Superfoods are essential for a healthy lifestyle and overall well-being, but they also go a long way in supporting your gut health. The gut has a symbiotic relationship with the microbes, microbiota, or microbiome that live there. A proper balance of these microbes positively affects your gut health and can potentially impact your hormonal imbalance, immune system, and mental health through the gut-to-brain axis.
This vital axis ensures a strong connection between your central nervous and digestive systems. It also means that microbes and microbiomes in your gut can influence your neurons' health, energy levels, and mood.
The Bottom Line
- Speed up Digestion with Prebiotics, Probiotics, and Synbiotics
- Enjoy Ginger and Improve Digestion
- Revitalize Your Gut with Leafy Greens
- Balance Things Up With Chia Seeds
- Get Things Moving with Oats
- Don’t Underestimate Asparagus
- Activate Your Gut with Flaxseeds
- Jerusalem Artichokes in Moderation
- Soothe Your Gut with Spicy Turmeric
- Enhance Digestion with Peppermint
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10 Superfoods That Improve Your Gut Health
A healthy digestive system plays a significant role in your overall health and well-being. Incorporating the right superfoods into your diet can make a difference in maintaining optimal gut health.
Superfoods for gut health are highly nutritious whole foods with phytochemicals that our bodies need to function optimally. Superfoods have numerous benefits; they help boost the immune system, nourish our bodies, reduce inflammation, support detoxification and enhance digestive health. Superfoods for gut health are also rich in antioxidants that neutralize and eliminate free radicals in the body.
Incorporating the superfoods below in your diet works wonders for your energy levels while improving your digestive health.
1. Speed up Digestion with Prebiotics, Probiotics, and Synbiotics
The digestive system requires a healthy balance of good and bad gut bacteria for optimum bowel function. These vital microorganisms help our bodies regulate metabolism, eliminate toxins and affect our ability to fight illnesses and infections.
Both prebiotics and probiotics play a crucial role in our gut health. Lack of adequate good gut flora can trigger various conditions such as bloating, constipation, type 1 diabetes, and inflammatory bowel disease.
Prebiotics are natural soluble fibers that the good bacteria feed on in the large intestine, ensuring healthy bowel function and balanced gut flora.
The good bacteria consume prebiotic fiber and produce short-chain fatty acids like butyrate. These healthy fatty acids ensure the intestinal lining remains healthy and prevent disease-causing pathogens from thriving.
You'll find natural prebiotics in fresh vegetables like leafy greens and fruits like pineapple, kiwi, oranges, papaya, and passion fruit. Dandelions, asparagus, oats, and legumes are also rich in prebiotics. In particular, dandelion leaves have many other nutritional benefits.
Probiotics
Probiotics are good gut bacteria that ensure your digestive system remains functional. You can maximize the benefits of these microorganisms by adding probiotic foods to your diet.
Probiotic foods have live and active cultures, the same healthy gut bacteria in your stomach. These beneficial bacteria make food easier to digest and prepare the gut for digestion.
Besides yogurt, other fermented foods with probiotics include kefir from fermented milk, miso, kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha, and tempeh. Miso is a Japanese paste from fermented soybeans, while kimchi is a type of Korean pickled cabbage.
Synbiotics
Some foods contain prebiotics and probiotics to give the beneficial microorganisms the best chance of survival in your gut. You can try meal combos like yogurt with oats and fruits or miso soup garnished with legumes or asparagus.
2. Enjoy Ginger and Improve Digestion
Ginger is a powerful superfood, famous for its ability to relieve constipation and bloating. It has plant compounds that ease stomach discomfort and nausea and boosts digestion while ensuring a healthy balance of good and bad gut bacteria. These compounds replenish the beneficial gut bacteria and create an environment for gut microbiota to thrive.
Ginger has an active compound called gingerol, which studies link to better gastrointestinal motility. This means the speed at which the food you consume exits the stomach to go to the next digestive stage.
Experts also believe ginger has remarkable anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties that minimize inflammation and swelling caused by illness or injury. If you struggle with indigestion, taking ginger at least 30 minutes after a meal will work wonders for your digestive system.
3. Revitalize Your Gut with Leafy Greens
Leafy greens are bursting with nutrients, including potassium, calcium, iron, beta carotene, iodine, folic acid, sulfur, magnesium, and vitamins K, C, and B complex. These amazing superfoods, like kale and spinach, are potent prebiotics, encouraging the growth of healthy gut bacteria. Such vegetables also have sugars that fuel the beneficial bacteria and nourish the lining of your digestive system.
