Pre-biotics vs. Pro-biotics
While much has been written about pro-biotics over the years, I would still like to review some important points about pro-biotics so that you may be better able to understand the importance of pre-biotics, and why these two “biotic-buddies” are so critically important to your health and wellbeing.
The focus of our discussion resides in the goings on inside your gut, or your lower intestines. Living within your gut are tens of trillions of bacteria which form colonies—some good, some bad, and some good, who, given certain unfavorable conditions, can turn on their host in a heartbeat and move on over to the “dark side”. Together, these living bacteria create a microbiome within your large intestines.
This gut microbiome, which is as unique to each person as their own fingerprint, is responsible, in part, for the digestion of food and protection against harmful intestinal viruses and bacteria. Additionally, it can enhance or diminish the gut’s serotonin production, influence a person’s set body weight, and even, scientists are newly discovering, create their own desired food cravings!
Antibiotic medications act like an atomic bomb in the gut, decimating many colonies of healthy bacteria. So, in order to re-establish these bacterial colonies, you must take supplements such as acidophilus, over-the-counter probiotic capsules, or eat foods rich in pro-biotics, such as yogurt with active cultures, kefir, raw sauerkraut, and kimchi.
In order to properly feed the bacterial colonies in your gut—so they remain robust in number, variety, and functionality—you must eat a diet rich in pre-biotics, a fiber source the human body cannot digest. Interestingly, when you eat a meal low in pre-biotics, like a burger and fries, that meal gets mostly digested in the stomach and small intestines and, therefore, its calories/energy are dumped into the blood stream before the remnant food mass can reach the large intestine. This leaves the colonies of gut bacteria basically unfed. Meal after meal, snack after snack of pre-biotic-lacking food will basically create a nutritional famine in your gut which, of course, will lead to the extinction of millions, if not trillions, of health-promoting bacteria.
So, if you
want to improve your health—both physical and emotional—make sure that, in
addition to eating a number of sources of pro-biotics, you also feed your good bacteria
with these common pre-biotic rich foods:
- Leeks
- Onions
- Asparagus
- Chickpeas
- Lentils
- Barley
- Oats
- Wheat bran
- Apples
- Unripe bananas/plantains
- Mushrooms
- Sweet potatoes