The Truth about Probiotics Supplements (How to Really Improve Gut Health)

Probiotics don’t work for everyone. Your unique gene makeup, age, health, bacteria you already have in your body, and diet all affect how probiotics work. The dose isn’t correct (too few CFU). You aren’t taking it correctly (with food versus on an empty stomach).

The product quality is poor (live cultures). One of the biggest challenges with probiotics is their fragile nature. They must survive the process of manufacturing, storage, and your stomach acid in order to be effective in your intestines.

The properties of probiotic strains are vastly dissimilar, resulting in a large variety of probiotic products with distinct documented effect or no documented effects. Many products only specify the species contained, and not the strain. For example, a product may be labelled Lactobacillus rhamnosus, but whether the strain is Lactobacillus rhamnosus, LGG^®, the very different Lactobacillus rhamnosus, GR-1^®, or any other Lactobacillus rhamnosus strain, is not known, and so neither is the documented potential health benefit. Further, clinically observed effects are associated with a specific potency and the probiotic product must be consumed live and at this potency.

Yogurts can be a good source of probiotics but not all yogurts contain probiotics. All yogurts contain starter cultures (such as Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus), but only some yogurts include probiotic bacteria. Several yogurts have probiotic bacteria added together with the fermenting culture in order to ensure that the right amount of specific bacteria is present in the yogurt at the end of shelf life. However not all yogurt has probiotics and the problem is that dairy foods are horrible for gut health. We do not have the enzyme present in the gut to digest lactose after we get molars. the reason is that we are not meant to continue drinking milk after we are able to eat solid food.

With all that being said, what should you and can you do do improve gut health?

1. Eat real food
2. Avoid processed food
3. And THIS is crucial- NEVER eat cooked foods without eating raw food with it.

Let’s take each of these points and see how to do this, and why!

When I say eat real food I mean proteins (beans, eggs, seafood and the remainder of your diet should be fruits, vegetables, salads, seeds, nuts, teas, coffee. Foods that are not manufactured, they grow naturally. Three full meals a day, totaling 1800 2000 calories a day.

This is what it takes to meet your caloric and nutrient needs on a day to day basis. I am not saying that you can never deviate from this, you can occasionally. But you should avoid sugar almost 100% of the time. Monkfruit sweetener is a perfect substitute, unlike stevia whichh interferes with gut health.

When I say avoid processed foods I mean anything that needs a label to tell you what it is. A banana or an avocado needs no label, you can tell how it grew. Breads, cakes, cookies, foods with long lists of ingredients where you know a lot of them are just chemicals do not belong in the human body. It takes the lace of food that has nutrients, is addictive and bad for you.

And when I say eat foods that are raw with every meal it is because without LIVE enzymes, which are destroyed in cooking, you cannot digest food or absorb nutrients. There is a reason every culture throughout time has began or ended it’s meals with a salad or raw fruit.

You can have fruit and coconut yogurt with blueberries and a veggie omelet for breakfast, salads or sliced tomatoes with other meals. I have always eaten a banana about 15 minutes before all of my meals since I was very young, I have no memory of when I started but my mom says she always thought is was weird.  But you gut health will greatly improve and heal in time from following these guidelines.