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Digestive health and probiotic foods -

They are live micro-organisms which should be consumed in adequate amounts. Many of these micro-organisms occur naturally in cultured or fermented foods such as yogurt, kefir and sauerkraut. Probiotic bacteria perform some important functions including supporting a healthy immune system, metabolism and digestion.

Research indicates that imbalances in the gut microbiota may be linked to numerous diseases , including cancer and type 2 diabetes. Your gut microbiota is also strongly influenced by your food choices and you can easily support this by including more probiotic as well as prebiotic-rich foods into your daily diet.

Discover even more top tips for digestive health , including does diet affect gut health? Also, check out some of our delicious gut-friendly recipes from satisfying soups to salads, including a whole range of tasty plant-based options. Made from milk fermented by friendly bacteria mainly lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria , yogurt is one of the best sources of probiotics.

Widely available in shops, yogurt is also super easy to make at home. Made from the liquid left over from churning butter, only the unpasteurised, cultured version will contain beneficial bacteria, so you will need to check labels carefully. Try cultured buttermilk in our green salad with buttermilk dressing and herby buttermilk mash.

In fact, kefir benefits from a more diverse composition of beneficial bacteria and yeast than even yogurt. Made by adding kefir grains to a sugary water solution, this version is dairy-free and vegan, it creates a slightly fizzy drink that is typically flavoured with fruits and spices.

Made from soybeans that have been cooked and fermented, tempeh has been shown to increase the concentration of good bacteria. Find out more about the health benefits of tempeh , and give it a go with our recipes for chilli tempeh stir-fry and tempeh traybake. A Korean favourite, kimchi is made primarily with fermented cabbage and contains large amounts of the gut-friendly bacterium, Lactobacillus.

Try our quick kimchi recipe. Then, add to our kimchi fried rice , kimchi noodles and kimchi scrambled eggs. A sweetened fermented black tea from China, kombucha is known to contain a host of gut-beneficial bacteria and yeast species.

A fermented drink from Eastern Europe, kvass has traditionally been made from stale rye or malt sourdough. In more recent years, kvass has been created using fruits and beets combined with other root vegetables. Used in Japanese and Asian foods, miso is a paste made from fermented soy and contains large amounts of the gut-friendly bacteria, Aspergillus oryzae.

Be inspired by our delicious miso recipes , including miso aubergine and miso soup. A traditional Japanese dish consisting of fermented soybeans, natto is high in gut-boosting bacteria.

Learn more about natto and what makes the Japanese diet so healthy. A type of fermented cabbage, sauerkraut is packed with good bacteria and is super easy and inexpensive to make at home.

Discover the health benefits of sauerkraut. Some cheese such as cheddar , parmesan and Swiss cheeses, particularly gouda are better than yogurt for delivering intact probiotics to the GI tract.

Discover more benefits of olives and their oil. Apple cider vinegar is made by crushing apples and allowing yeasts to ferment the natural sugars into acetic acid. Including apple cider vinegar in your diet may help improve fasting blood sugar and reduce HbA1c, a marker of long-term blood sugar control.

Discover more health benefits of apple cider vinegar. Use it to make our spicy black bean tacos. Typically made from just four ingredients — flour, water, salt and a starter culture — sourdough is easy to digest and highly nutritious. Although the beneficial microbes in the starter are lost during the baking process, compounds called polyphenols become more bio-available.

These act as an important fuel source for our gut microbes and, unlike many commercially produced loaves, sourdough is beneficial for blood sugar levels. Discover more health benefits of sourdough.

Give sourdough a go with our step-by-step recipe to make your own starter , and use it to make our classic sourdough loaf. Does gut health affect weight? How does diet affect gut health? How to avoid indigestion What to eat for better digestion. What's your favourite way to get beneficial bacteria into your diet?

Comment below and let us know Tracey Randell is a qualified Nutritionist MBANT and certified Institute for Functional Medicine practitioner Dip BCNH, IFMCP, CNHC.

She lectures at the nutrition college where she trained on various subjects including IBS, Celiac disease, the gut-brain axis and food intolerances.

She also offers post graduate training to other health care professionals. All health content on bbcgoodfood. com is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional.

If you have any concerns about your general health, you should contact your local health care provider. See our website terms and conditions for more information. Search, save and sort your favourite recipes and view them offline.

