Kitty Finklea, RDN

Like a fingerprint, each individual has a unique digestive community, called the gut microbiome. There are distinct microorganisms in your mouth, stomach, and small intestine, with the largest hub living in your large intestine. These communities are made up of trillions of microbes, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Each person’s one-of-a-kind microbiome is influenced by their genetics, environment, and lifestyle.

When your gut microbiome is in balance, the organisms work together to aid digestion and absorption, produce vitamins and enzymes, improve energy levels, mood, and brain function, reduce anxiety, protect against harmful pathogens, and train your immune system to function at its best.

If your body is dealing with illness, heightened or prolonged stress, insomnia, poor diet, or rounds of antibiotics, your gut community becomes out of balance. This can lead to poor digestion, mood changes, low energy, increased inflammation, and susceptibility to illnesses.

The following tips and habits can help you maintain a healthy, thriving microbiome community:

Add Plants to Meals and Snacks

Plant foods, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, are high in fiber, vitamins, minerals, and other compounds that promote a healthy, diverse community in the digestive tract, including prebiotics and probiotics. Probiotics are the friendly, beneficial bacteria for the gut, and prebiotics are food for probiotics. Eating a wide variety of plant foods each week helps keep your gut bacteria happy and healthy.

Fresh or dried herbs and spices also promote gut diversity and are an easy addition to meals and snacks. Adding turmeric, ginger, garlic, cinnamon, cocoa, parsley, rosemary, and other green herbs can provide delicious flavors and more nutrients for your gut community.

Increase your fiber intake from plants gradually to avoid bloating, gas, diarrhea, or constipation. A simple start could be adding more veggies at dinner, having fruit at breakfast, choosing more salads for lunch, enjoying nuts and fruit for snacks, or making half of your grains whole grains. Over time, work up to adding plants to most or all of your meals and snacks. A good long-term goal is to aim for 20-30 different plants a week, including fresh herbs and spices.

If you have food intolerances or sensitivities, work with your own specific food preferences or restrictions.

Consider Adding Resistant Starch Foods

When certain foods are cooked and then chilled before eating, a process called starch retrogradation occurs, in which some of the carbohydrate becomes an undigestible fiber called resistant starch. Resistant starch then becomes a food source for good gut bacteria. Research indicates that resistant starch can support gut health and help control blood sugar in people with diabetes.

Rice, pasta, potatoes, oats, barley, lentils, beans, and peas undergo this process when cooked and refrigerated for several hours or overnight, then reheated to serve. Canned beans and peas can also be refrigerated before heating to increase their resistant starch content. Overnight oats are also high in resistant starch, while green bananas, sourdough, and pumpernickel bread contain some. 

Enjoy Fermented Foods

Foods high in probiotics include sauerkraut, yogurt with active or “live” cultures, kefir, kombucha, and kimchi. Fermented pickled vegetable recipes use salt and water instead of vinegar to produce probiotics. Almost any firm vegetable works well, including cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, radishes, and beetroot. Fermented veggies are easy to add to sandwiches, salads, cooked meat, beans, or grain bowls. If purchasing pickled foods for probiotics, look for the words “naturally fermented.”

Educate Yourself on Probiotic Supplements

Do the research to find which probiotic works best for your goals. For example, you can look up Bifidobacterium longum 35624, which has been clinically shown to help with irritable bowel syndrome, or search Bifidobacterium longum R0175, which has been shown to help decrease stress and anxiety. You can also ask your provider about probiotics, or they may refer you to a nutritionist who can help you decide what would work best for you.

There are many different brands and types of probiotics, so identifying what your body needs can help you find the strain that works best for you. Make sure to take probiotic supplements with food to help buffer stomach acid and prevent it from destroying the probiotic strains. Probiotic supplements can also help protect your gut lining if you are prescribed antibiotics. Take in a probiotic food or supplement two to three hours before or after an antibiotic dose to prevent the antibiotic from destroying your good gut bacteria. Continue the probiotic for two to four weeks after a round of antibiotics to help replenish your gut community.

Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate

Hydration is important for gut health, as adequate fluid lubricates the digestive tract, dissolves nutrients for absorption, and helps maintain the gut lining. Dehydration is linked to slower digestion, constipation, and impaired nutrient absorption in your gut. For generally healthy individuals, aim for half your body weight in fluid ounces.

Kick Out or Limit Ultraprocessed Foods

A high consumption of ultraprocessed foods can starve good bacteria, irritate the gut lining, cause inflammation, and raise your risk of colorectal cancer, fatty liver, and other metabolic conditions that affect digestive health. Examples include many fast foods and convenience foods such as soda, energy drinks, packaged baked goods, sweetened cereals, salty packaged snacks, processed meat, and reconstituted meat products like hot dogs or chicken nuggets.

Limit or Stop Alcohol

Alcohol promotes harmful gut bacteria, decreases beneficial gut bacteria, and weakens intestinal walls, leading to more inflammation. If you do drink, limit your consumption to one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men.

Other habits that build a healthy gut community include regular physical activity, stress management, and high-quality sleep. Take steps to care for your unique community of microbes, as it’s an important part of overall health and helps you feel your best, both physically and mentally.