A Good Probiotic Diet - Useful Foods

What are some useful elements and foods in a good probiotic diet?

Such a diet consists of several foods largely made up of the live microbial organisms naturally present in the human digestive tract as well as the vagina of women.

These organisms are considered beneficial (or friendly) and are needed in such areas as enhancing the immune system and helping in the production of vitamins. Within the digestive tract, they enhance the protective barrier and possibly the most important of its jobs is to suppress the growth of bacteria that could prove potentially harmful.

There are over 400 species of microorganisms living in colonies within the digestive tract, performing their tasks day after day with little need of outside interference. Once established, these colonies can sustain themselves for as long as they are being fed good, healthy foods, including vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains; these foods should thus form a big part of a good probiotic diet.

There are a number of lifestyle and / or medical reasons these colonies are disturbed, creating an imbalance of some sort. The factors most often seen are stress, environmental toxins, and inadequate amounts of fiber in the diet. Lesser reasons include taking oral antibiotics. For any of these reasons, the imbalance causes the potentially harmful microorganisms to overrun the beneficial ones, and can result in ill health such as diarrhea, candida overgrowth, and vaginal infections in women.

When choosing a useful probiotic diet that includes these health-promoting good bacteria, a good rule of thumb is: Beneficial bacteria thrive on fiber, while harmful bacteria feast on refined flour, refined sugar and animal fat. Living in groups, probiotics do not adhere to anything, but rather, work to keep harmful bacteria in check as they grow and move through the intestines.

It is therefore important to eat foods that also contain beneficial probiotics themselves as often as possible. Combine approaches that take into consideration lifestyle changes as well as dietary choices. In your probiotic diet, also include a good whole food supplement which contains the needed essential vitamins and minerals.

Since fiber feeds the beneficial microorganisms, it is important to include in the diet plenty of foods high in fiber. This would include fruits of all types, as well as vegetables such as cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus, beets, onions, mushrooms, carrots, spinach and potatoes. Whole grains - oats, barley and rice, as well as legumes - beans, lentils and peas, are also excellent sources of fiber, as are seeds and nuts.

To this regime of foods that are not only adding vital nutrients and vitamins to your system, but also actively feeding your friendly flora, there are also several foods that naturally contain probiotics and can thus be added to your probiotic diet. These include yogurt with live cultures and a few other dairy choices - buttermilk, acidophilus and kefir, a grain from which a drink is made by fermenting it with cow, goat or sheep's milk.

Other fermented foods include vegetables such as sauerkraut and kim chi (fermented spiced cabbage), as well as tempeh and miso, which are fermented soybean products in your diet.

Drink healthy probiotic juices and include natural brewer's yeast (by product of beer making) whenever possible. Polyphenols - plant structures similar to animal cholesterol and found in foods like garlic, green tea and ginseng - also go the extra mile to further the enhancement of friendly microbe. These foods are hence useful additions to your probiotic diet.

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