What should we eat to improve intestinal flora

Our human intestine is very long. Once there is a problem in the intestine, it is easy to cause disease to our body, so we must ensure the health of the intestine. There are flora in our intestine. If we can improve these flora, it will be very beneficial to our health. So what good methods do we have to improve intestinal flora? In fact, we can use dietary therapy to achieve it.

Probiotic factors are factors that promote the proliferation of beneficial bacteria in the human body. It can increase the beneficial bacteria in the human intestine by 20%, while promoting the absorption of nutrients such as calcium, iron, and zinc; it can also promote intestinal peristalsis and improve gastrointestinal function. Many foods around us are rich in probiotic factors. Let’s take a look at what they are.

1. Fruits and vegetables with skin

The peels of fruits and vegetables have many health benefits. Dietary phenols reside just beneath the skin of fruits and vegetables, where they keep out invaders. In addition to being rich in dietary phenols, fruits and vegetables also contain a large amount of water-soluble dietary fiber, as well as a variety of important vitamins and minerals.

Fruits such as blueberries, raspberries, cranberries, blackberries and strawberries contain high amounts of dietary phenols. In addition, fruits such as cherries are also high in dietary phenols.

2. Oatmeal

Beta-glucan in oatmeal is a type of dietary fiber. Oatmeal is the first food approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to have its health benefits listed on the product label. Oatmeal is low in saturated fatty acids and cholesterol, but high in soluble dietary fiber, which may help reduce the risk of heart disease.

It is recommended that you buy original oatmeal, because you can add your favorite foods to the oatmeal, such as dried fruits, chopped nuts, cinnamon, etc., or you can add a small amount of sugar or honey.

Oatmeal is not only an excellent breakfast food, but can also be ground and used as a substitute for breadcrumbs to make meatballs or meat patties, or sprinkled on the surface of cakes instead of flour.

3. Beans

Legumes such as soybeans, lentils and peanuts are rich in water-soluble dietary fiber and dietary phenols, and of course they are also rich in protein and minerals. In the supermarket, we can see a variety of soy products. For most people, the more soy products they eat, the healthier they are.

Soybeans have the highest dietary phenol content of all foods. In general, the darker the color of the beans, the higher the dietary phenol content, so it is recommended that you eat more black beans. Here are some tips for cooking beans and lentils:

Replace all or part of your meat with soy products.

Add cooked soybeans to salad.

Cook and mash soybeans, then add seasonings to make an appetizer or spread on bread.

4. Tea

Aside from water, tea is probably the healthiest drink you can drink. During the tea brewing process, dietary phenols in the tea leaves will slowly enter the tea water. Tea contains a large amount of dietary phenols and almost no calories, making it a very healthy drink. Many studies have shown that drinking tea regularly can reduce the risk of heart attack.

In order to allow the dietary phenols in tea to fully dissolve into water, it is necessary to use boiling water to brew the tea. The brewed tea can be drunk while it is hot or cooled. Tea with a high dietary phenol content tastes bitter. If you feel that the brewed tea is too bitter, you can dilute it with water before drinking it, or you can add some lemon juice and a small amount of sugar to dilute the bitterness.

Green tea has the highest dietary phenol content, followed by black tea. Although coffee also contains dietary phenols, the content is much less than that of tea.

5. Nuts and dried fruits

Delicious nuts and dried fruits are not only a great snack, but also a healthy food rich in beneficial bacteria factors. Nuts and dried fruits are rich in dietary fiber, high-quality protein and dietary phenols. You can make your own nuts and dried fruits, or buy them in the supermarket.

Additionally, nuts and dried fruits make great snack foods for on-the-go because they don't need to be refrigerated and are packed with a variety of nutrients.

Tips for choosing:

Don't choose nuts coated with sugar or yogurt, as this "nut coating" contains a lot of refined sugar.

Choose nuts with thin skins. After the nuts are shelled, there is a thin, paper-like brown skin on the surface, which contains a large amount of dietary phenols that are beneficial to health.

Choose dried fruit that has no added sugar.

