The concept of gut health has gained a lot of momentum over the last few years, but it’s not just a wellness fad. A few years ago, most people hadn’t heard of the term ‘gut microbiome’, but today gut health is a hot topic, and for good reason.
Having a healthy gut plays a huge part in our overall health, including our mental health, digestion, and immunity. Our gut microbiome (or gut flora) is made up of trillions of microorganisms, like bacteria and fungi. There are up to 1,000 species of bacteria in the human gut microbiome: each of them plays a different role in your body, and most are extremely important for your health.
These microbes are now recognised as an extra organ within our body, and astonishingly, they weigh roughly the same as your brain (1-2kg).
So what’s the key to a healthy gut and therefore good overall health? In short: food diversity, and more specifically, plant-based food diversity. Plants contain different types of prebiotics, which are the types of dietary fibre that feed the friendly bacteria in your gut. The guidance is to aim for 30 different plants a week. This may sound intimidating, but as someone who has been aiming for this for the last couple of months, I promise it’s very achievable.
Focus on variety
Focus on a variety of wholegrains, beans and pulses as your main carbohydrate sources. Examples include brown rice, quinoa, oats, chickpeas, lentils, and different types of beans.
Eat the rainbow
Aim to eat a wide variety of fruit, vegetables and herbs across the week, rather than repeating a few staples. If you are worried about buying too much to get through before it goes off, buy a mixture of fresh and frozen fruit and veg, i.e frozen mixed berries, mango, pineapple, peas, edamame (soya) beans.
Choose plant-based recipes, as they typically mean lots of plants in one dish. There are so many amazing cookbooks and resources out there. Some of my favourites include Rebel Recipes, Bosh! and Deliciously Ella.
Tracking your food
Find a way of tracking your weekly plant-based food count. I started by making a list on my phone in the notes section, but then Deliciously Ella added a plant counter to her recipe app. It’s 99p a month, so well worth it as you get access to a huge number of recipes, too. And if you make one of her recipes, you can click ‘I’ve eaten this recipe’ and it will automatically add all the ingredients to your tracker.
Nuts and seeds
Go wild for nuts and seeds. Top your porridge with nut butters; sprinkle toasted pine nuts over salads; add crunchy cashews to your curries; add a tablespoon of mixed seeds to your smoothies.
This article was initially published in issue 6 of Wicked Leeks magazine. You can read the full magazine for free on Issuu by clicking here.