The phrase “clean eating” just sounds healthy, doesn’t it? It sounds clean, and safe and health-promoting, and that is exactly what this approach to nutrition is. Eating clean can lead to better health in your brain and body, and that means overall wellness from head to toe.
Your Physical, Mental And Emotional Well-being Are All Intricately Connected
Your emotions frequently drive your behavior. Your emotions are dictated in large part to the chemical and hormonal levels in your body. How much of which hormones and chemicals are present, and when, is regulated predominantly by your brain and nervous system.
Your brain gets signals from your glands, specific physiological processes and parts of your body. It takes that information and then decides what chemical and hormonal responses are required. So your physical health dictates how your brain behaves, your brain tells what chemicals and hormones should be in high and low supply, and this drives your emotions and behaviors.
This is so important because there is one process going on inside you that has a dramatic impact on the health of your body, brain and emotions. Your digestive process breaks down food and liquids into their base components. It then sends nutrients, minerals and vitamins out into your bloodstream, and send unneeded, unwanted, unhealthy components and toxins out as waste.
Much of this happens in the gut, which digestive specialists in the 21st century have started calling the “second brain”. Many of the processes previously thought to be controlled by the brain in your head are more powerfully influenced by your second brain, your gut.
Keep your gut healthy and you enjoy emotional balance. Gut health also leads to physical fitness. Your mental well-being, as well as your brain’s ability to operate efficiently as the command center of your body, benefits from a happy gut as well. Hippocrates, ancient Greek philosopher and the Father of Modern Medicine, realized how important the gut was to a person’s overall health, frequently stating that, “All disease begins in the gut”.
This is because your gut, comprised of your small and large intestines, processes all of the food you eat and the liquids you drink. Give your gut processed food full of chemicals, man-made toxins and poisons, and very little nutrition, and this will cause your digestion to operate improperly. Your gut can only work with what you give it, and it cannot paint a masterpiece on a poor canvas.
Give your gut the natural foods the human body and mind require to be healthy, and that is exactly what will happen. Your digestive process understands what to do when you eat minimally processed or raw fresh fruits and vegetables. It understands because these are foods found in nature, and you are a product of nature as well.
The Influence of Your Prehistoric Ancestors on Your Gut
Nuts, berries, vegetables, fruit and water have been consumed by humans for thousands upon thousands of years. Your digestive process, and your gut, have been formulated by those eating habits. The way your gut works today has a lot to do with what and how your cave-dwelling predecessors ate. It is influenced by the habits of medieval man, and every human that has gone before you.
Highly processed foods, fast food, carbonated beverages, refined sugar, modern bread and other food and drink created by industrialized, modern food manufacturing processes have only been consumed for a very small part of human history. These processed foods have very little nutrition, so they are not received warmly by your digestive system.
Sometimes, food manufacturers intentionally trick your brain and your digestive process when developing processed food, which leads to toxins, poisons and unhealthy chemicals being released into your bloodstream rather than being passed as waste.
In so many ways, your gut is programmed to reward you with excellent health and well-being, or punish you with poor health, depending on what you eat.
Gut Reaction to Unhealthy, Nutrient-Poor Foods
There are a lot of things going on in your gut to break down the food you eat. A large part of the process depends on your gut microbiome. This is the complex collection of microorganisms and bacteria that live in the digestive tracts of all humans and animals, even the smallest of insects. Of the trillions of microorganisms living in your gut, there are as many as 1,000 species of bacteria.
These bacteria play a super-important role in the digestive process. To dramatically oversimplify the process, just understand that when you have more “bad” bacteria than “good” bacteria in your gut, you don’t properly digest food. When your gut does not work correctly, all the human diseases and illness referred to by Hippocrates have a chance to flourish.
Have a proper “good to bad” bacteria ratio, and your gut produces important vitamins such as B and K and boosts your immune system. This means a healthy gut improves your ability to resist any disease or infection. An unhealthy gut, which is consistently caused by a poor diet, is almost always linked to obesity, cancer, mental health conditions, anxiety disorders, depression, autism and other health problems throughout the body.
Simply put, when you feed yourself predominantly processed food rather than natural, fresh food, you damage your gut. Your gut then becomes incapable of processing food properly, and since there is very little to no nutrition in the foods you are eating, your body and brain suffer, along with your emotions and the behaviors attached to how you feel.
How Clean Eating Creates a Happy Gut and Overall Well-Being
You probably know that you need certain vitamins, minerals, enzymes, proteins, fats and carbohydrates to be healthy. We live in a wonderful time. Information which used to be exclusively available to doctors and health professionals can now be readily accessed online. The Average Joe, people like you and I, can develop at least a rudimentary knowledge of how we should be eating for proper mental and physical health.
As mentioned earlier, your gut is still pretty prehistoric.
For the most minuscule fraction of human history, we have mostly eaten processed food with little of the nutrients and minerals we need to be healthy. This is unfortunately a typical modern-day eating practice. There may be a time hundreds of thousands of years in the future when humans will have adapted to eating garbage and be extremely healthy eating nothing but fast food and sugar all day, but that is far from the reality now.
