8 Foods to Avoid for Gut Health
Gut health is essential for hormone function, digestion, detoxing pathogens, and absorbing nutrients. Here, the gut refers to the intestines in the digestive tract where the majority of the absorption of nutrients occurs. The goal of gut health is to make our gut bacteria happy. Our gut is lined with a variety of healthy bacteria which aid in the digestion and absorption process. Though we do not want to have too much or too little of the healthy bacteria, and we also need a broad diversity of different kinds of healthy bacteria. Certain foods can negatively impact these gut bacteria, resulting in painful symptoms like constipation, bloating, gas, or diarrhea. Note that the worst foods for gut health mentioned here can still be included in a healthy diet regime. It is important to be aware of how frequently you are eating these foods to limit their consumption but there’s no need to eliminate them.
Here are the 8 foods to avoid for gut health:
1. ALCOHOL
Alcohol is one of the foods to avoid for gut health because it causes dysbiosis. The bad bacteria in our gut can build-up due to many different lifestyle factors, including alcohol consumption. Gut dysbiosis is when there is an imbalance in the ratio of good to bad bacteria in the intestines. Research in mice studies has found that alcohol consumption can shift this ratio and increase the bad bacteria population in the gut. Alcohol also increases leaky gut or intestinal permeability which is when pathogens can enter the bloodstream through intestinal permeability. As a result of a leaky gut, many bad bacteria can pass through and cause infection and illness.
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2. PROCESSED FOODS
Processed foods include any premade food high in salt, sugar, fat, and any ingredient you can not pronounce or figure out its origin. These foods are made from more chemicals than they are of real food. This makes them one of the foods to avoid for gut health. Almost everything in the grocery store that comes in a box, bag, or is in the grocery store’s frozen section is considered processed. Our gut responds and digests whole foods better than it does processed foods, so this is why processed foods are one of the foods to avoid for gut health. Again, remember you do not have to eliminate these foods completely, but it is important to check nutrition labels and be more aware of what you are eating if you have the means to do so.
3. HIGH SODIUM FOODS
High sodium levels are another one of the foods to avoid for gut health. High sodium levels are found in almost anything boxed on the grocery store shelf. Its purpose is to increase shelf life because salt content inhibits microbial growth. Knowing this, you can see how high sodium diets might not benefit the gut microbiota in our intestines. Research has found that the high sodium content promotes inflammation and damages intestinal cell walls. In addition, high sodium intake can cause dysbiosis or a gut bacteria imbalance in diversity.
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4. HYDROGENATED FATS
Hydrogenated fats are another one of the foods to avoid for gut health. Hydrogenated fats are vegetable oils that are heated up so much that they add hydrogens to the fatty acid chain to make them saturated. By doing this, companies can turn an unsaturated fat that is originally liquid at room temperature into saturated fat that is solid at room temperature. This process is used to create thicker products that last on the shelf and are cost-effective. You can find high amounts of these hydrogenated fats in nut butters and nondairy butters. The problem with hydrogenated fats and oils is that they can elicit a gut inflammatory effect in the gut. Not to mention that they are not heart-healthy because they irritate the arteries.
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5. HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP
High fructose corn syrup is another one of the foods to avoid for gut health. It is made by extracting the glucose from corn starch which makes corn syrup, but high fructose corn syrup is made a step further by converting some of that glucose into fructose. It was first created because sugar prices were higher in the 70s, and the government-subsidized corn, so it was cheaper to produce. A recent study has found that high fructose corn syrup can increase intestinal permeability. The intestine is lined with a single cell wall called the lumen, which separates the inside of the intestine from the bloodstream. This cell wall is thin so that it can easily absorb nutrients, but the cell wall is tightly packed in tight junctions to keep out all things that are not nutrients optimally. If the junctions loosen up, then the cell wall can become permeable and larger substances like toxins and undigested food can pass through into the bloodstream and cause damage, resulting in intestinal permeability.
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6. LOW FIBER DIETS
Low fiber diets like keto are another one of the foods to avoid for gut health. Men require about 35 grams per day of fiber and women require about 25 grams per day. Fiber is an indigestible form of carbohydrate that aids in fecal bulk. It is gut healthy but also heart-healthy too. The fiber helps to feed the bacteria in our gut. When the good bacteria eat the fiber they will produce acids that feed other types of good bacteria and will simultaneously eliminate bad bacteria that can’t survive in those acidic conditions. Though fiber is beneficial for gut health, it is important not to eat too much. This is comparable to cars on a highway. On a nonbusy day, cars free flow down the highway with no issues or need to slow down, but during rush hour there are too many cars going the same way at once and traffic is slowed down. In this analogy, the cars are the fiber and the highway is our gut.
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7. FRIED FOODS
Fried foods are another one of the foods to avoid for gut health. Fried foods are made by submerging food into a large pot of high-heat oil. The smoke point is extremely important to learn about when cooking oils with high heat. Oil is made up of triglycerides which are one fatty acid with three fatty acids attached to it. Heating these oils will break the bonds between the fatty acids and the glycerol. When the oils are heated too high, above their smoke point, smoke will start to form and free radicals are generated above their smoke point. These free radicals and toxins will enter your body with the food and will stimulate an inflammatory response causing the gut to have issues digesting. Overall, fried foods are not beneficial to the gut for the reason that they are inflammatory which can damage gut bacteria.
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8. LOW PROTEIN DIETS
Low protein intake consumed regularly is one of the foods to avoid for gut health too because of its effect on our stomach acid. The majority of our food breakdown occurs in the stomach, where stomach acid has a low enough pH to break apart our chewed food. This broken-up food mixture will then head to the intestines, where the nutrients in the food are absorbed into the bloodstream. If you do not have enough stomach acid, then you will send undigested food into the intestine where it will cause irritation, bloating, and gas production. Protein is the hardest macronutrient to break down in the stomach because it contains nitrogen. Therefore, eating enough protein will ensure that you will be producing enough stomach acid. If you are vegetarian or vegan make sure to eat enough protein through tofu, beans, lentils, quinoa, edamame, and peas because low protein diets will decrease the amount of stomach acid you produce.
Source: NIH
