Prebiotics are Great Fertilizer for Your Gut by JJ Virgin

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I think of prebiotics as the fertilizer for your gut, the fertilizer for your probiotics. And remember, gut bacteria, your microbiome. So super duper important.

Here's jj, triple board certified nutrition and fitness expert and four time New York Times best selling author. It's time to Reignite Wellness.

Hey, it's jj and welcome to this week's podcast. Today we are talking about prebiotics. Prebiotics. Now you might have thought I just said probiotics. Nope, I said prebiotics. Prebiotics are actually the fertilizer for probiotics. We've heard a lot about probiotics, so I thought it was time to kind of pull back the kimono on the prebiotics. Now before I do that, I want to do a shout out to Lisa who gave me a five star review in Apple Podcasts and said it's helpful to have straight talk about weight loss and dieting. JJ's approach is straightforward and easy to understand. I find it inspiring to be empowered with knowledge to make healthy choices in my life. Thank you, Lisa. I'd love to do a shout out for you. So if you have not left a review yet, guess what? You can do it easy. All you have to do is jump on over to subscribe to jj. You can subscribe to my Reignite Wellness podcast and while you're there, leave a review. And what I'd love to know is besides what you think of the show, like, what else you'd like to know more about? We do a couple different things in the show. We have one interview a week with some amazing human. The next one is all me and I do it based on topics that you want to know more about about. And then the third one is Q and A Friday where I answer a question or two that have come up on my lives and I do my lives on Hi Cara. I do my lives either on Facebook @jj virgin official or on Instagram JJ virgin. Alrighty. Now I'm gonna jump in with one of my favorites and I'll be right back.

