Coming up with new and interesting meals every day can be really challenging, and especially if you are in charge of family meals. It is far easier to just fall into a pattern of eating the same things every day. Some of these may actually be very healthy options.
Perhaps you start your day with a bowl of oatmeal, or some eggs followed by a good mixed salad for lunch. Supper, you choose from one of a number of tried and tested meals that you can produce quickly and with only a few ingredients. In all fairness, most of us can probably relate to this scenario.
Producing the same meals everyday is certainly easier than having to figure out daily what you are going to eat. And if they are healthy meals, so much the better. However, many health professionals and gut experts say that even though the foods are healthy, this doesn’t necessarily mean that eating the same thing every day is a good thing.
Just like it is necessary to check out the many options offered say, at an Intertops casino login, it is important to introduce variety into your diet.
For example, gastroenterologist, and author of Fiber Fueled, Will Bulsiewicz, says that it is important to eat a wide and variety of plant- based foods. This, he says is good for your gut. According to Bulsiewicz “The single greatest predictor of a healthy gut microbiome is the diversity of plants in your diet.”
What is the result of eating nutrient-void foods daily
An experiment carried out in 2015 by Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology and co-founder of Microbiome health company, showed the effects on the gut of eating the exact same food, McDonalds, every day for a period of 10 days. He enlisted his son for the experiment and within only a few days there were changes in his son’s health, and not good ones.
Dr. Spector said “He called me up and asked if he could stop the study because he was feeling unwell. He was lethargic and his friends told him he was looking pale.” A microbiome test was carried out which showed that in only a very short time the bacteria diversity in his gut had been reduced by around 30 percent.
Dr. Spector argues that eating the same foods every day reduces the different types of bacteria in the gut whether the foods are healthy or not.
But consuming nutrient-void foods which contain sugars, oils and a whole variety of additives, actually destroys good gut bacteria living there which ultimately can lead to short, and long-term health problems. These can range from digestive problems, low energy to depression, cancer and Alzheimer’s, to name just a few.
What if you eat the same foods everyday but they are healthy foods
For Dr. Spector gut health requires diversity and is still the case even when the foods consumed are healthy and nutritious. He says “If you’re eating the same kale salad every day, you’re not going to get the diversity of gut microbes that you would if you had a different type of salad every day, like a cabbage salad one day and a grain- based bowl the next.”
True, you are getting a lot of nutrients in your diet but your gut health could be improved. Dr. Spector argues that “Nutritional health isn’t just about counting off nutrients, its about feeding the tens of thousands of microbes in our gut.”
According to Dr Spector the more diverse the gut bacteria, the better chance you have lowering your risk for Alzheimer’s disease, several types of cancer and depression. It’s not only about the nutrients you are consuming.
According to a study that was carried out with 11,000 participants it found that the ideal situation in terms of gut bacteria diversity was for a person to consume around 30 different plant-based foods during each week. This could be challenging for most people. But the list does include fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, legumes, soy and seeds so there is quite a lot to choose from.
There is a lot of discussion as to whether consuming the same food every day can lead to developing a sensitivity to it. Or perhaps the opposite is true; by never eating a particular food can you become sensitive to that food?
Dr Spector says “It’s something I’ve heard anecdotally, particularly about not eating a certain food leading to trouble digesting it in the future, but there is not hard scientific evidence for either situation.” However, it is good to be aware of these possibilities and to pay attention to how certain foods might make you feel.
It does take effort to break out of those eating habits which enable you to just buy and prepare the same tried and tested meal. But it can also be exciting to try out new foods and recipes.
There are a multitude of plant-based foods for you to choose from to create those gut healthy meals and to change things up a bit.
And, as Dr. Spector says “Kale is great, but if that was all you had in your diet, it would be pretty dreadful.” Well, most of us would agree with that.