Join the BBC Good Food Wine Club. Join our Subscriber Club Download our app Good Food Shows Wine Club Recipe boxes Videos. Due to its fermentation process, it contains a small amount of alcohol, similar to kombucha. Mahmoud Ghannoum, PhD , leading microbiome researcher and co-founder of BIOHM Health , also recommends giving Kvass a try.

Koji is technically a type of fungus used for various culinary feats, including in Japanese cuisine to ferment rice, soybeans, and other grains, explains Ghannoum.

It may sound a little out there, but it's a great source of probiotics, such as Aspergillus oryzae, Ghannoum adds. Green peas have been found to contain a potent probiotic named Leuconostoc mesenteroides, explains Ghannoum. They're a versatile vegetable you can easily add to your salads, pastas, and omelettes for a belly-loving boost.

Who knew your favorite pancakes and biscuits could do some good for your gut? Buttermilk is a fermented dairy product rich in probiotics like Lactococcus lactis and Streptococcus thermophilus, says Ghannoum.

Pickled beets, carrots, and radishes contain probiotic strains such as Lactobacillus acidophilus and Lactobacillus plantarum, explains Ghannoum. If you're not a fan of those veggies, Connell says you can pickle just about any vegetable you like. Tepache is a fermented beverage originating from Mexico that's made from the peel and the rind of pineapples and often seasoned with cinnamon, says Connell.

Plus, the drink is super refreshing. A study published in Frontiers in Microbiology found that organic apples—core included—contain about million diverse bacteria "which might healthily interact with the gut microbiome," says Ghannoum. He adds that most pasteurized dairy products lack healthy bacteria.

Certain brands of cottage cheese are made with live cultures to boost their gut-supporting benefits. Good Culture offers probiotic-rich, low-fat whole milk and double cream options. Bananas aren't a probiotic, but a prebiotic food, which Mastaneh Sharafi, PhD, RD , vice president of scientific affairs at Ritual , says are just as important to maintaining a healthy gut.

They essentially act as food for gut bacteria, which creates an ideal environment for your body to grow and diversify its own probiotics. Oats are another prebiotic food Sharafi recommends incorporating into your diet.

Asparagus is a prebiotic also high in nutrients like inulin fiber and antioxidants, says Sharafi. It's an easy side to roast or stir fry and pair with dinner too. Jerusalem artichokes, also called sunchokes, are a prebiotic food rich in inulin fiber, which is undigestible and reaches the colon to feed and support a flourishing gut microbiome, Sharafi says.

Leeks are a prebiotic food that research shows may help change the composition of gut microbiota when consumed with other prebiotic foods among a balanced, healthy diet. The onion-y veggie adds a pungent flavor to soups, scrambles, and more.

Garlic is a prebiotic that research has shown can increase the growth of the probiotic L. acidophilus, so don't be afraid to add a few extra cloves to your next dinner!

Chicory is a bitter root that's not typically served up in entree form, but you can find it as a supplement or tea. It's actually often ground up and served like coffee. The root is an inulin-rich prebiotic and also contains fibers pectin, cellulose, and hemicellulose that have been found to help lower cholesterol.

Sharafi says soybeans are a protein-rich prebiotic to keep on rotation. They're mainstays in a plant-based diet and they pack the prebiotic punch that many soy milks don't, since much of it gets drained away in the bean-soaking, milk-making process, research says.

Kayla Blanton is a freelance writer-editor who covers health, nutrition, and lifestyle topics for various publications including Prevention , Everyday Health , SELF, People , and more.

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Adding anx to your diet may offer healtj health benefits. Yogurt Digestive health and probiotic foods one Diegstive the best sources of probiotics. Other sources of probiotics include sauerkraut, miso, tempeh, and more. Probiotics are live microorganisms that have health benefits when consumed. These beneficial bacteria provide all sorts of powerful benefits for your body and brain. They may:. One of the most Digestivd parts Garcinia cambogia for cholesterol our body when probootic comes to health is our microbiome—the trillions of Probiogic that live in Hormonal balance gut. Scientists are learning that the bacterial communities we fkods with are linked to everything from body weight to asthma to acne. Having the right balance of bugs may keep us well in the long term. Some bacteria in the gut are good for our health, while other strains raise our risk for disease. We shape our microbiome makeup through our everyday diet. Many of the foods listed below are high in nutrients like fiber, which feeds healthy gut microbes.