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Welcome back. So we are talking today about prebiotics. Talk a lot about probiotics, but we're talking Prebiot today and you'll be able to grab the show notes with all of the important information@jjvirgin.com forward/prebiotics. So let's first talk about what the heck they are and I what I here's how I think of prebiotics. I think of prebiotics as the fertilizer for your gut, the fertilizer for your probiotics. So they're a type of fiber that can feed the bacteria in your gut. And remember gut mic gut bacteria, your microbiome. So super duper important. It's gosh like every day there's more research coming in out about the gut microbiome and what it does for you. Everything from weight loss to mood to immune system. Of course, all the issues with irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, diarrhea, gas and Bloating, all leaky gut, all of that. But you know, focus, all of that gut microbiome, super duper important. So obviously if things are not going well in your gut microbiome, you will have issues. And again, any of those things I just listed, if you've got a microbiome that's out of balance, and I first started to notice this when I was working a lot in the field of overcoming weight loss resistance. One of the areas I focused on was microbiome. And the study started to come out of this imbalance of two Fila firmicutes and bacteroides. And if they were out of balance, you would gain weight. And I'm like, wow, that is crazy. So, and that was just the tip of the microbiome iceberg. So what's cool about prebiotics is they can prevent the overgrowth of bad bacteria and help you lose weight and reduce your risk of obesity and other metabolic disorders. How awesome is that? They are fermented in the large intestine to create short chain fatty acids which then cross the blood brain barrier easier. Now this is important because again we're going to create those short chain fatty acids. I'm going to talk next about those benefits. But here is what's important about that. That can make you a little gassy. One of the things you're going to notice as we talk about the foods that are prebiotic foods is that these tend to be some of the foods that might give you a little bit of gas. And we'll talk about how to use these so that that does not become a big problem. But some of the benefits of short chain fatty acids from prebiotics. And I'm going to actually read some of these studies over here. There was a study done by McLaughlin et al on reducing inflammation and it showed that short chain fatty acids change how the cells communicate with the body and help cut down on system wide inflammation. In fact, they did a review of 68 different studies and they all showed the same results, that inflammation is reduced with prebiotics and short chain fatty acids. And some of these were actually pretty significant. So I always like to start with food first. The most basics. You know, one of the cornerstones of the virgin diet is to cut the foods that your body's intolerant to. And one of the first things that starts to happen is you start to reduce inflammation. So I'm big on eating healing foods that reduce inflammation and help heal your leaky gut and removing the offending foods. So another thing that these short chain Fatty acids can do is improve detoxification. They can actually, actually lower the pH in the gut, which then helps your body defend against bad bacteria and viruses and toxins and also promotes the good bacteria growth in the gut. Next one. And this again, of course, is a big part of the virgin diet is leaky gut. And we now know that leaky gut is really common. Happens for a variety of reasons. It's where your gut wall becomes more permeable than it should be and then allows food, usually things that have not been digested well due to low stomach acid, poor, poor eating habits, et cetera. And then these pass out into circulation and your body triggers an immune response. Can happen due to stress, gluten, fructose medications, and et cetera. So one of the things that we know now is prebiotics. And then the short chain fatty acids that they make can help prevent leaky gut, which is super cool because they help keep the gut wall strong, tight, and regular. You want there's these tight junctions in the gut. If they become loose, that's leaky gut. You want to keep them tight and strong. And it is when prebiotics ferment in the gut that helps create these benefits. And when you have really tight junctions that keeps the poorly digested food secure in the intestines and not out wandering into general circulation where it shouldn't be wreaking havoc, creating problems, creating chaos, which is what we do not want to have happen. All right, next one, Prebiotics. That was a little green tea sip, by the way. Green tea actually feeds the good bacteria in the gut too. And I try to drink 64 ounces of it a day because that is what the studies usually show is 64 ounces. So it's a lot of green tea. So you can also take green tea capsules. But I think that if we drink green tea and. And I love peak tea, where you can use the powder because it's very high in the catechins. It's a great way to do it. We'll put a link@jjvirgin.com prebiotics for that as well. Shout out to my buddies over at peak. All right, so next thing is short chain fatty acids can enhance mineral absorption and can also strengthen, which of course, then wood strengthen bones and teeth. They did a study pubertal. I was like, what is that word? Pubertal Adolescence. Is that adolescence in the middle of puberty? Gosh, I'm glad I'm through that with my kids. It was found that the group who took the prebiotics were able to absorb more calcium than the control group and that daily consumption of prebiotics can help with calcium absorption, which increased bone mineralization and bone density. All right, next study shows that prebiotics can protect against major diseases. Couple things that are super cool here, and this one especially is that short chain fatty acids made from prebiotics are shown to reduce blood glucose levels. And they do this. They control and reduce blood glucose levels by decreasing inflammation that causes insulin resistance. And that also they do this by reducing the release of stimulating the release of insulin. They also were found to kill colon cancer cells and fuel healthy cells. There you go. So here, my whole point of giving you all that information was that I want you to incorporate prebiotics into your diet. Now I'm going to talk about things that you can eat because I always think we should start with food first. But this is also one where you might want to add some supplements in as well. Here's a great supplement. I have these dark chocolate coconut fiber bars that are rich in prebiotics. So there's a yummy way to take your prebiotics. There you go. And also my, my probiotic supplements. Actually a prebiotic bacteriophage and probiotic supplement. It's called microbiome balance. We'll put both of those again in the show notes. Let's talk about some different foods that you can eat. Now here's the thing. And prebiotics are all fiber foods and the average person gets somewhere between 5 and 14 grams of fiber. A reality is that is like, that's a lame amount of fiber. Okay, we want to get somewhere 35 grams or more. My goal is 50 plus. But if you've been eating very little fiber, you don't want to go from eating little fiber to loads of fiber overnight. I will get meany poo comments I am sure on my social media if you do that. So don't do that. I'm telling you not to, I'm telling you to bring it up over time, not overnight. And so what you want to do is wherever you are, we're just going to start adding more and more and more fiber in. But over time and every time you increase your fiber, you know what else you need to increase? Your water, your fluids, of course, in between your meals. Now here's what's cool. A lot of these things I'm going to, I'm going to list in here right now. Of course, these are all high in fiber and all yummy foods. Like I'm not saying, hey now we're going to be living on kale. I know I want to be, I want to be a kale lover, but I. The only time I liked kale was when it was kale chips made with. And they were dark chocolate kale chips, which sort of negated the whole point of the kale. But these are all yummy foods. But again, what we want to do is we want to start bringing up your fiber over time, not overnight. When you're eating fiber, healthy fats and protein, you create the trifecta of what I call blood sugar balance, because the protein and the fiber slow down stomach emptying. And they keep something called ghrelin, which is the hormone your stomach produces to tell you you're hungry. They keep that one low and suppressed. And then the fat works in the small intestine to trigger the release of some chemicals to tell your brain that you're full, that you're satiated. So this all works together. The fiber is a key, important part of helping you stay fuller, longer, of helping you be satiated, along with all those other awesome health benefits that we have. So you're going to want to specifically look at these types of foods because they're so helpful. Coconut, of course, being one of them. And that's why I did a shout out for my dark chocolate coconut fiber bars. They are great source of prebiotics, 11 grams of fiber in there. But also, of course, coconut, we know is antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, and the MCTs in there are an easily burned fuel. So they are great for energy and focus. So coconut is one of them and then oats are another one. Oats are a pretty exciting food. They're rich in beta glucan. They're great for lowering cholesterol. But again, you want to make sure you're not making a good thing bad by getting those, like, quick ones with the sugar added. Cacao and I will include in the show notes@jjvirgin.com forward/prebiotics. I'll include my dark chocolate coconut avocado mousse because that has got cacao nibs in it. And cacao is a great one. Onions are another great ones. Onions and garlic. Shout out to my son, Bryce Virgin, the awesome chef who uses a load of garlic and onions in his food. I keep some red onions cut, so they throw them on my salad. And we do a lot, we add a lot of onions and, and garlic into our stir fries. Sadly, I'm one of those people. If I eat garlic. Everyone in the close like, probably the neighbors next door know that I ate it. So proceed with caution. Next one, a little other shout out for. For onions, because onions of quercetin, they are natural antihistamine, especially red onions. Super good. And of course, these are also great detoxifying vegetables as well. Onions and garlic. So double whammy. All these foods I'm listing, like, have so many other things besides just the prebiotics that make them awesome. All right, then garlic, of course, is also an antibacterial. It's another one that can really protect your gut. If you are having to take antibiotics for some reason, garlic can jump in there and, you know, protect your gut while you're doing the antibiotic therapy. Asparagus, dandelion greens. That's when my son Grant, we just gave him a little bit of a heads up that dandelion greens needed to be a part of his diet. Legumes, beans and lentils. And here's one trick I learned from my buddy, Dr. Alan Christensen, Dr. C. As we know him, and I wrote about this. In the sugar impact diet is when you're starting to eat legumes. Because in the sugar impact diet, as I really started to study carbohydrates, sugars, which we should be eating, then what I realized was legumes are just. I call myself kind of Paleo plus. And legumes are an amazing food. But if you just start, you say, hey, jj, this is awesome. I'm going to start eating a load of legumes. You will be mad at me tomorrow. So what you do instead is you condition your gut for about a week with a tablespoon of legumes a day. And this is one of those foods that if you can, you rotate in, say, some hummus one day and then some black bean soup the next, and then some lentils the next, and rotate in these beans, but keep them more consistent and you won't tend to have that gassy gas. And of course, there's always be no. All right. And then cooked chilled potatoes. So remember, we're really looking at resistant starch when we're looking at potatoes. And so that is where green bananas and. And cold chilled potatoes come, are higher in that resistant starch. And apples, now, very important, apples are an amazing food. Apple juice is a rotten food. Apple juice takes all the great fiber, all the pectins out, and just leaves you basically a soda. It's got more fructose in it than a regular soda. So this is not what you want to have. But apples have great prebiotic Fibers, great pectin. So they're amazing. So there you go on that. All right, so after the break, I'm just going to give you a little bit of a, like, here's what you need to do next. So stay with me.

