Gut health is a big deal. Why? To quote some industry experts: “Numerous studies in the past two decades have demonstrated links between gut health and the immune system, mood, mental health, autoimmune diseases, endocrine disorders, skin conditions, and cancer.” That’s right, what goes on in your belly affects your wellbeing from top to toe.

Your gut health all comes down to something remarkable: your microbiome. Your microbiome is the combination of trillions of microorganisms, including bacteria and fungi, which make their home in your digestive tract. Without this, we are unable to do all sorts of things from maintaining immunity to diseases and basic digestion.

It’s staggering when you start to unveil the importance of your microbiome, and its sheer scale. Indeed, your gut’s microbiome can be viewed as a “newly discovered organ, weighing slightly more than our brains and nearly as vital”. That’s incredible when you stop to think about it. We’ve long under-estimated the power of what goes on inside our gut.

The important thing with your gut microbiome is balance: we need to encourage the good bacteria and reduce the bad. Given there are so many different types, this can be bewildering to tackle. However, science has done much of the work, meaning we can simply turn our attention to the basics of the right diet.

Recognising the importance of our gut health; is there, therefore, such a thing as a gut health diet and how can we improve gut health?

How can we improve gut health?

The great news is that there are numerous ways we can improve our gut health. Some are dietary based, such as using organic coconut mother of vinegar in fermentation, and some are dependent on lifestyle choices. It’s worth taking a holistic approach, using a number of different strategies to boost the ‘good stuff’ in your microbiome, and also make your gut less favourable to the ‘bad stuff’.

As with all changes to your life, the idea is to habitually incorporate a healthy gut diet. You may, therefore, find it easier to introduce one or two changes at a time. As you adopt these changes as habits, you can then make another gut-friendly change, and so on.

The basics of a gut friendly lifestyle

We’ll come on to the important aspects of a gut health diet next, but it’s eye-opening to realise that that there are things that you can do about your lifestyle, to encourage greater gut health. These are all elements of a gut-friendly lifestyle, which don’t involve a fork or a glass!

·       Manage stress:

Some studies indicate that stress disrupts the microbiome. Take steps to reduce stress in your life. What’s important is to find the stress buster which works for you. You could try mindfulness, or other stress relieving techniques. Perhaps you feel less stressed when you factor in time for a daily bath and read a good book? Or maybe you’re most relaxed when you go out for a walk?

·       Exercise regularly:

Regular exercise is fantastic for your overall health. However, research has shown that it may also help boost your gut health. If you’re new to exercise, then start small. Find something you enjoy doing, and build up the amount you do slowly.

·       Sleep well:

Not getting enough regular sleep has been shown to disrupt the balance of the gut flora, and increase inflammation. Practice good sleep ‘hygiene’ such as a set bedtime, screens off for an hour before sleep, and waking at a similar time each day.

·       Avoid antibiotics:

It’s not always possible, but where you can, reduce your usage of antibiotics, as they can be harmful to the balance of your gut microbiome. If you do take anti-biotics, be particularly stringent about eating pre-biotic and pro-biotic foods after their use (see below).

There are other lifestyle steps you can take too. These include stopping smoking, spending more time in the countryside and in nature, taking time to pet animals, and avoiding excessive cleanliness.

The basics of a gut health diet

Obviously the food and drinks that you ingest can have a huge effect on your microbiome. There are a number of different ways in which you can choose a gut health diet:

·       Eat fermented foods:

Fermented foods, such as those made using organic coconut vinegar, which are a natural source of probiotics, are shown to help support a healthy gut balance. If fermented foods aren’t your thing, then you can still benefit from raw coconut vinegar by using it to make drinks. Probiotics are the key to encouraging the good bacteria to multiply through the welcoming environment of your gut.

·       Eat prebiotic rich fibre:

For probiotics to thrive, they need prebiotics. Prebiotic rich foods include bananas (try our delicious Double Chocolate Banana Loaf!), asparagus, whole grains, garlic and onions. Studies have shown that a vegetarian diet is rich in prebiotic fibre. This is effectively the ‘food’ for the bacteria, rather than just for you!

·       Reduce sugars and sweeteners

The Hazda people of Tanzania are amongst those with the most diverse and balanced microbiomes. One of the reasons could be that the Western diet is much higher in sugar and artificial sweeteners than the Hazda diet. There has been a great deal of talk in recent years about reducing sugar intake. We need to move away from the idea of a ‘sweet’ diet, and instead focus on great tastes coming from savoury recipes, as our principle form of dietary satisfaction.

·       Take a break:

Try to avoid snacking between meals as this gives your microbiome a chance to rest from all the hard work it does. It’s for this reason, that many people, who are looking to improve their gut health, use a fasting-based diet. These breaks between the arrival of food into the gut, is believed to aid the microbiome and encourage its health.

Take steps to boost your gut health

Now we’ve shown you how you can improve gut health, start introducing some changes today. If you’d like some simple ways to get started, grab yourself some organic coconut vinegar (with mother of vinegar) and head over to our recipes section for some inspiration. Fermentation based foods can all be made using coconut vinegar. Simply substitute the vinegar in the recipe for coconut vinegar from The Coconut Company, and all will work!