Introduction to choosing the right food for gut health

Over the last few years or so, the concept of gut health has become extremely popular.

With the stresses of modern living, understandably, people want to live longer and healthier lives.

Eating a healthy diet is the foundation of a healthy life, but it isn’t always easy to know what to eat.

This is especially made difficult with the rise of the internet and social media bombarding us with conflicting messages.

Regarding a healthy diet, the easiest place to start is knowing what foods to avoid.

Once we know these foods, we then fine-tune the process to find out what foods to eat.

So, what are the foods for poor gut health and what are the foods for better gut health?

In this blog, we will explain what the term gut health is, why some foods are bad for gut health, and finally discuss the foods bad for gut health.

You will learn my easy mnemonic on how to remember these foods, called The Evil GODS.

Before we discuss these foods, it is important to be clear on what gut health is.

What Exactly is Gut Health?

The word “gut” is another name for the gastrointestinal tract that starts in the mouth and includes the oesophagus, stomach, small intestines, liver, pancreas and large intestine.

Gut health therefore refers to the overall health of your gastrointestinal tract.

It is a broad term and encompasses good gut motility or tone, effective digestion and absorption of nutrients, and absence of gut symptoms.

This is a term that has been widely used over the last few years owing to the tremendous amount of research on the gut and how it affects our general health.

However, the term gut health is generally used to mean the health of your gut microbiome or microbiota.

The term microbiome is the name given to the community or group of microbes which live in and outside the body at any given time.

Although often thought only to comprise of bacteria, it is also made of yeasts, viruses and protozoa.

Everything being equal, your microbiome exists in a state of balance, between the good microbes and the bad microbes.

Amazingly, your microbiome is estimated to be about 4 trillion, outnumbering the number of human cells.

Why Are Some Foods Bad For Gut Health?

So, what makes some foods bad for the gut?

Simply put, it is the effect of these foods on your microbiome.

As we previously mentioned, the microbiome is the community or group of bacteria, yeasts, viruses and protozoa that live in and outside the body at any given time.

These foods cause what we term dysbiosis, which is an imbalance between your good microbes and your bad microbes.

These bad gut microbes potentially secrete toxins and also cause gut inflammation and immune dysfunction.

Gut inflammation is what underpins most chronic diseases.

Hippocrates wasn’t far off when he said all disease begins in the gut more than 2500 years ago.

What Are The Worst Foods For Gut Health?

Simply put, the worst foods for your gut health are processed foods.

Processed food is any food whose form has been changed from its natural state.

To achieve this, various techniques are often employed including baking, frying, freezing, pasteurising, canning or modifying chemically in a lab.

Proceed foods are made in a plant with people wearing body suits and masks, not chefs wearing aprons.

One way to spot processed foods is through their packaging which is usually visually appealing with glossy pictures, complete with a long list of ingredients.

In fact, the packaging of some of these foods costs more than the food themselves.

Processed foods are also heavily marketed. They usually appear in television advertisements, more often than not with a health benefit claim.

I have devised a mnemonic to help you remember these foods, called the GODS. Because they are bad for you, I have termed them The Evil GODS.

The Evil GODS are G for Gluten, O for Oils (refined vegetable oils), D for Dairy (pasteurised/commercialised) and S for Sugar.

Let’s start:

G for Gluten (Gluten-free meals)

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley and rye.

Gluten-containing foods include bread, cereal, pasta, pizza, cakes, biscuits and so on.

These are essentially refined carbohydrates that generally affect the body in many ways which we will discuss under the S for Sugar section.

It is a fact that wheat has been consumed by different cultures for centuries seemingly with no issues.

We also know that Coeliac disease is an autoimmune condition, which occurs in people who are sensitive to gluten.

In other words, when these people consume gluten, their bodies trigger an immune reaction that causes inflammation.

The result is typical gut symptoms like bloating, gas, and diarrhoea, as well as other seemingly non-gut symptoms.

There is also another category called non-coeliac wheat sensitivity (NSGS), also known as non-coeliac wheat sensitivity (NCWS).

In this condition, the body’s non-specific immune system (innate immunity) reacts to components of wheat other than gluten, leading to similar symptoms of Coeliac disease.

The reasons for the rise in gluten intolerances are complex, and there have been a few hypotheses put forward by various scientists to explain it.

It all starts with Dr Norman Borlaug, known as the Father of the Green Revolution.

Norman Borlaug played an important role in developing a dwarf strain of wheat that was disease-resistant to increase yields and feed the growing world population.

His work earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

The newly hybridised dwarf strain however was different from ancient wheat-like spelt dating back about 10,000 years ago and heritage wheat grown in the 1900s before hybridisation in two ways:

First, it had a higher percentage of complex carbohydrates and less protein than ancient wheat.

Secondly, the newly hybridised modern wheat introduced a peptide strand in the gluten molecule, making it more difficult to digest.

According to some researchers, these two differences explain the rise in issues with gluten we are seeing today.

Other researchers say it is the pesticides like glyphosate used to grow the wheat that is the culprit.

Another possible hypothesis is the length of food processing.

