What Is Gut Health?
While we don’t think about it often, the importance of gut health cannot be overstated. God created this powerful tool in our body, and it’s up to us to help keep it running smoothly. But what exactly is gut health and why is it so important to maintain?
In its simplest explanation, gut health refers to the balance between “good” and “bad” bacteria in your gut; the good bacteria needs to be supported and maintained while the bad bacteria has to be kept under control. This bacteria is responsible for your overall health, as 80% of our immune system resides in our gut. So, how can we keep our guts healthy and live the lifestyle that God envisioned for us?
How Vegans Can Support Gut Health
One way to promote a healthy gut is through a mostly raw vegan diet, which has been proven to have numerous benefits to help maintain our bodies. A diet rich in plant-based whole foods contains lots of fiber, which is essential to help promote the growth of beneficial bacteria in the gut. Fiber is not digested by the body, but rather acts as a prebiotic, feeding the good bacteria in the gut and helping to keep them healthy and thriving. Plant-based foods such as fruits, vegetables, kale, oats, brown rice, legumes, nuts and seeds and berries are optimal for this.
Vegan yogurt is also a good choice to add to your diet, as it is an excellent source of probiotics and essential nutrients. To add a little more variety, you can also include fermented foods that are plant-based, such as kombucha, sauerkraut, and miso, because the fermentation process directly addst good bacteria to your gut. Fermented foods are a food-based probiotic supplement that promotes gut health. This is how traditional societies fortified their gut health before encapsulated probiotic supplements were created.
Many of these plant-based foods are also high in resistant starch, which helps them get through the digestive system without being broken down. That way, when they reach the large intestine, the beneficial bacteria can use it as fuel to grow their population instead of just going to waste.
How Plant-Based Probiotics Can Help
To help add good gut bacteria to your system, it’s also recommended that you take probiotic supplements to help restore some balance. We recommend our Professional Strength Probiotics which has a total of 50 billion CFU per capsule with 12 strains of probiotics including the clinically proven DDS®-1 Lactobacillus acidophilus strain.
While it is true that all raw foods (which is what 85% of the Hallelujah Diet is made up of) contain their own enzymes to help them auto-digest, studies show that supplementing a mostly raw, plant-based diet with a digestive enzyme supplement helps to further alleviate digestive stress on the body. There are plenty of vegan digestive enzyme supplements available, including the Hallelujah Diet Digestive Enzymes. These enzymes are specifically formulated to digest the food you eat while on the Hallelujah Diet.
Living Your Best Life
As you can see, switching to a plant-based vegan diet can have numerous benefits for your gut health. By promoting the growth of beneficial bacteria, reducing inflammation, and aiding in digestion, a raw vegan diet can help to keep the gut healthy and functioning properly so we can enjoy God’s work as he intended.
