How To Get Healthy Gut Flora And Avoid Inflammation with Brenda Davis R.D.

step 7 I’m not going to go into this in any great detail because our time is is running out but I want to just tell you that we are just starting to recognize the scientific community is just starting to recognize how vital a healthy microbiota or a microbiome is it is unbelievable the benefits of healthy gut flora many people don’t know this but healthy microbiota actually enhances our nutritional status because it helps us to synthesize vitamins like B vitamins and vitamin k2 it even assists in the synthesis of necessary amino acids it helps us to release energy and make these short chain fatty acids that protect against colon cancer from fiber it protects us against pathogens it promotes a healthy body weight it boosts our immunity it helps to protect against allergies to reduce inflammation it helps to maintain the integrity of the gut wall and it also just recently there was a study showing how much it can actually improve brain function so every organ of the body is affected by the microbiota that inhabit our got and it’s really important that we protect our friends in our gut

and so what can we do well first of all imbalances contribute to every disease process imaginable so how do we improve gut microbiota by eating a plant-based diet that’s high in prebiotics from beans whole grains things like asparagus artichokes bananas onions garlic they’re all high in prebiotics and probiotics are what feed probiotics or what feed the bacteria to you know to produce what we need and then we need to eat food based probiotics if at all possible things like yogurt and you can make your own yogurt at home with coconut or holmen’s or whatever fermented vegetables tempeh miso all provide probiotics that friendly bacteria we need to minimize our intake of foods that foster the growth of harmful bacteria so we’re talking about processed foods fried foods refined carbohydrates and red especially red and processed meat we want to take probiotics and minimize our use of antibiotics and if we do take antibiotics take probiotics well we’re taking the antibiotics and after we’ve taken the antibiotics we want to avoid excessive alcohol consumption

and step eight is to fight inflammation an optimal diet needs to be an anti-inflammatory diet the worst offenders for inflammation are overweight and obesity themselves fuel in from inflammation an unhealthy diet fuels inflammation allergens alcohol high blood sugar extreme exercise can fuel inflammation lack of sleep smoking pollution stress can all fuel inflammation but in terms of food the most Pro inflammatory foods are highly processed foods fast foods fried foods refined carbohydrates both sugars and starches high-fat meat and dairy red meat processed meat foods that contain trans fats gluten especially for gluten sensitive individuals and Pro oxidants like the environmental contaminants in so many of our foods and finally alcohol

what are the most anti-inflammatory foods phytochemical rich fruits and vegetables the dark green leafy vegetables berries onions garlic beets tomatoes peppers all of those colorful fruits and vegetables herbs and spices especially tumeric ginger cayenne clove sage rosemary thyme legumes like nut and nuts and seeds whole grains sprouted foods fermented foods raka KO and dark chocolate and green tea are the most Antion taury foods

so now we want to maximize phytochemicals and antioxidants not only are they anti-inflammatory but they actually block disease process protecting us against disease so we want again as many colorful fruits and vegetables and spices and and beans and grains and so forth as we can we want to soak sprout and ferment to increase vital chemical content we want organic because organic foods contain more phytochemicals and antioxidants and we want to eat more raw foods because we generally get more phytochemicals from raw foods than from cooked foods and I just want to quickly mention we want raw foods because of enzymes as well because they help us to convert our phytochemicals into their bio active metabolites or their active forms like my rosin A’s in the cruciferous vegetables and alan a’s in the Allium vegetables

now and the other thing I want to mention briefly here is that a lot of people think it’s just fruits and vegetables we get phytochemicals and antioxidants from and this is actually not accurate if you look at this list at the top of the list you see some nuts ginger root walnuts hazelnuts then blueberries artichokes cranberries then bunch of colorful beans like black beans and and kidney beans and pink beans and then plums and garlic and so on it’s all plant foods that’s the point I’m wanting to make in terms of antioxidants not just fruits and vegetables