Clean Eating Food Swaps for a Gut Healing Diet Plan
The key to anyone’s heart (man or woman) should be their stomach. After all, their gut is what controls everything about them. From their emotions to energy to fat storage, it is essential to follow a gut-healing diet. Through our microbiome testing and personalized probiotics program, we make following a healthy gut diet plan much more manageable.
Our wellness program offers you many insights on what are the best foods for gut health. What makes this program so unique is that we take into consideration the foods you actually consume. That way, you aren’t getting food recommendations that don’t align with your dietary restrictions.
Even better, our food recommendations are not shots in the dark. Since your sample is sent to us, we partake in microbiome testing to determine which beneficial bacteria our system needs. This knowledge allows us to tailor a healthy gut diet plan unique for you. Whether you take a gut test or not, there are clean eating swaps that benefit anyone looking for a gut-healing diet. Let’s give you a sample of some of the ideas you get by joining our gut test.
Get over fears of a gut healing diet
For many of us, food is a source of comfort. It’s a fabric of who we are. For centuries, foods have brought families and friends of all races and creeds around the table.
We have such an emotional attachment to food, for some this bond may foster mental illness. Research indicates that humans have similar neurological responses to food as they do with drugs. Furthermore, analysts believe 76.6% of Americans will be classified as overweight by 2020. That’s over three-fourths of the population!
Letting go of comfort foods is what makes dietary changes such as a healthy gut diet plan so scary for people. While adopting the best foods for gut health may not fill the void of a hamburger, there is still a lot of delicious gut-healing foods that can help bridge the gap.
Once you get over the fear of adopting a gut-healing diet, you will learn to actually embrace some of the best foods for gut health. With that being said, you don’t need to give up all the foods you love. Many easy food swaps coincide with a gut-healing diet. Let’s take a look at a few!
How to swap best foods for gut health in our comfort foods
Breaking up is a hard thing to do. Once the foods that are causing you gastrointestinal problems are out of the picture, you won’t miss dealing with the bloating and acid reflux. Instead, you’ll be thinking of even more ways to swap the best foods for gut health into your diet.
Whoa, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. It’s all about the baby steps. You are just now committing to adapting a gut-healing diet. So, let’s start with some ways you can transition to a healthy gut diet plan.
Say no to mayo
In the world of condiments, mayonnaise isn’t the most evil of the bunch (we’re looking at you, ketchup). It’s mostly oil and unsaturated fats. While these are all positive aspects, just one tablespoon of mayo hits 15.4% of your daily recommended fat intakes. Forget the processed cold cuts the mayo is slathered all over!
Instead of mayo, mash-up an avocado. While avocados are 77% fat, they come with far more health benefits than processed mayonnaise. It is an ideal source of fatty acid, oleic acid. Oleic acid has potent anti-inflammatory benefits, which may help with persistent gastrointestinal problems.
Not an avo-lover? We won’t start a witch hunt for you just yet. Tag hummus in for mayo instead. Hummus has a creamy consistency that makes an excellent sub for mayo…and a BLT sub.
Cauliflower rice, cauliflower pizza, cauliflower everything
We’ll be the first to admit. Nothing is tantalizing about gnawing on a hunk of cauliflower. However, cauliflower is one of the most versatile of gut health foods. If you shred it up, you have a brand new product.
Some of the best ways to use cauliflower for someone looking to follow a gut-healing diet includes:
- Cauliflower pizza crust
- Cauliflower rice
- Cauliflower “chicken” wings
- Cauliflower tots
- Cauliflower pasta
- Cauliflower breadsticks
Unlike white flour, white sugar, or white rice, cauliflower is a white food with a ton of nutrition. It contains a bevy of micronutrients that provide your cells, organs, and microbiome with energy.
Bye artificial fruits, hello real thing
Fruits are so beneficial to our health because they are rich in nutrients, antioxidants, and sugars. Knowing that we have a soft-spot for fruit-flavored items, companies will tout the words “fruit juice” on their labels to provide a false sense of security about what they’re selling. Fruit juice shouldn’t set your mind at ease. It should set off an alarm.
In itself, fruits are sweet. They are rich in fructose, sucrose, and glucose. Consuming adequate doses of these sugars be beneficial for a person following a healing gut diet. Most fruits are complex carbs with dietary fiber. Fiber is prebiotics for probiotics, essential in a healthy gut diet.
It can be challenging adding fiber to your diet because too much may cause bloating. Choose fibers that your body tolerates well...or mix your favorite beverage with a scoop of Ombre Rise.