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All right, welcome back. So glad to have you with me today. I wanted to remind you again, if you've not yet subscribed, here you go. Subscribe to JJ.com it doesn't get easier than that. While you're there, I would love to shout you out to everybody and thank you for leaving a room review. So I'd love to read your review online. And I also we scour the reviews for topics that we can do shows around. So if there's a guest you'd love to hear from, if there's a topic you'd like to know more about, make sure you leave that in the review as well. I want to give you just a summary for today because I've built the case to make sure that you're adding prebiotics into your diet. Now I always like to start first with diet. And so I gave you all the great foods that you can start incorporating in. And again, the big takeaway here is do that over time, not overnight. And really important, the first step we really should be doing in diet, everybody always looks at what they should take out. I think the first thing we always have to look at is what should we put in? How do we upgrade our diet? Let's do that first. So again, those foods were and we'll have this list in the show notes@jjvirgin.com those foods are oats, cacao, onions, garlic, coconut, asparagus dandelion greens, legumes, chilled potatoes and apples. Plus my dark chocolate coconut bars are an easy way to get these. And of course you could also jump in with microbiome balance. We've got prebiotics and phages in there as well. So let's look at how you can incorporate more prebiotics because the prebiotics Again, feed the probiotics. So super important there and they're going to help you with reducing inflammation, preventing leaky gut, improving detoxification, enhancing mineral absorption, balancing blood sugar. I mean all sorts of important things that you can do. We will also put@jjvirgin.com prebiotics we will put our Gut Health guide in our Leaky Gut blog post. So lots of resources there and I will see you next time and again. Love to shout you out. So if you haven't yet subscribe to JB jj, leave a review and I will see you soon. Bye.

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