In Mediterranean countries like Spain or Italy, wheat-based products like bread, pizza and other foods are made slowly.

There is no rush - the fermentation process is drawn out to produce the best dough.

This could explain why you might struggle with wheat-based products like pizza in America or the UK, but easily go through an entire pizza in Italy with no problems whatsoever.

The Italians might even tell you it is the water used!

Finally, some say while you are away on holiday, your gut microbiome resets itself due to the reduced stress levels, making it more receptive to gluten and other potential food allergens for that matter.

In summary, a discussion on gluten is complex, but can potentially cause gut dysbiosis and, gut inflammation and beyond.

My advice to all my clients is always to eliminate it from your diet to make life easy.

Find out how to improve your gut health and overall wellbeing

Book a gut health consultation with Dr. Leke, one of the UK’s leading gut health experts. Or if you have questions before booking, you can schedule a free 30-minute call first.

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O for Oils (Refined vegetable oils/Cooking Oils)

Refined vegetable oils include sunflower oil, safflower oil, corn oil, and rapeseed oil to name a few.

You might be surprised to learn that vegetable oils were originally produced as lubricants for machinery during the industrial revolution, and not really for consumption.

The push for refined vegetable oils and their derivatives was reinforced by various official guidelines that promoted and continue to promote these oils as heart-healthy, usually over saturated fats.

Interestingly, at about this time, the rate of heart disease soared, but I digress.

A brief look at the extraction process of these types of oil is enough to give you an idea of how unhealthy they are.

Essentially, the seeds in question which are likely genetically modified (GMOs) are heated at very high temperatures and pressures.

The remaining mass is then extracted, often using petroleum-type chemical solvents to produce a residual darkish liquid.

Finally, the liquid is treated with more chemicals to improve its colour and smell.

Vegetable oils are therefore heavily processed, potentially producing oxidised forms mainly due to the high temperatures and pressures involved.

Contrast this with olive oil which does not involve high temperatures and is cold-pressed.

Chemically speaking, vegetable oils are polyunsaturated fats that are liquid at room temperature.

Vegetable oils also contain high amounts of omega-6 fatty acids.

A high proportion of omega 6 fats are thought to be inflammatory fats, thus potentially causing weight gain, amongst other chronic conditions like obesity, hypertension, heart attacks and strokes (Reference)

If there is one type of oil or fat to avoid, it is these, vegetable oils.

For cooking, opt for olive oil, palm oil, butter and ghee.

D for Dairy

The term dairy refers to food products made from the milk of mammals.

Although the word dairy usually brings up cows in mind, goats actually produce the most commonly consumed dairy.

Examples of dairy products include milk, butter, cheese, and yoghurt.

Dairy has been consumed for centuries by various cultures with no issues.

For example, dairy produced by traditional methods is consumed in parts of East Africa and also in the Italian island of Sardinia with its exotic cheeses.

However, like gluten, there seems to have been a rise in intolerance to it.

So what happened?

Before the mid-1800s, milk was traditionally consumed in its raw form.

However, this will change after the discovery of pasteurisation, where milk was heated at low temperatures to kill off potential pathogens.

Supermarket or commercialised milk also goes through many more stages before consumption.

In other words, commercial or conventional milk is thus highly processed and contains less beneficial bacteria, enzymes and fat compared to the farm counterparts.

Moreover, it tends to contain high amounts of antibiotics, growth factors, reproductive hormones and inflammatory compounds, to name a few.

S for Sugar

We have already partly addressed sugar under the G for Gluten section.

So, bread, cereal, cakes and biscuits are sugar, and affect our bodies in two main ways.

First, they are made from bleached flour which is nutrient-deficient.

When you consume them, your body is robbed of its own stores of trace minerals to digest them.

In the process, your body is robbed even more of its own nutrient stores.

The second way they affect your body is via blood sugar imbalances.

Refined carbohydrates have a high glycaemic index, or in other words, cause rapid rises in sugar levels in the blood.

In response to this, your body produces a rapid surge in insulin to combat this increased rise.

This response then plummets your blood sugar below the baselines.

This event is not only perceived as a stressful event in the body but also leads to hunger, causing you to snack.

Under this section, we will include sugary drinks, including fruit juices-Yes 100% fruit juice too!

Fruit juice without fibre also has the potential to cause sugar spikes which as we have discussed causes unwanted effects on the body.

Conclusion

The worst foods for your gut health are processed foods, made up of refined carbohydrates, sugar, processed dairy and refined vegetable oils.

A good way of remembering them is by using the mnemonic The Evil GODS, where G stands for Gluten, O for Oils (refined vegetable), Da for Dairy and S for Sugar.

These foods typically come in a packet, complete with a long list of ingredients.

Processed foods cause dysbiosis and gut inflammation, leading to a cascade effect in the gut and your body.

That said, the best foods for your gut are whole foods.

These are foods consumed in their natural form.

If you found this blog helpful, please share it to help spread the word.

In the meantime, please download my free Optimal Health Ebooks or when you are ready, check out my Optimal Health Prescription program (OHPP).

To your health!

Thank you,

Dr. Leke

Worst Foods For Gut Health