Simple tip to improve your gut health-

We all know how central gut health and gut function are to health and wellbeing.
One way that you can increase the health of your gut is to diversify your gut microbiome by eating a wide variety of plant based foods.

This doesn't mean that you have to cut out meat or animal products and go on a strictly plant based diet, but we can all benefit from increasing the variety of plant based foods within our diets.

The varying prebiotic fibres found within fruit, vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds provide fuel sources for different bacteria within your gut microbiome. When it comes to the gut microbiome, ideally we want a diverse range of beneficial or helpful bacteria.

Just as we might take a probiotic or eat fermented foods to increase our beneficial gut flora, we also need prebiotics. Prebiotics are food sources for our gut flora. The more plant foods in your diet, the more opportunity to feed a diverse range of gut healthy bacteria/flora.

Aim to eat at least 30 different plant based foods throughout the course of each week.
If you tend to eat the same handful of types of fruits or vegetables, it means branching out and incorporating some different ones. If you always go for almonds, try some other raw nuts and seeds. If you always have rice, you could try quinoa or millet etc

Just for a week or so It could be helpful to keep a record of what you eat and then tally up how many different types of plant based foods you've eaten that week to gauge how much more variety you may be needing to aim for.

We tend to be creatures of habit, returning to the same things regularly or may have fallen into the trap of reducing our variety because we're used to cooking or preparing food for fussy eaters who'll only eat a limited range or fruit or vegetables.

Consciously add in a few different plant based foods each week to begin widening variety and over time your gut will thank you for it!