Transform Your Gut Health with the 30 Plants Challenge
Many people know that eating plants are good for your health but you may not know why or have any accountability to know how well you’re doing at reaching this goal. Since plant diversity plays such an important role in gut health, I want to help you understand the WHY so you can create a solid basis for your gut health and reduce risk of disease going forward.
That’s why I’ve decided to host the 30 Plants Challenge! 🥑🥬🍌🍑
This challenge will challenge you to keep track of and give you a chance to reflect on your current intake so you can improve your gut health and gain a better understanding of WHY this is so important for your long term health.
Pooping for Science! - The American Gut Project
Okay so I know the first thing you're probably asking…why 30 plants right??
In 2018, researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine published their first results from the American Gut Project.
This was a project that started in 2012 and has provided the largest crowd sourced, global citizen science effort to date. It was designed to collect and study data on the human microbiome (your unique collection of bacteria in your intestinal tract) to gain a better understanding of the types of bacteria that exist and in what numbers, where they live and most importantly how diet, lifestyle and disease influence them.
Scientists discovered that people who ate more than 30 plants a week had greater microbial diversity in their microbiome than people who at less than 10 or few plants a week.
This means the greater variety of plants you eat, the better off your gut health will be!..and the lower number of plants you eat, the greater the risk of developing disease.
The American Gut Project discovers higher diet diversity linked to greater microbiome diversity
Why Plant Diversity Matters
Keeping your microbiome in good shape is a bit like a balancing act. You want the right mix of beneficial bacteria to stay healthy. You do this by eating real, fresh, whole foods that your body and bacteria recognizes and avoiding processed foods high in inflammatory fats and sugar.
To understand a bit more about what makes up the microbiome, let’s take a look at the two general categories that bacteria (and yeasts) within your microbiome can fall under.
• Commensal/Keystone: these are the “good” bacteria. The good bacteria need a variety of plant fibers and nutrients in order to thrive and in return they help your gut (and the rest of your body) function well. If you eat the same plants each week, you’re not feeding certain species of good bacteria and they can die of.
• Opportunistic/Pathogenic: these are the “bad” bacteria. If plant diversity is low, the good bacteria can die off, allowing the bad bacteria or fungi to outgrow the good bacteria, resulting in poor digestion, cravings (processed, fat and high sugar foods,) hormone imbalances, neurotransmitter disruption (ie. negatively impacting your mood)
That’s right…bacteria can control your cravings!
Have you ever struggled trying to break a sugar addiction with no success?
Your unique composition of microbes can dictate cravings
It’s possible that you could have an overgrowth of these “bad” bacteria that are controlling your cravings! These little guys can literally control your body & mind.
So in order to have the good bacteria flourish and be the dominant bacteria in your gut microbiome, you want to eat all the different types, colours and varieties of foods as often as possible to ensure you’re not starving any of the good bacteria.
This is why regular plant consumption is so important because it can literally change the composition of bacteria within your digestive tract over time.
Benefits of Plant Diversity (and why you’ll benefit from the challenge!)
So you’ve learned how and why plant diversity is important but why should you care??
The stronger and more diverse your microbiome is, the better your body will function. Remember, digestion is a key indicator of overall health. When gut health is impaired, you start to see negative impacts all throughout your body.
Here are the positive benefits associated with eating 30+ plants a week:
Improved immune system function:
The majority of your immune system lies within your gut lining so the state of your immune health is a reflection of the state of your gut health. This higher the diversity of good microbes (from more plants!) the stronger your immune system will be.
Reduce bloating, improve bowel movements & reduce inflammation: Plant diversity provides fiber for the beneficial bacteria in your intestinal tract to flourish. When plant diversity is low, you can develop an imbalance of bacteria, also known as dysbiosis. When this occurs, you can experience a higher rate of annoying digestive symptoms like bloating, gas, heartburn irregular bowel movements and inflammation.
Enhance your ability to ABSORB nutrients for increased energy:
Did you know that good bacteria also play a key role in producing many of the vitamins your body needs to function properly?? Good bacteria help produce vitamin B1,B2,B3,B5,B6,B12 and vitamin K, which are needed for energy production, nervous system function, your ability to handle stress and strong bones, blood clotting, brain function respectively. These bacteria also help with the absorption of minerals including calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron and copper.
Reduce your risk of the most common chronic lifestyle based diseases:
Decreased plant diversity is associated with many chronic diseases including obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and insulin resistance, allergies, autoimmune conditions like Cronh’s disease, celiac disease, colitis and high inflammation to name a few! Don’t start when your older because it may be too late! Make positive changes to your diet now so you’ll reap the benefits in your later years!
Improve your mental health:
Bacteria are responsible for making your neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) that impact your mood. This means that if you’re lacking in plant diversity, you could be struggling to produce the brain chemicals needed to make you feel happy, calm, relaxed etc. One of the findings of the American Gut Project analysis was that specific bacteria types may be more common in people with depression. This is why a common supplement to support depression today is a probiotic (providing the good bacteria needed to improve mood!).
Eating more than 30 plants a week is associated with positive benefits for gut health
This is especially important to those on a restricted diet like the SIBO or low FODMAP diet. Just because you’re limiting certain foods doesn’t mean they should be avoided completely!
As explained above, when we starve good bacteria they can die off. When this happens, and you eat a food that you no longer have bacteria to break it down or the numbers are significantly lower, it can be difficult to digest the food, resulting in symptoms like bloating and gas.
You can then get stuck in a vicious cycle of: food restriction —>reduced bacteria symptoms —> food restriction.
The best way to ensure this doesn’t happen is to eat the amount of food that is still tolerable to you (without symptoms). This may be a teaspoon or ¼ cup of a certain vegetable-continue with it to grow these good guys!
TAKE THE CHALLENGE WITH ME!!
Challenge Details:
During the challenge you’ll receive:
An overview of EXACTLY which plants are MOST beneficial for your gut health
A fun and interactive accountable way to diversify your plant intake
Easy tips & tricks for rotating the plants you're eating each week
Gut superfood recipes and guides
A chance to win a 40% off one of my program packages to transform your gut health
By Krista Znebel, R.H.N.©
September 11, 2023