, skeletal, and skin health.
Keep your digestive system healthy and happy. Support a thriving microbial ecosystem by regularly including a variety of gut-friendly foods in your diet.
Fiber: Eat more plant foods, and in greater variety.
Biotics: Including prebiotics from fiber-foods and probiotics from fermented foods.
Anti-inflammatory foods: Colorful fruits and veggies, whole grains, beans and lentils, herbs and spices, and healthy fats from foods like nuts, seeds, avocados, olive oil, and fish.
Limit or avoid not-so-gut-friendly foods like highly processed foods.
Refined grains, processed meats, sugar sweetened beverages, and artificial sweeteners, as well as fried foods, high saturated fat foods, red meat, and alcohol.
Think beyond the food. Practice these additional helpful habits to foster digestive health.
Hydrate: Drink plenty of water to keep your digestive track running smoothly.
Eat Mindfully: Create a peaceful eating environment, eat slowly, chew thoroughly, and savor your food. Check in with your body frequently and assess how different foods make you feel.
Relax: Manage stress levels with deep breathing or calming exercises.
Sleep: Optimize your sleep routine and hormonal activity by aligning with your body’s natural circadian rhythms.
Move your body & maintain a healthy weight: Regular physical activity and maintaining a healthy body weight can help to promote a well-balanced intestinal microbiota.
Limit toxins: Limit alcohol and caffeine. Avoid drugs and environmental toxins.
Recipes
Recipe of the month: Edamame and Black Bean Salad
As always, this recipe is the showcase of our live taught, virtual cooking class. Our chef and registered dietitian bring the recipe to life as they walk you through food prep, swaps to meet dietary or taste preferences, plus tips and tools to support you being your own healthy chef at home.
Bonus recipe: High Protein Chia Pudding
From Jamie’s kitchen to yours, our monthly bonus recipes are published on our website and social media the 4th Wednesday of each month. We invite you to browse our recipe collection and come back often to find more flavorful and heart-healthy recipes.
We invite you to join us for the live taught, virtual nutrition classes each month to gather more information on our nutrition topics. This is also an opportunity to ask topic-related questions of our experts as well as connect socially with attendees for idea sharing. As a registered participant for our In the Kitchen program, you receive a few reminders ahead of each scheduled monthly classes, but here’s an easy to remember schedule: Nutrition Education (30-minutes, 2nd Wednesday, 12pm), Cooking Class (up to 60-minutes, 3rd Monday, 12pm).
Contributing authors: Jamie Libera, RD, LD, CCTD, registered dietitian, Providence.