06/05/2025
How many different plants do you eat each week? If you’re someone who typically eats the same few vegetables with every meal, your gut health wants you to rethink this!
Poor gut health is very common due to poor diet and lifestyle. Symptoms include bloating, brain fog, cravings, low mood, skin issues (acne, eczema etc), irregular bowel movements, food intolerances, gas/burping/reflux/heartburn, excess body fat, regularly being sick with the flu, poor sleep and fatigue.
Research from the American Gut Project showed the wider diversity of plants you eat, the more diverse your gut microbiome (PMID: 29795809). This is because different plants contain different prebiotic fibres and polyphenols that feed different gut microbes. These microbes are crucial to the gut because they produce compounds like SCFAs (short-chain fatty acids) which help maintain gut barrier integrity and overall gut resilience.
Key here is the variety of plants rather than the quantities for your gut health. So if you want to support your gut health, digestion, and feed the trillions of microbes that keep you thriving, eating a variety of plants is the single most effective way to do this and therefore improve your overall health.
In this meal I have the following plants: kumara, beetroot, garlic, ginger, broccolini, spinach, lettuce, avocado, spring onions, capsicum, mushrooms, beetkraut, gherkins, micro greens and pumpkin seeds.
As someone with endometriosis, a disease of immune dysfunction (and given the immune system is housed in the gut wall, there is an extremely close relationship) it’s a non-negotiable for me to look after my gut microbes to manage endo well. Endo or not, if you want to be in great health you must look after your gut!
