Eating the same foods repeatedly limits gut health. The American Gut Project found that people consuming 30 or more distinct foods per week produced higher levels of short-chain fatty acids, which support gut-immune and gut-brain communication. Aim for 30 to 50 unique foods weekly.
What I have noticed is that people, over time, are having the same foods over and over again. I call that food ruts. And usually people that are in food ruts, they're in life ruts. So they're doing the same thing every day. They really don't want to be bothered. They can't think beyond the structure of their day to kind of go beyond and try out a new food here or there, because they just don't have the bandwidth. Diversity is really important. And when we look at the American Gut project, which is a citizen science project, what we see is that people who had 30 or more diverse foods per week actually fared better in short chain fatty acid production in the gut, which is a marker of gut immune access, gut brain access. Those short chain fatty acids are really important. So what I say to people is, aim for 30 to 50 unique foods every week.
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