Eating these greens regularly can successfully repopulate the good gut microbiome. Experts believe the anti-inflammatory properties also help relieve digestive tract issues like Crohn’s Disease and IBS.
Finding clean, organic leafy greens free of herbicides and pesticides can be challenging. That's why Ensō Superfoods uses 100% certified organic ingredients to guarantee safe ingredients.
4. Balance Things Up with Chia Seeds
Chia seeds rank among the best superfoods for gut health. These tiny black seeds pack a surprising nutritional punch, boasting high quantities of fiber and omega-3 short-chain fatty acids. The prebiotic fiber feeds the good gut bacteria, balancing out the harmful kind.
Studies show that chia seeds can help you maintain healthy body weight and improve digestion by pushing the food along your digestive system. These seeds speed up food breakdown and metabolism, increasing the rate of nutrient absorption. Experts also highlight that chia seeds enhance the structure and strength of the intestinal muscles, optimizing their performance.
5. Get Things Moving with Oats
Oats are increasingly gaining popularity as a superfood, thanks to the positive effects these whole grains have on your gut health. For instance, whole grains can help to scrub the intestine lining for better nutrient absorption while allowing food to move faster along the digestive tract.
Oats make you feel satiated for longer, so you'll eat less frequently. If you have digestive issues, these breaks benefit your gut health. Furthermore, oats are an excellent source of a prebiotic dietary fiber known as beta-glucan. This prebiotic fiber encourages the growth of beneficial gut bacteria and can also lower cholesterol.
The best way to gain the full benefits of this superfood is by consuming them after an overnight soak. You can mix the oats with the milk you prefer and chill overnight to get softer oats since they have more beta-glucans.
Alternatively, you can consume oat bran from the grain's outer layer. Oat bran absorbs large amounts of water, which ensure better movement of the digested food through your gut.
This brand is also rich in beta-glucan, which promotes metabolic health.
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6. Don’t Underestimate Asparagus
This purple-green vegetable with gentle spears is a force to reckon with when it comes to your gut health. Aside from the pungent urine you get after eating it, this vegetable has many benefits. For instance, asparagus is a rich natural source of inulin.
Inulin, a prebiotic fiber, serves as a food source for beneficial microbes in your gut, like Faecalibacterium and Eubacterium, that promote your gut health.
7. Activate Your Gut with Flaxseeds
Flaxseeds rank high among the best superfoods for gut health. These edible seeds have both types of dietary fiber, insoluble and soluble. Studies show that flax seeds encourage mucus production in the gut, maintaining the integrity of the gut barrier. They also minimize the inflammation to protect your stomach from colon cancer.
The abundance of insoluble fiber is highly effective against constipation as it boosts regular bowel movements and forms the bulk in stool. Since flaxseeds have a tough exterior, it’s best to soak or grind them before eating.
8. Jerusalem Artichokes In Moderation
Some people call this nutritious wonder weed “fartichokes” due to its unique high levels of inulin, which often makes people gassy. The edible roots are rich in several prebiotic fibers, including galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) and fructo- oligosaccharides (FOS). They are an excellent food source for healthy probiotics Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria.
Although your gut microbes will appreciate a good helping of Jerusalem artichokes, it's best to avoid taking too much. Excessive amounts in your gut may cause the overproduction of gas during digestion which can be uncomfortable or painful.
9. Soothe Your Gut with Spicy Turmeric
Turmeric is a fantastic superfood for gut health due to its wealthy reserves of curcumin. Studies show that the anti-inflammatory properties of curcumin are highly effective against various conditions caused by inflammation, such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).
Curcumin helps your body balance gut microbiota while soothing the digestive tract.
10. Enhance Digestion with Peppermint
Just like the soothing aroma, peppermint goes a long way to soothe your digestive system. It’s an excellent natural treatment for the uncomfortable symptoms of IBS (irritable bowel syndrome).
Peppermint functions as an antispasmodic, which relaxes and smoothes your bowels.
Peppermint is refreshing and highly effective, yet non-addictive, affordable, and has minimal, if not zero, side effects.
Be Proactive in Boosting Your Gut Health
Superfoods for gut health, such as kale, alfalfa, ginger, broccoli, turmeric, dandelion, and peppermint, provide essential vitamins and minerals while boosting immunity levels.
However, it’s often challenging to find clean, affordable, organic superfoods that still contain all the nutritional benefits.
Ensō Superfoods steps in for precisely this reason, bringing you the superfoods you need in everyday healthy greens powder. This nutritional powerhouse boasts over 20 carefully selected organic superfoods, digestive enzymes, and probiotics to boost your energy levels, immunity, and gut health.
Ready to become a healthier you? Order Your Supergreens Today!
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