Feeding Your Microbes_Final

>> Hi, welcome back. Now that you know all about microbes, in this lecture, we're going to provide you with concrete recommendations on how to keep your gut and its bugs happy and healthy. Hungry for more information? Great. Let's get right to it and discuss ways to feed your microbiome. A healthy microbiome is one without disease. It is full of diverse bacteria that produces essential vitamins, short chain fatty acids, and immune regulating molecules. We don't know which is the chicken and which is the egg, whether a healthy microbiome is the result or a cause of a healthy gut. But the goal is the same either way, optimal health. An imbalanced microbiome can contribute to many precursors like insulin resistance, weight gain, inflammation, or excessive hunger, which can lead to more serious conditions. We're going to go over ways to keep the microbiome healthy before severe symptoms develop that may require specific treatment. Let's start with diet. There are two elements to a microbiome balancing diet. What you can remove from your diet or lifestyle to limit harm and destruction to your diversity and what you can positively do to increase diversity and feed your microbes. Let's apply the garden analogy. We want to provide proper soil for the healthy growth of bacteria while limiting stress and toxins that can harm the soil. When overgrowth and dysbiosis is in full effect, like in your garden, you must weed first before working on the soil and then planting. With that said, here are five ways to weed the garden of your microbiome to reduce bad overgrowth and dysbiosis. One, limit the use of NSAIDS. This includes limiting your use of over-the-counter, non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs, NSAIDS for short, such as a leaf, an ibuprofen. If you use NSAIDS like these for more than a few days in a row, they can significantly impact your microbiome in the gut lining. Your bacteria reflects your food and drug use, and NSAIDS can increase your risk for inflammatory bowel disease, leaky gut, and other gut conditions. Two, reduce the use of antibiotics. Another way to preserve good gut bacteria is to reduce the use of antibiotics. Now we're not saying don't take antibiotics when they're needed. Just be aware that they're often over-prescribed and not always necessary. The average American is prescribed four to five rounds of antibiotics every year. Even one round can do some pretty harsh damage to your gut microbiota. Have you ever reached for antibiotics just to get over something faster that maybe could have run its course? Or what about for a cold or flu? Rebuilding your gut and immune system is the best preventative measure towards illness. This is even more incentive towards addressing mild conditions proactively rather than blasting your body with another round of antibiotics. Three, discontinue using harsh antibacterial soaps and cleaning products, instead wash your hands with plain soap and water or vinegar. You can make your own cleaning agents by combining white vinegar, baking soda, and essential oils that are antibacterial. Natural antibacterials can be less harsh than chemical solvents. Sometimes you may even want to forgo the soap and washing altogether. Make it a priority to wash off chemicals but maybe not natural dirt. Four, don't overdo it on meat. Overall, it's best for your microbiome to limit your meat intake as well as eating only organic and ethically grown meat. Avoid animals that have been fed hormones and antibiotics. The bacteria that flourishes on a meat-heavy, low-carb diet tend to be the bacteria also present when inflammation is high. By limiting meat, I mean, keeping it as a more of a side dish, a few times a week instead of the main course every night. Five, avoid artificial sweeteners. For a healthy microbiome, encourage your clients to limit artificial sweeteners. They may not have calories, so to speak, but it's now being shown that glucose intolerance is induced by the gut microbiome when these sweeteners are consumed. Turns out, they're not so sweet after all. So to recap, the five best ways to stop waging war on your microbiome are to limit use of over-the-counter NSAIDS, only take antibiotics when necessary, ditch the antibacterial soaps, eat a moderate amount of organic meat, and avoid artificial sweeteners. Now that we've talked about the five ways to weed your garden, let's talk about the five ways to feed your garden by improving the quality of your soil and growing a healthy gut. One, eat lots of soluble fiber. First, let's talk about feeding your microbes. Their food of choice is fiber, particularly insoluble fiber. This means your clients will want to eat fresh fruits and veggies as often as possible, and if tolerated, legumes, and whole grains too. A dynamic married duo, Dr. Justin and Erica Sonnenburg are two microbiologists out of Stanford. They have created what they called a MAC diet, which stands for Microbiota-Accessible Carbohydrates. There are two ways that MACs reach your microbiome. The fiber is lodged inside food particles that are too large to enter earlier in the digestive process or our human genes don't have the ability to break them down, leaving the food for the bugs and the large intestine. The average American eats 100 grams less fiber a day than some tribes in civilizations untouched by Western practices. And the average American consumes only 15 grams out of the recommended 29 to 38 grams of fiber per day. When we look at aboriginal diets compared to our own, what's missing? Tubers, roughage, and generally, bulk. Each vegetable has various types of fibers. Some get digested slowly, others like inulin aren't digested by the small intestine at all but by the bugs in