Like all living things, your army needs to be fed… and their superfood is prebiotics! Think of prebiotics like indigestible fiber fertiliser for your gut-garden. While you can pick up supplements, experts say eating your super-fibre is the best way to get your prebiotics. It’s also tastier and less expensive!
Prebiotic? Oh yes!
If you’ve been looking after your gut by brewing up kombucha, spooning down yogurt and fermenting your own sauerkraut, you are most definitely familiar with all things probiotic related. That little army of healthy bacteria that you have built up is taking care of business and making you feel great!
Here are a few of the most prebiotic rich foods to add to your diet and beneficial ways to eat them:
- Unripe bananas (buy green and eat before fully ripened. Try sliced, mashed, or frozen and blended into a smoothy)
- Asparagus (eaten raw of lightly steamed)
- Buckwheat groats ( ry making buckwheat pancakes and serve with bacon)
- Cabbage (toss raw cabbage with rice-wine vinegar and sesame oil for an Asian-inspired salad)
- Chickpeas (soak and cook dried chickpeas to make hummus)
- Dandelion greens (mix with milder salad greens like romaine and baby spinach)
- Fennel (slice the bulb, which has more prebiotics than the fronds, and eat raw)
- Garlic (eat raw for the most prebiotic power. Try sprinkling minced raw garlic into a warm soup as a spicy garnish)
- Jerusalem artichokes (add raw to a salad)
- Lentils (Add a scoop of cooked lentils to any salad for a prebiotic protein boost)
- Probiotic pairing: In addition to lentils, top your salad with sauerkraut or other pickled vegetables.
- Oats (rolled and steel-cut)
- Pistachios (eat a handful or sprinkle onto a salad for added crunch)