Foods To Choose For A Healthy Gut

Eating the right food for your gut health is essential, especially for senior citizens and older adults. Edwina Raj, senior dietician at Aster CMI Hospital, guides us about ways of improving gut health and shares some recipes which are healthy for your gut.

‘The road to health is paved with good intestines.” So goes an actual saying. The food that you eat impacts the type of microbes that lives inside of you. These microbes contribute metabolic functions, protect against pathogens, enhance your immune system and contribute towards your gut health. Gut health refers to the balance of microorganisms that live in the digestive tract. Looking after the health of the gut and maintaining the right balance of these microorganisms is vital for physical, mental health, immunity, and more.

Microbes can be both helpful and potentially harmful. Microbiota stimulates the immune system, breaks down toxic food compounds, and produces certain essential vitamins and amino acids. Maintaining a healthy gut contributes to better overall health and immune function.

How to improve gut health?

1. Choose foods from different food groups and get diversified in planning your meal: Western diets are not diversified and mostly rich in unhealthy fats and sugar. However, our Indian diets are dominated by plant sources, fibre and variety of grains which contributes to a healthy gut.

2. Include food sources that are providing you adequate probiotics & prebiotics that influence to improve healthy microbial load in your gut: 

. Fermented cereal preparations such as dosa, dhokla, appam, idli; Unsalted pickles, buttermilk, yoghurt, kanji, soups, among others.

. Other products that you can explore: kefir, tempeh, kombucha, miso.

Other prebiotic sources that feed on digestible carbohydrates that encourage beneficial bacteria to multiply in the gut are banana, small onion (shallots), chicory used in coffee, garlic, asparagus & whole grains.

3. Limit sugar, sweets and artificial sweetener as it brings an imbalance of gut microbes. This, in turn, can influence the brain and behaviour.

4. Lack of sleep, exercise and stress negatively impact your gut health, therefore work on these areas for better health.

5. Avoid unnecessary use of antibiotics, chemicals and disinfectants in your diet to preserve the role of healthy microbes in your gut! Speak to your physician or a nutritionist if you need to take probiotic supplements.

Some gut-healthy recipes for you

Oats & Yoghurt

Ingredients:

Oats – 1tbsp(rolled/steel cut oats)

Greek Yoghurt/Curd – 150ml

Banana – 1no (small)

Apple – half piece

Almonds – 4nos

Dried Apricot – 2nos

Chia seeds – 1tsp

Salt – to taste

Method:

Cook oats in 200ml of water with salt for about 15minutes and let it cool

Grate apple, mash banana and mix

Mix curd/yoghurt along with the above ingredients, refrigerate it for about 20 minutes and serve.

Nutritive value for 1 serving – Energy: 254kcal, 11g of protein, 16g of fat, 35g of Carbohydrates, 6g of fibre.

Fermented Buckwheat (kuttu) & Quinoa dosa with onion chutney

Ingredients:

Buckwheat (kuttu) – ½ cup

Quinoa – ¼ cup

Urad dhal – 2 tbsp

Fennel – ¼ tsp

Coconut milk – half cup

For chutney:

Shallots (small onion) – 2nos

Bengal gram dhal – 2tbsp

Garlic – 2

Red chilli – 4nos

Curry leaves a few

Lemon juice ( ½ piece ) – 1tbsp

Salt to taste

Regular cooking oil – 2tbsp

Method:

Soak buckwheat, quinoa, urad dal in water for 12 hours and grind it with salt.

Mix roasted fennel and coconut milk with batter and pour it on heated tawa to prepare dosa.

For chutney chop onions and fry them with red chilli, garlic, Bengal gram dal and curry leaves.

Add salt and grind it coarsely (mix lemon juice).

Serve it with buckwheat dosa.

Nutritive value for 1 serving – Energy:215kcal, 8 g of protein, 7.5 g of fat, 30g of Carbohydrates, 7g of fibre.

Feature Image: ProbioticReviewGirl.com