Fermented Foods For Gut Health with the Fairy Gutmother

  When you think about healing the gut, there are really two main areas of focus: healing and sealing the gut lining, and repopulating the gut with a healthy balance of beneficial bacteria and fungi. One of the best ways to heal and seal the gut lining is with bone broth, which I talked about in my article last month, “Bone Broth Is The New Windex: Why You Should Be Adding Broth Into Everything”.

 

When you think about repopulating the gut with beneficial bacteria, probiotics may come to mind. Probiotics are bacteria residing your gut and support your body’s ability to fight infections and absorb nutrients. 

It seems like everything has probitoics in it these days (I think I just saw Special K cereal with probiotics) but too much of a good thing isn’t necessarily a good thing. You definitely want to be cautious when incorporating probitocs into your diet, as an imbalance or too many probitoics can also upset your digestive system. Plus, not all probiotics are created equal. One of the best way to get ferments into your diet is through food. It travels through the entire digestive system, making sure the beneficial bacteria gets to where it actually really needs to be…the GUT! 

  Two of my favorite ways of getting probiotics into the gut is through homemade cultured dairy and ferments. Cultured dairy is essentially dairy that has been fermented with lactic acid bacteria. I wrote a blog post about the health benefits of incorporating cultured dairy into your diet where I also discuss the importance of making your own homemade yogurt or kefir. Homemade yogurt is full of probiotics, often times more probiotics than store-bought yogurt due to the fact that homemade yogurt ferments longer than most yogurts sold at your local grocery store. I also share one way to easily make your own homemade yogurt on my site. 

 

 In addition to cultured dairy, incorporating ferments like sauerkraut and kimchi can also be helpful in repopulating the gut with beneficial bacteria and boosting the immune system.  It is also helpful in stimulating gastric juices that aid in proper digestion. In fact, I mention kraut is a great alternative to digestive support in my Series to Better Health: Digestion. Some people are sensitive to sauerkraut or do not like the taste, so I have created a few delicious sauerkraut slaw recipes that work well as a side to any protein or even in a sandwich or taco!  

Fennel Apple Sauerkraut Slaw 

Pineapple Fennel Sauerkraut Slaw 

Curry Kraut Slaw 

Cucumber Kraut Slaw 

Remember, healing the gut is a two part process: healing and sealing the gut lining, and repopulating the gut with beneficial bacteria like ferments and cultured dairy. Have fun with creating your own yogurts or perhaps being adventurous and making your own ferments, and comment to share your recipes and experience with fermenting! 

 

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