Pre-Seed Your Microbiome
One of the significant barriers to transitioning to a plant-predominant diet rich in fiber is gastrointestinal upset. If you have eaten a Standard American Diet (SAD) for years, particularly one which is low in veggies, whole grains, and legumes and high in processed foods and animal products, you may experience some unpleasant GI symptoms when you begin your transition to healthier eating. Often when people begin eating more fiber-rich plant foods, they experience tummy troubles and then they subsequently either avoid whole food groups (like beans) or they give up entirely.
However, there is simple way to help ease your transition into plant-centered eating. This is done through the addition of fermented foods with live microbes PRIOR to making other dietary changes. These foods flood your system with good gut bugs, who can then take up residence and be in place to digest all that fabulous plant fiber when it arrives. Daily consumption is key. To have the best success in pre-seeding your gut in preparation for dietary change, focus on eating at least one probiotic food daily.
In addition to helping to reduce GI upset, pre-seeding the microbiome with fermented foods may also increase the subsequent health benefits of a whole-foods diet. When researchers examined the changes in microbiome composition when eating either a high fiber diet or a diet rich in fermented foods, they found that the benefits of a fiber-rich diet varied widely depending on the subjects’ starting microbiome status.
In a 10-week study at Stanford comparing a high fiber diet (full of legumes, seeds, whole grains, nuts, veggies and fruit) and a diet high in fermented foods (rich in yogurt, kefir, kimchi and other fermented vegetables), researchers found that the diet high in fermented foods led to increases in microbe diversity and improved health markers across both treatment conditions, regardless of subjects’ starting microbiome status.
www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2020/10/12/2020.09.30.321448.full.pdf
ALL participants in the fermented food group had reduced levels of 19 inflammatory proteins, indicating a reduction in systemic inflammation. The proteins involved were associated with conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and type 2 diabetes. This finding was consistent across research subjects in the high fermented foods group, regardless of starting microbiome composition or which fermented foods were consumed.
Some subjects favored yogurt, while others preferred kombucha, kefir, or kimchi. Regardless of the type of fermented food consumed, all subjects had lowered inflammatory markers and improved microbiome diversity and richness.Effects were dose dependent, with higher gains being associated with larger serving sizes.
Interestingly, unlike in the fermented foods group, in the high fiber group, effects on inflammatory proteins diverged depending on the starting microbiome status of the participants. If the subject had a healthier and more diverse microbiome at the beginning of the study, a diet rich in plant fiber promoted significant positive change. When good gut microbes were already established, they could happily digest the high fiber diet, and subsequently produce health-promoting postbiotic benefits. However, for individuals who were used to eating a Standard Western Diet and who had reduced microbiome diversity at entry into the study, a high fiber diet was significantly less beneficial. Indeed, subjects who had the least microbial diversity at the beginning of the study actually had slight increases in inflammation when they ate more fiber. For those who started with a microbiome lacking in diversity, much of the fiber was found to go through their digestive tracts relatively undigested. The researchers speculated that the participants who started with low microbiome diversity lacked microbes to digest the fiber they were consuming.
This finding helps to explain why some individuals experience bloating and other GI discomfort when they start a high fiber, plant-centered diet, and some do not. Individuals who experience symptoms when eating high fiber diets may simply not yet have the microbe species in place to adequately digest the fiber consumed. The researchers hypothesized that initial seeding with fermented foods might provide an easier transition to a plant-rich, high-fiber diet, as well as improving ultimate health outcomes.
If you have been eating a Standard American Diet for many years, before jumping straight into a plant-centered, high-fiber diet,
you might consider pre-seeding for a few weeks with fermented foods with live cultures PRIOR to making other dietary changes.
As was shown in the study, it doesn’t matter which fermented foods you choose to consume, just make sure that the food says it contains live and active cultures, and that the food is not filled with added sugar or preservatives. Fermented foods containing live cultures are generally found in the refrigerated section. Of special note regarding Kombucha - while high in probiotic microbes, Kombucha often contains sugar and alcohol, so it should be avoided if you are sensitive to these ingredients.
Wishing you an easy transition to healthier eating!
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For more information on the health benefits of fermented foods, please see:
www.academic.oup.com/jambio/article/132/5/3476/6988634
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9003261/