@WinterDeWinter If you had asked me the question " how to improve my gut microbiota" a year ago, I would have said, increase the variety and quantity of plant food to have variety of fibre.
We now know, this is the wrong answer. I love, Prof Christopher Gardner, and he coupled with the m most famous gut expert, Erica and Justin Sonnenburg to study exactly that . One group had to increase fibre rich food, the other had to eat 6 servings a day of fermented food,.
Each intervention had a distinct effects on the gut microbiota and host immunesystem.
The intervention that had the most impact was the fermented food. They drank the fermented shoots you now see at supermarket or the brine of picked vegetables. The article is here pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34256014/ but it has a paywall. Some extracts here :
Fiber-rich foods contain an abundance of MACs, which provide a fermentable carbon source for the micro- biota. Despite sustained high levels of diverse plant-derived die- tary fiber in these participants over 6 weeks, we did not observe a cohort-wide microbiota diversity increase in the high-fiber-diet arm. It is possible that the relatively short duration of the study was not sufficient to allow for the recruitment of new taxa to the microbiota, which could be an indication that exposure to new microbes was limited within the environment of participants. Environmentally constrained diversity is consistent with (1) high levels of sanitation in industrialized populations leading to less sharing of microbes between individuals (Martı ́nez et al., 2015), (2) the necessity of dietary fiber plus administered microbes to restore diversity to the gut microbiota in a mouse model (Son- nenburg et al., 2016), and (3) the loss of strains and their associ- ated glycan-degrading capacity observed in US immigrants (Vangay et al., 2018). The detection of plant-glycan-derived car- bohydrates in the stool of the high-fiber-diet participants is consistent with incomplete microbiota fermentation that might be expected in an industrialized microbiota.
The increased microbiota diversity observed in the fermented- food-diet arm was coincident with decreases in numerous markers of inflammation, measured with distinct technologies. These correlated changes are consistent with a broad range of studies demonstrating a link between declining microbiota diver- sity and increased NCCD prevalence (reviewed in Mosca et al., 2016). Notably, the new taxa contributing to the increased diver- sity were largely not from the fermented foods themselves, indi- cating an indirect effect of their consumption on remodeling the microbiota. It is unclear whether these ‘‘new’’ taxa were newly recruited to the microbiota from the environment or were already present but undetected and increased in relative abundance to detectable levels during the intervention. The slow trajectory of diversity increase resulted in the greatest microbiota diversity observed during the choice phase, where fermented food intake was higher than at baseline, but lower than during the mainte- nance period. The slow and steadily increasing diversity sug- gests a time element for remodeling of the microbiome compo- sition through diet, consistent with the relative recalcitrance of the human microbiota to rapid diet-induced remodeling (Wu et al., 2011). Fiber-induced microbiota diversity increases may be a slower process requiring longer than the 6 weeks of sus- tained high consumption achieved in this study. Importantly, high-fiber consumption did appear to increase stool microbial protein density, carbohydrate-degrading capacity, and altered SCFA production, indicating that microbiome remodeling was occurring within the study time frame, just not through an in- crease in total species. Given the distinct responses of partici- pants to these two diets, whether a diet composed of both high-fiber and fermented foods could synergize to influence the host microbiota and immune system is an exciting possibility that remains to be determined.
The malleability of the human microbiome, its integration into the immune system, and its responsiveness to diet make it a highly attractive target for therapeutic intervention. Knowledge of how specific dietary interventions impact the microbiota could be leveraged to develop effective diets that improve human health.
You don't like sauerkraut. Did you make your know? WIth water or just by squeezing? I don't like pickled vegetables (water) but I do enjoy my own saurkraut, and happy to share recipes . Miso, tempeh , kefir water , sourdough are the non-vegetables options for Vegans. Kombucha is a weird one and there is little evidence it changes the gut, but if you like it.
Prep time
In my fridge , I always have container with quinoa, black/red/brown rice , shredded cabbage . I cook a lot of soups. I love soups . From the sweet pumpkin to the exotic dhals. I also roast a lot. Thinly slice lengthwise zucchinis, brush with olive oil, sprinkle salt, on a tray, very hot oven (220) keeping an eye until they brown lightly but not burn. Roasted onion. Boil the peeled whole onions for 15-20, let them cool, cut in half, put on oven dish, cut half up, make a mixture with break crumbs, herbs, whatever and roast in oven.
The green bits of the leeks, are my absolute favourite. Wash and dry and cut in half so they lay flat. Rub with a mixture of olive oil, salt and smoked paprika, put on oven tray, one next to the other and fan + top/grill hot oven.
I use canned pulses. Chickpeas, lentils, spagna beans, adzuki... I am quite fond of red kidney beans.
I tend to eat, a raw salad - open a packet of rocket, slice half a pear, some pine nuts or slice crazy thinly a celery and squeeze an orange, than oil, salt, parsley and some cooked vegetable - and a cooked one. Some cooked take time (roasted), others are ready, cauliflower , or recently I started using frozen kale or spinach. A few times, I even just put frozen Brussels spouts in a dish in the oven. After 20 min , I cut them in half now that they are soft, and put herbs and spices, a table spoon go oil, slalt and pepper , my own vegan parmesan (1 cup of cashew, 2 table spoons nutritional yeast, onion powder, garlic powder , salt and blend) and back in oven
Then I have edamame, or a marinated tofu. I like hard tofu .
In my freezer I have fresh chopped herbs, a ton of berries of all sorts, and cherries.
When your veggies are becoming sad and old, cut them all in small cubes, sautéed in a pan, and have them with couscous. Very quick.
Some days, I do fancy dishes which take time, other I just take out containers and make a bowl call it poke bowl, Buddha bowl, ...
I use nutritional yeast for dressing. An empty jam jar. Olive oil , salt, dijon mustard. Put lid, close well and shake. Open and add a table spoon of yeast and vinegar, and if you fancy them, cappers, sun dried tomatoes, parsley, ..... Close and shake again. It is lovely on green bean, artichokes , cauliflower , ...
Enough!