Happy Gut. Healthy You

By Chantal Du Chenne (Health Coach @the DripBar.co.za) & Lucky Phadziri (CA)

What is gut health and why is it important?

A healthy gut is achieved through maintaining or restoring good gut bacteria. An abundance of healthy bacteria should occur naturally throughout our gastrointestinal or digestive system. These gut bacteria are often referred to as the Microbiome. In a healthy gut, these ‘good’ bacteria should outnumber our human cells 10:1.

Our good Gut bacteria or The Microbiome plays a vital role in the body:

• Its the body’s first line of defence against harmful substances like colourants, flavorants, preservatives, pesticides and even harmful bacteria that may enter the body through our food and water
• It Improves the body’s immunity
• It produces Vitamins B and K
• Increases the absorption of Calcium and Iron
• Facilitates the break-down of food and the extraction and absorption of nutrients
• Influences body weight

Unhealthy gut = Bad gut microbes > Increased Inflammation > Illness and Disease

What destroys the Microbiome/healthy gut bacteria?

• Antibiotics – Medicinal and in dietary meat (beef, chicken and fish)
• Sugar including those hidden sugars in for example bread, pasta etc
• Artificial sweeteners eg canderal
• Emulsifiers & stabilisers in thickened food products eg yoghurt, tomato sauce, mayonnaise
• Flavourants, colourants, preservatives, pesticides,
• GLYPHOSATE (round up)
• Tap water
• Alcohol
• Stress
• READ FOOD LABELS CAREFULLY
• DONT BUY or EAT anything you cant SPELL

How can you restore your healthy gut microbes?

• Avoiding or reducing the Lifestyle Factors that destroy the Microbiome (listed above)
• Daily intake of natural probiotics
  • Kombucha (fermented tea)
  • Kimchi (fermented vegetables)
  • Kefir (fermented milk)
  • Kvass (fermented beetroot)
  • Fermented foods like sauerkraut
• Feeding your Microbiome with high fibre diet (> 120g per day)