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What is a healthy gut? A healthy gut is having a right balance of good and harmful bacteria, as well as a diversity of the bacteria in our gut, more specifically in our large intestine. To support both the amount and variety of good bacteria in our gut to thrive, a healthy balanced diet with good stress management are the cornerstones. Our gut health not only has impacts on our digestion, but also plays an important role on our immune function, as about 80% of our immune-produce cells are living in our intestinal tract!

How can diet help? Some food or nutrients can either provide good bacteria to us directly or they are the food that our gut bacteria can be fed on and thrive.

Probiotics are live bacteria that beneficial to our health. They can usually be found in fermented foods and drinks, such as yoghurt, kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut, miso, tempeh, sourdough bread, and kombucha.

Prebiotics are nutrients that act as food for our gut bacteria. For the nutrients to get to our colon and let our good bacteria to feed on, prebiotics are the ones that can by-passed our digestion, for examples, resistant starches, inulin and pectin. Resistant starches can be found in whole grains and legumes, inulin can be found in onion, garlic and leek, and pectin is commonly found in fruits, such as apples, peaches, and apricots.

Synbiotic is the mixture of probiotics and prebiotics. This combination can support the diversity and number of good bacteria in our gut all together. To add synbiotic in our diet, we can simply pair up probiotics containing foods with the ones provide prebiotics, such as have a yoghurt topped with sliced banana or stir-fry broccoli and tempeh with whole wheat pasta.

References

1. Cleveland Clinic – What Are Prebiotics and What Do They Do? Available at: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-are-prebiotics/ Accessed on 20Dec2022
2. Cleveland Clinic – How Your Gut Microbiome Impacts Your Health. Available at: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/gut-microbiome/ Accessed on 20Dec 2022