The trillions of bacteria that live in your gut makes your microbiome as unique to you as your fingerprint. You can give your parents some credit for your microbiota but they can’t take all the glory, your lifestyle and the foods you eat play a big part. Gut bacteria help to process food, revamping nutrients into useful thing for your body – they’re like pro-up-cyclers. But more than that they work all over your body helping you with both physical and mental health. Not all bacteria is heroic though, we hate to be divisive but gut bacteria fall into two broad categories – ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

The good, the bad and the ugly gut bacteria

Okay there’s no official ‘ugly’ bacteria but no bacteria is exactly Audrey Hepburn! A healthy gut is one where there are lots of diverse ‘good’ bacteria that can fight off the ‘bad’ bacteria. If you have too much of the bad guys in your gut microbiome you may be more likely to have gut health related problems such as IBS. The food you eat has a monumental influence on the types of bacteria that live in your gut. It’s our duty to feed these ‘good’ bacteria their favourite nutrients and help prepare them for battle with the bad ones.

Can gut bacteria improve health?

If your gut health isn’t what it could be, you’re not what you could be. There’s now more and more evidence that people with healthier guts have more energy and feel happier. They might even live longer. In fact, experts now think gut bacteria could have as much say in our health and happiness as our genes do. We can’t hack our genes (more’s the pity), but we can hack our microbiome. Best of all, it’s actually pretty easy. You just need to keep a few things in mind to choose the best gut bacteria foods to eat.

Food to feed your good gut bacteria

You may have heard of probiotic and prebiotic supplements to improve gut bacteria but did you know you can naturally consume these through food? Probiotics are the good bacteria in the gut and certain types are already living there. You can eat things like live yoghurt and fermented foods to top them up and introduce different types. The more variety the better. Prebiotics feed the probiotics already living in your gut – and cheer them on as they fight the bad bacteria! Prebiotic fibre can be found in the Genius Gut Lovin’ range as well as in loads of plants such as bananas, Jerusalem artichokes, onion, garlic and asparagus. With a healthy and balanced diet, you shouldn’t need any supplements of probiotics or prebiotics. Time to do some gut lovin’! Head over here to learn more about your guts’ fave foods.