your gut. In general, the best thing for your gut is to eat a large variety of fruits and vegetables. Fruits and veggies are filled with a type of soluble fiber called oligosaccharides that can help reduce inflammation and endotoxins. Soluble fiber also dissolves in water and is broken down by bacteria making for safe and efficient passage. Our microbes love soluble over insoluble fiber. And when we feed them, they also help reduce the risk of obesity. Some studies say that for every 10 grams of fiber consumed, 4% of belly fat can be lost. A good trade-off. With that said, you're probably wondering which foods have soluble fibers. The top sources are vegetables, fruit, beans, oat bran, and barley, plus flaxseed, split peas, lima beans, and black beans. Inulin, mentioned a moment ago, is a specific type of soluble fiber. Sources of inulin include onions, garlic, leeks, jicama, asparagus, and Jerusalem artichoke. These fibers also protect against insulin resistance. They seem to be worth a little bad breath or VPIs. Again, when the bacteria feed on the fiber you can't digest, they produce vitamins and short chain fatty acids that nourish your gut lining. In contrast, when you don't give your gut microbiome enough fiber, they start to eat the mucous lining. This can create a whole host of problems including inflammation. Ironically, a high-fiber diet may be counter-indicative for many gut conditions. However, it can be irritating for several conditions, which we'll go over in this course. The key distinction to remember at this point is that if you're healthy, it's best to bulk up on fiber. Think of it as preventative medicine. Two, eat whole grains. You're likely wondering, "What about grains as a source of fiber?" When it comes to grains these days, we lose a lot of dietary fiber in flour through our modern milling process because, guess what, the wheat germ which contains most of the fiber shortens shelf life. This is why we have processed flour so the product can sit in your pantry longer without going rancid. Long shelf life for a short life? Is that what we get in return? The bran, another great source of fiber, is also milled out to make our favorite white all-purpose flour. And here is a final downside to our modern grain process. The finer the powder, the easier to digest, meaning it gets digested earlier and never reaches the microbiome in the colon. Now you can explain to your clients why it's better to eat grains whole and unprocessed. The same idea comes into play when we talk about juicing versus eating whole fruits and vegetables. Bottom line, the fiber we don't want is white, processed, and refined, not even your microbiome wants those leftovers. These are the so-called empty carbs without the healthy fiber. Three, consume fermented foods. Another part of the MAC diet is eating fermented foods. These are foods that are bacteria-filled such as sauerkraut, kombucha, and kefir. There are millions of various kinds of bacteria that can be found in fermented foods as opposed to the limited selection in probiotics, although both have value. If possible, it's great to eat fermented foods in addition to taking a probiotic. We'll cover how to choose the right probiotics later in this course. Four, include healthy fats in the diet. It's important to our microbiome for us to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy fats. The right combination of fiber and fats is your best medicine. The Mediterranean diet is looked at as a balanced microbiome diet because it includes 40% fat and around 40 grams of fiber. This combo is also helpful for protecting against conditions like colon cancer. Healthy fats include unsaturated plant-based fats. Things like coconut, olive oil, avocado or walnut oil, also sesame oil, and ghee contain high levels of butyrate. Good fiber is even more potent when combined with healthy fats. No matter what diet you subscribe to, it's beneficial to eat meals that center around fresh veggies. Five, buy local. In order to increase your microbe intake, shop at the local farmers' market or as close to the source as possible. Bacteria is present everywhere, and many fruits and vegetables carry bacteria that help us digest our food. We miss out on the bacteria when we eat non-organic or sprayed produce that is treated to last longer on supermarket shelves or to look shiny. The best way to collect natural bacteria that may be present on the farm is to buy as high up on the food chain as possible, better yet, grow some of your own. Think of it as an external garden for your inner one. To recap, the five best ways to increase your microbiome diversity and feed your microbes are to eat lots of soluble fiber, whole grains, fermented foods, and a good ratio of healthy fats, as well as just shop locally or grow your own fruits and veggies if possible. All right, now let's put it all together. Soluble fiber is the cornerstone of a healthy microbiome diet because this is what your gut bacteria eat. When you feed your microbes lots of soluble fiber, they reward you by producing nourishing byproducts. It's a win-win situation. The Microbiota-Accessible Carbohydrates or MAC diet focus on foods that feed your gut. It is a good dietary guideline for people who don't have existing gut health issues. A microbiome balancing diet also involves avoiding substances like NSAIDS, antibiotics, and other substances that damage the microbiome. The goal is to keep the mucosal lining strong by feeding the bacteria fiber. This way, they can feed the lining and in turn ward off more bad bugs. Do you consider feeding your microbes when choosing a meal or a diet? Share your thoughts and experiences with us in the Facebook group. I look forward to hearing from you. We'll see you soon.