Gut Health - Questions and Answers
Gut health questions and answers. Here I answers questions I receive from my readers where I try to clarify many misunderstood information and provide possible solutions for your gut health problems.
Why is Gut Health Important?
A healthy gut goes hand in hand with balanced gut flora. And gut flora refers to all the microbes that live in your digestive tract from your mouth and all the way to the colon which is the most populated with microbes such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, worms, flukes.
The reason why gut health is important is because of the following reasons:
-Food absorption becomes more efficient and optimal, thus your body is receiving the nutrients it needs not only to survive but thrive.
-You gut flora will protect you from many toxins you ingest and inhale by neutralizing their negative effects on the body.
The Best Cure for Leaky Gut
Food is your best cure for leaky gut. What you put in your mouth either will improve your gut health or damage it. Eating junk food day in and day out will create gut dysbiosis and damage the integrity of your gut wall largely in the small intestine where the bulk of food absorptions take place. To know more about healing foods for leaky gut please read about the GAPS diet.
Although food is the foundation to heal and seal a leaky gut however there are other factors you should consider because they are part of the best cure for leaky gut when you avoid them as much as possible:
Effect of Antibiotics on Gut Health
-The excessive use of antibiotics. Although antibiotics can save lives during a life-threatening situation, however, these days many people use antibiotics for every little ailment they get.
Antibiotics kill a wide range of bacteria the good and the bad but many of these bacteria are becoming resistant so the beneficial bacteria usually will suffer and the pathogenic bacteria will start to overgrow creating an imbalance in this ecosystem. Not to mention other microbes who are affected by antibiotics such as the community of fungi in which they will overgrow and create havoc in the gut.
Don’t forget that most of the antibiotics in most of the Western countries are used for industrial agriculture purposes. Mass production of chickens, pigs, farmed fish, cows, and sprayed crops and vegetables with chemicals that have antibiotics effects in the human gut.
So many people unknowingly are damaging their gut health by consuming meat and plant foods that contain antibiotic residue and of course using antibiotics as a pharmaceutical drug.
Choose your meat, milk, eggs, and vegetable products carefully, and there are many local farms (and some but a few grocery stores) that raise animal meat humanely without the use of chemicals and antibiotics and sell vegetables without being sprayed with chemicals that act like antibiotics. So the effect of antibiotics on the gut is damaging and avoiding them is your other best cure for leaky gut.
Can Leaky Gut Cause Allergies?
The answer is yes! The answer is yes! When you have a leaky gut or in the medical term it’s called intestinal permeability many undigested food particles can squeeze and travel through the leaky gut wall. Also, toxins secreted by pathogens from the imbalanced gut flora leak into the bloodstream through the leaky gut. These undigested food particles and toxins will trigger the immune system to react causing allergies and food intolerances.
What are the Top foods for Gut Health?
Foods that promote gut health are animal-based diet and depending on how damaged is your gut wall you include some amount of plant foods but for some their gut wall is very damaged they become very sensitive to even a small number of plant foods and that can range from leafy low-starch to high amount of starchy plant foods such as potatoes and carrots.
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So what are the foods that help gut health? The list is short which is good for you to focus on and simple enough to prepare at home:
-Meat broth is the number one you need to focus on since it provides all the essential nutrients to build your leaky gut. Meat broth is different than bone broth so you want to cook meat whether chicken, lamb, pork, beef, venison, duck, goose, and so on. The meat should not be only a pure muscle but should be part of a joint where it contains an ample amount of collagen and some bones.
Examples:
- Whole chicken with the feet is best.
- Oxtail soup
- Whole fish and not only the fillet
- lamb shank
- Whole duck if possible
- Ribeye
And any other meat cuts that are attached to joints and bones. Avoid pure muscle lean meat and if you have a butcher you can buy from you can get these types of meat at an affordable price.
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2-Animal fat is crucial in building and healing your leaky gut. Fats such as pork, lamb fat, tallow, and goose fat. If you have been consuming a very limited amount of fat then you may want to start low and slowly increase the amount to your preference.
Grass-fed quality animal fat is your best choice since they provide fat-soluble vitamins like A, K2, E, and D and they are also higher in omega-3 that is an anti-inflammatory than corn-fed meat which is higher in omega-6 that can be pro-inflammatory.
If you can tolerate dairy products such as butter, cream, and ghee then include them to your meals and ghee can be tolerated by many individuals who can’t consume dairy products since ghee if done well has only the dairy fat.
Organ Meat: liver, kidney, heart, brain, and other organ meats. You can incorporate one type and in small amounts if you are not used to the taste. These are nutrient-dense foods thus your body and in particular, your digestive and immune systems will appreciate it
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Fermented Foods: The best probiotic foods are fermented foods such as kefir, yogurt, Kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi and many other. Again start with a very small amount and see how your body will react then slowly and gradually increase the amount.
Organic pastured and soy-free Eggs.
These mentioned foods will form a diet to heal and the leaky gut and build a strong foundation for your body.
Sources
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Antibiotics Photo Credit