Your gut is at its healthiest, and the most capable of breaking down foods into the components you need, when it is fed natural, fresh, whole foods, like nuts, berries, vegetables and fruits, most of the time. This is because the nutrient and mineral profile in those foods promotes a healthy good bacteria/bad bacteria ratio and microbiome.
That is what is required for your guts to be healthy.
When your gut is healthy and happy, it very efficiently breaks down food. It recognizes waste as waste and minerals and nutrients and minerals and nutrients. When you feed yourself predominantly clean food, healthy, natural foods, your gut does not have a hard time pulling out the compounds and natural goodies that are present in such a high supply in natural, healthy food.
Your stomach, digestive tract and gut very easily pass along waste material to be taken from your body, while simultaneously giving your muscles, your brain, your heart and all other organs and body parts the nutrients, vitamins, enzymes, healthy fats, healthy carbohydrates and minerals they need for head to toe wellness.
7 Clean Foods for Gut Health and Overall Well-Being
Eating clean is all about consuming foods that are as close to their natural state as possible. Fresh, organic bananas, blueberries and beans can be eaten just as they are found in nature. Cheeseburgers, french fries, ranch dressing, chocolate pudding, birthday cake, crackers and cookies, potato chips and sodas are as far removed from natural foods as they can possibly be. (sigh, many of my favourites!)
Eating clean means eating more fruits and vegetables, nuts and berries that are unprocessed or minimally processed and minimally cooked, and eating less of the “food-like” things we are calling food.
In specific, there are a few foods that crank up a positive good to bad gut bacteria ratio. Remember, when your gut is healthy, you are also healthy, in both mind and body. Eat the following 7 types of food, as fresh and minimally processed as possible, and you give your digestive process, especially your gut, the best chance at rewarding you with total wellness.
1 – Fermented foods – Sauerkraut is cabbage that has been fermented naturally. This leads to the production of Lactobacillus bacteria, which automatically go to work in your gut pushing out bad bacteria and allowing beneficial bacteria to thrive. This is how eating sauerkraut and other fermented foods can be used to both treat and prevent bloating, indigestion, gas and irritable bowel syndrome.
You need both prebiotics and probiotics in your gut. The sour taste of fermented foods is due to organic acids that promote the presence of probiotics. Kefir, kombucha, pickles and kimchi are other fermented foods that love your gut and digestive process.
2 – Apple cider vinegar – This versatile superfood is good for you in so many ways. Raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar, or ACV, that contains “the mother” makes an excellent facial scrub and skin cleanser. It is often cited as an efficient weight-loss tool, because of its positive effect on your gut microbiota.
It helps your gut and digestive system eliminate toxins and waste, while simultaneously improving the number of good bacteria in your gut and boosting your ability to absorb nutrients from the foods you eat.
It also doesn’t hurt that ACV can reduce inflammation, which is linked to most chronic diseases. A multitude of skin issues, diabetes, poor sleep patterns, bloating, obesity and depression all respond favorably to regular ACV consumption.
3 – Yogurt – There are about as many brands and varieties of yogurt as there are sands on a beach. Be careful here, not all yogurt is good for you, and certainly not always what you would call clean eating.
Make sure to read your food labels, and steer clear of any yogurt that has tons of unhealthy chemicals and man-made ingredients. Instead, reach for grass-fed, full-fat and plain yogurt, because of the beneficial probiotics that lead to gut health. You will also receive enzymes that are important for proper digestion.
4 – Mangoes – Mangoes are a wonderfully nutritious fruit gifted with healthy, natural sweetness. Eat mangoes regularly and you will improve your gut health. By keeping the good bacteria in your gut alive, mangoes help reduce the fact that you will become overweight and obese, and they also effectively manage healthy blood sugar levels.
Additionally, mangoes deliver multiple health benefits because of their extremely high level of nutrients, fiber and bioactive compounds and enzymes that are good for your gut and overall health.
5 – Coconut oil – Coconut oil belongs among the superfoods. It can be used as a natural, effective sunblock, it reduces the appearance of age spots, liver spots and skin blemishes, is a healthy hair conditioner and contains caprylic and lauric acids. Those two essential fatty acids are very good at killing off harmful yeast and bad bacteria.
They also help restore a healthy acid level in your stomach, which is important for breaking down food. The medium chain fatty acids found in coconut oil have antifungal, antibacterial, antimicrobial and antiviral properties, which are a few of the reasons this healthy and versatile superfood delivers so many benefits.
6 – Wild caught salmon – The omega-3 fatty acids mentioned earlier are in high supply in salmon. Opt for salmon caught in its natural environment, and not those that are fed genetically modified grains and other chemicals on a fish farm. The anti-inflammatory properties of salmon help prevent your gut from becoming inflamed, promoting healthy gut biome.
7 – Fiber – Beans and lentils, green peas and artichokes, apples and raspberries are rich in dietary fiber. Many fresh, whole fruits and vegetables have plenty of fiber, and they are also staples of a clean eating diet. Fiber helps food move effectively through your body, it helps prevent hemorrhoids and constipation, as well as other digestion-related diseases, and fights weight gain. Fiber is also gut-friendly, because it makes your gut’s job easier.
There you have it, lots of reasons for developing a clean eating habit which will result in a happier healthier gut.