Ombre Rise is a well-tolerated prebiotic powder made with all-natural ingredients clinically proven to not cause gut issues. It will help promote balance in your gut bacteria so you experience less inflammation and more regularity.
Let us ask you, why do we need to add more sugar to fruit? We don’t. So, why do fruit-on-the-bottom yogurts and fruit juices full of so much added sugar?
For a gut-healing diet, control your sugar intake. Refined sugar is damaging to your brain cells. Besides, it can cause gastrointestinal distress that may lead to Leaky Gut Syndrome. Opt for natural sugars in fruits. Not fruit-flavored sugar.
Cut up fruit and mix in yogurt yourself. Yogurt is on the star-studded list of probiotic foods. Since there are live cultures in yogurt, they will feast on the carbohydrates in your fruit. This makes for the ultimate breakfast dish in a gut-healing diet. Just make sure you are careful about which type of yogurt you buy. For the most nutritional value, opt for an unflavored Greek yogurt.
More ways to swap fruit for a healthy gut diet plan
Fruit juice junkie? Make your own. Get fruits and veggies that produce a lot of juice like watermelon, cantaloupe, and celery. Mix and match different whole foods and find what tastes good to you.
Do you turn to sports drinks for a little boost in the gym? Get electrolytes naturally. Fill a pitcher with distilled water and infuse with a variety of chopped-up fruits and herbs. We recommend combos of cucumber, lemon, basil, and strawberries!
Speaking of infusing, maybe you should try it with your alcohol as well. Hey, fermented fruits are how we get alcohol in the first place! While alcohol abuse may lead to gastrointestinal disorders, the reality is many adults will have an alcoholic beverage numerous times in their lives. Instead of using sweetened mixers and artificially-flavored vodkas, infuse some fruit. It’s far more natural, and makes for a great snack at the bottom of the container!
Bye, bye bacon
You thought you’d get rid of bacon when pigs fly? Maybe it’s time the little critters sprouted wings. Bacon is an evil mistress for a gut health diet. That’s because this favorite animal product is high in LDL cholesterol and saturated fats.
Saturated fats are harder for your body to break down. As a result, they clog up the system, causing damage to cells, tissues, and your gut lining. Consuming massive amounts of saturated fats over a lifetime can create cases of Leaky Gut Syndrome and other gastrointestinal disorders.
America has a meat-problem. So much about how we handle bacon is destroying our health:
- Methane projections from factory farming
- Carcinogens created from smoked bacon
- Carcinogens from burning meat on a grill
- Hormonal imbalances from hormone-treated feed
Lettuce wraps FTW
Sandwiches are great and all, but do you really need the bread? After all, gluten is the top food sensitivity in America. That’s because mass-produced wheat has been filled with GMOs and stripped of almost all nutritional value. All that is left is a sugar that disrupts our gut lining and leaves us susceptible to inflammation.
Order the gluten an Uber. It’s overstayed its welcome. If you want to follow a healthy gut diet plan, forgo the bread. If you’re making a sandwich, chances are there was lettuce involved. Now, use more of it.
Want to up the nutritional content? Try steaming some Swiss chard to make a wrap. Swiss chard is rich in Vitamin K and has a ton of fiber. Vitamin K is pivotal for repairing cells, including the ones that were damaged in the stomach by not following a gut-healthy diet plan. Fiber is ideal for eliminating toxins that may be causing acid reflux, bloating, and other forms of gastrointestinal distress.
If you must get your bread on, opt for sprouted grain bread. Like the seeds in the bread sprout, they push nutrients from within to the surface. Extra nutrients may help with the digestion of food, including pesky wheat.
Probiotics: Best supplements for healthy gut diet plan
The truth of the matter, the reason you’re experiencing gastrointestinal problems is due to the harmful microbes living in your gut. We blindly take supplements and medications in hopes of feeling better. Seeing as all disease begins in the gut, we need to work on replenishing beneficial bacteria.
Multivitamins are shots in the dark while over-the-counter remedies are quick fixes. You need to see and feel your results. The only way to do that is to partake in microbiome testing and subscribe to a strain-specific probiotic delivery.
Test the bacteria in the stomach. From there, we can determine which beneficial bacteria you need. Lastly, we can let you know which foods agree with your system, and which don't. That way, you can make educated decisions about your meal plans.
If someone in the workplace is bringing the work morale down, they are toxic. The same is true for the microbes in your gut. If you are going as far as to make clean food swaps for a healing gut diet, go the extra mile. Take a gut test.