What's causing that train wreck in your belly kind of depends on the train. Do you suffer from abdominal pain, bloating, gas, diarrhoea, constipation, acid reflux or simply belly fat creeping over the waistband of your jeans?
Any number of foods that you send down your gastrointestinal tract can trigger a train wreck in your belly. But while the variety of those locomotives is vast, many of those foods have one thing in common, they mess with the delicate balance of bacteria in your gut.
Poor gut health has more negative health consequences than we often realise. When your microbiome, the bacteria that naturally live in the gut, is out of balance, we can experience gastrointestinal issues and weight gain. This can also lead to more serious health outcomes like chronic disease and poor quality of life.
These are the most popular foods that contribute to an out-of-balance microbiome. Lower your intake or eliminate these foods to avoid belly problems and keep your GI tract on track.
Sugary Cereal
A major cause of fungal overgrowth (in the gut) is a diet full of processed, sugar-laden, junk food. Unfortunately, even food products considered healthy can fall into this category of foods that are wrecking your gut. Support your gut by eliminating sugar that feeds bad gut bacteria and adding a probiotic to your daily regimen.
Flavoured Yogurts
Eating yogurt with its live active cultures is a great way to repopulate your gut with helpful bacterial, but not if your spoon is in flavoured yogurt. In an attempt to increase the palatability of yogurt, food companies turn this great natural probiotic into a sugar bomb that counteracts its probiotic activity. Choose kefir, plain or coconut yogurt with live cultures and add your own fibre-rich fruits like berries and pineapple.
Bacon and Other Fatty Meats
Eating fatty meats crowds out more nutrient-dense foods. The more red meat consumed, the less people eat of other food groups, usually those with fibre, such as fruit and vegetables. Bacon, a highly-processed fatty meat, kills off healthy gut bacteria.
Crackers and Pita Chips
The worst popular foods for gut health are those that are both high in sugar and lack fibre, like crackers, pitas and white bread. In trying to lower calories, food companies often strip a product of fibre. Any increase in daily fibre intake will help your belly issues. Work towards getting up to 28 grams of fibre per day. Some easy ways to do that: add flax meal to soups, salads, and smoothies, toss asparagus, artichoke hearts, avo and beans into salads.
Soup
Soup is often thought of as a weight-loss appetiser because it fills the belly, satisfying hunger so you won't eat as much during the main meal. But most soups are extremely high in sodium, very salty diets may negatively impact the gut microbiome.
Sandwiches
Sandwiches can compromise gut health because they are highly processed. Cold meats are loaded with salt, nitrates and nitrites. Eating them on a regular basis has been shown to increase risk of cancer and heart disease.
Crisps and Pretzels
These foods do not contain fibre and are refined carbohydrate-heavy snacks that can tip the balance of your microbiome into the tummy-trouble zone. Look out for fibre-rich, bean-based chips and to up your fibre intake, pair these with hummus or guacamole.
Fries and other Deep-Fried Foods
Foods fried in oils rich in saturated and trans fats soak up those oils and become loaded with extra calories. That's one reason regularly eating fried foods has been shown to be associated with weight-gain. Fried foods can subtly change the populations of bacteria in the gut and actually cause a rewiring of satiety circuits.
If you've tried cutting down or eliminating these foods and are still experiencing gut issues, contact Michelle for help.