What foods are good for gut health?

It is always important to find the time to ensure that you develop the right diet for your lifestyle and try to live as healthily as possible.

However, with careers, families, hobbies and other things all impacting our daily lives it can be difficult to find the time to research exactly what sort of foods you should be eating.

There is a lot of information out there about the sort of health foods available that could benefit people of all types and from all backgrounds.

So, how do you know what the right foods are to be eating to fit what health goals you might have?

This article aims to help answer some of the important health questions that people have around their potential food choices.

It will provide information on what types of foods you should be selecting and in what quantities to suit your health goals.

So, here are our top tips for the sort of foods you should be eating to benefit your wellbeing!

What foods are good for gut health?

Maintaining a healthy gut is vital for us to function and thrive in our every day lives. However, it is not always straightforward to understand what we can and should be doing to ensure our gut is working properly.

The key to maintaining your gut health is to make sure that you are getting the right bacteria that is beneficial to your body into your system.

One of the main ways that we can do this is through the types of food that we eat.

First, it is important to note that it is highly beneficial to have a varied diet. That is so that you can get a more diverse collection of good bacteria into your body.

Doing that will help to produce a healthy microbiome (collection of microbes including bacteria, fungi and viruses, that live inside and outside the body).

As you might expect, eating fruits and vegetables is also very important for good gut health. That is because they are the best source of nutrients for a health microbiome. Try to consume things like green peas, raspberries, lentils, bananas and apples.

Foods that have undergone fermentation processes like sauerkraut, kefir and yoghurt can also contribute towards good gut health. That is because they are rich in types of good bacteria that are positive for the body.

Whilst this might be challenging for a lot of people, switching to a plant based diet can help to have a major impact on your gut health. That is because it would be a fibre rich diet that really does benefit the overall health of your microbiome.

What foods are good for cardiovascular health?

Ensuring that you maintain good cardiovascular health is one of the most important things that you can do to ensure that you lead a healthy lifestyle.

The food that we all eat has a major role to play in the overall health of our heart and cardiovascular system. That is because eating the wrong foods can play a role in the development of heart disease and then lead to all the risks that will cause.

Whilst we all know that earing too many refined carbohydrates can increase our risk of heart disease, whole grains can play an important role in protecting your heart health.

Therefore, you should aim to increase your consumption of things like whole wheat, barley, oats and brown rice.

Furthermore, eating foods that are rich in omega three like fatty fish and fish oils can be very beneficial for good cardiovascular health.

Other foods like berries, walnuts, leafy green vegetables, beans and tomatoes can also play a key role in helping to protect our cardiovascular systems. So, it is important to try and eat a varied diet containing all of these types of foods.

How food impacts mental health

Whilst it is vital to ensure that we are eating the right sort of foods to help with the physical health of our bodies, it is also very important to consider how the diets we have can influence our overall mental health.

Mental health is becoming more and more of a prominent issue within society. More education is needed in the wider population on how to manage and even prevent mental health problems.

That is why it is essential that you are aware that there are certain small changes that you can make to your diet to benefit your mental wellbeing.

One thing that many people who are busy with their daily lives can often forget to eat regularly throughout the day. However, it is vital that we do that in order to maintain blood sugar levels and prevent us becoming bad tempered and or tired.

Eating more fruits and vegetables and wholegrains is also beneficial to your mental health because they contain minerals and vitamins that are crucial to our overall health.

The brain uses amino acid to regulate mood and therefore it is important to consume protein with your meals as that is a food group that is rich in amino acid.

In addition, ensure that you are able to remain hydrated because being dehydrated can lower our mood and that will have a negative impact on mental health.