You know junk food isn’t healthy for you, but do you know all the damage this type of diet can do to your body? One consideration is how it affects your gut health in unbalancing the friendly bacteria you need for digestion and good health. Healthy digestion is a key element in overall good health. You probably know that heartburn, constipation and diarrhea can all occur if your digestion system is off, but poor digestion and an unhealthy digestive system can cause lots of other problems especially since the gastrointestinal tract is a very large part of your immune system. If it’s not working properly your body loses that vital resource to fight off foreign invaders which can make you sick.
Good digestive health is dependent on a good, healthy balance of friendly bacteria in the intestines. These are also known as probiotics. These friendly bacteria do well in an acid environment and are able to make lactic acid from stomach acid to add to the acidic environment of the small intestine. A healthy supply of these probiotics is necessary to clean up toxins, help rid the body of waste, and kill off bad bacteria and yeast. Processed foods, sugary foods, junk food and fast foods can all contribute to killing off your good bacteria and feed the bad bacteria and yeast. Around 80 million people have too much yeast that has grown in the intestines which can lead to Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, yeast infections, migraines, weight gain and other conditions. Junk food and fast foods are damaging to the friendly bacteria that live in the intestines and fight off disease as well as supply B vitamins that help us with stress.
Junk food not only interferes with the digestion process with its extra fat, salt and sugar, but also doesn’t give you the necessary digestive enzymes to help breakdown foods. In addition to the bad things that junk food does to the body, it also doesn’t do much good. The vitamins, minerals, fiber and other nutrients the body needs to perform well and stay healthy just aren’t available from junk food and according to the Mayo Clinic it can leave you feeling bloated, slow the digestion process down and contribute to gaining too much weight which is definitely unhealthy. The extra salt in these types of food are damaging to kidneys and increase the risk of high blood pressure. One study reported by ABC News found participants developed liver damage eating fast food two times a day for a month. Eating too fast, skipping meals, eating when upset, or on the go are all other nutritional habits that are not conducive to good digestion.
If your diet is too heavy on the junk food, consider making some changes to your diet or at the very least, go for the healthier alternatives many of the fast food type restaurants are now offering. Here are a few tips to help you get away from a junk food diet and start developing a healthier microbiome.
1. Cut It Out – Find ways to at least cut down on the amount of junk type foods you eat if you can’t completely remove it from your diet. With parties, holidays, and other social events to attend, it can be hard to completely extinguish junk food, fast food, and fatty, sugary snacks from your diet and that’s OK as the body has its own natural abilities to detox against the occasional junk food splurge. But continuing to eat this way on a regular basis has been shown in numerous studies to alter your gut bacteria to the tune of losing up to 1400 species of friendly organisms and lowering the population of those critical for general health.
2. Look for Healthy Alternatives – After cutting out as much junk and fatty, sugary foods as you can from your regular diet, start looking for healthier substitutions that will give your body the nutrients it needs to perform at its best. Healthier alternatives in foods include veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, wild caught seafood, and grass fed beef.
3. Give Your Microbiome a Boost – Another way to improve your gut health is to include high quality probiotic supplements to boost your digestive system by replenishing it with billions of friendly bacteria. This probiotic supplement is a great choice for adding twelve kinds of friendly bacteria to your microbiome.
4. Plan Ahead – A good way to help counteract those times when you know you will be attending a function where you are likely to encounter less than healthy foods is to stock up on digestive enzymes. This means eating a lot of raw foods before and after the event and possibly taking a digestive enzyme supplement. You can also support your body’s nutritional needs during these times by taking these convenient packets of daily supplements that give you the all the necessary amino acids, essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, and trace elements from AFA bluegreen algae, probiotics for healthy digestive support and digestive enzyme.
Source:
New Earth’s Nourish – https://nourish.newearth.com/03-19-19/
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/PictureOfHealth/story?id=4286176&page=1
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/01/06/what-you-need-to-understand-about-your-digestive-system-to-improve-your-health.aspx
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