6. Dark juice

Certain fruit juices are the best sources of dietary phenols. Here's how to choose juice:

Choose juice made from fruits such as blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, pomegranates, and grapes. Some dietary phenols are lost when fruit is processed into juice, but most of them pass into the juice.

Choose dark juice. In general, the dietary phenol content in dark-colored juices is higher than that in light-colored juices.

Check the sugar content of the juice.

The main ingredients of mixed juices and juice drinks are sugar water or apple juice, white grape juice, pear juice, etc. Although these juices come from fruits, they have low dietary phenol content and high sugar content. However, cranberry juice is an exception, as it has a low sugar content but a high content of dietary phenols. When drinking cranberry juice, you need to mix sugar water and cranberry juice together so that it doesn't feel too sour.

Additionally, adding a little dark fruit juice to tea or plain soda will make the taste sweeter.

7. Whole-grain sourdough bread

The flour contains lactic acid bacteria and various yeasts. So knead the flour into dough and put it in a warm place, the dough will start to rise. After a few days, this dough is ready to make sourdough bread. In addition, a portion of the fermented dough can be taken out and mixed with flour and water to knead into dough to speed up the fermentation process.

The yeast in the fermented dough produces carbon dioxide gas, which causes the dough to expand. The distinctive sour flavor of fermented sourdough bread comes from the acid produced by lactic acid bacteria. Although lactic acid bacteria die during the baking process, their metabolites, such as short-chain fatty acids and bacteriocins, still exist.

When buying sourdough bread, pay attention to the label to see if the fermentation method is indicated to ensure that the sour taste of the bread is formed during the fermentation process. Any kind of sourdough bread contains probiotic metabolites that are beneficial to your health, and if you buy whole-grain sourdough bread, you can also get a lot of dietary fiber.

8. Dark chocolate and cocoa powder

I’m happy to report that dark chocolate and cocoa powder are also good sources of dietary phenols. If you want to supplement probiotic factors, it is best not to eat milk chocolate because a large amount of dietary phenols will be lost during processing. The higher the cocoa content in chocolate, the more dietary phenols it contains. An easy way to determine the dietary phenol content in chocolate is to taste it.

Typically, chocolate with a higher dietary phenol content is darker in color and tastes both bitter and sweet.

9. Red wine

Drinking a glass or two of red wine a day may be good for your health because the antioxidants in red wine can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. You must have heard of resveratrol, an antioxidant in red wine. Many scientists believe that the resveratrol in wine helps explain why the French like to eat foods containing a lot of cream, but have a relatively low incidence of heart disease.

In addition, red wine is one of the foods with the highest dietary phenol content. This is because the raw materials of wine include grape skins and grape seeds. During the fermentation process, the sugar in the grapes undergoes a series of chemical changes to produce alcohol. Dietary phenols in the skins and seeds are more soluble in alcohol than in water, so the dietary phenol content in wine is higher than in juice made from the same grapes.

10. Herbs and spices

Herbs and spices are high in dietary phenols, which are responsible for their strong aroma. If you place a pinch of herb or spice on your tongue, you can taste the distinctive bitter flavor of dietary phenols.

Of all the herbs and spices, oregano has the highest dietary phenol content, and probably all pizza lovers know this herb. The dietary phenol content in fresh herbs and spices is much higher than in dried herbs and spices. However, as long as the aroma is strong, it means that dietary phenols are still present.

When using herbs and spices, pay special attention to the heating time and temperature. Dietary phenols are particularly likely to enter soups when cooking herbs and spices, but if they are cooked for too long or at too high a temperature, the beneficial effects of dietary phenols will be greatly reduced. To make your food tasty and healthy, add herbs and spices at the very end of the cooking process.

11. Garlic and mustard for their antibacterial properties

Garlic and mustard seeds do not contain dietary phenols. However, when they are consumed with foods high in probiotics, garlic and mustard can help balance the intestinal flora by killing harmful bacteria.

In the above article, we introduced that there are bacteria in the human intestine. If we can improve the intestinal flora, it will be beneficial to the health of the body. The above article introduced what we should eat to improve the intestinal flora.