Let’s clear something up: gut health doesn’t start with restriction, rules, or cutting everything you love.
It starts with what you do most days. The meals you come back to, the staple ingredients you keep on rotation and the small habits you have around food that quietly support your body over time.
Your gut is home to trillions of microorganisms that influence far more than digestion – think energy, immunity, skin, mood and even hormone balance. The good news? Supporting them doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, the most powerful changes are often the simplest.
Read below where the team from BePure outline five everyday habits to help eat your way to a healthier gut:
1. Build meals around different plants
When it comes to gut health, diversity in the foods we eat really matters. Different plants feed different strains of gut bacteria, and a diverse microbiome is a more resilient one.
Vegetables, fruit, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices all count, even in small amounts. It’s not about eating everything all the time, but rotating what you eat across the week.
2. Make fibre a daily non-negotiable
Fibre is one of the most powerful (and most overlooked) tools for gut health, and most of us simply don’t get enough of it.
It supports healthy digestion, regular bowel movements, balanced blood sugar, and that satisfied, steady-energy feeling after meals. Think oats or chia at breakfast, legumes in your salad with lunch, and plenty of cooked vegetables at dinner.
You don’t need a total overhaul. Sprinkle seeds, add fruit, choose whole grains where you can. Small fibre upgrades, done daily, make a big difference over time.
3. Add fermented foods – little and often
Fermented foods like yoghurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi and miso introduce beneficial bacteria to your gut and help support microbial balance.
You don’t need them at every meal or every day. A spoonful on the side, a dollop in a bowl, a splash in a dressing all adds up to support a healthy and diverse gut microbiome.
4. Eat regular meals (and give your system a break between them)
Your gut isn’t designed to be digesting constantly. It needs time to work, then rest.
Ideally we want our meals to keep us full, fuelled and satisfied for the next 4-5 hours, and at least 12 hours overnight. This gives your digestive system time to break food down efficiently, followed by stretches where it can switch into “rest and repair” mode, allowing your gut’s internal clean up system (A.K.A the migrating motor complex) to do its thing.
Snacking isn’t the enemy, but constant grazing can interrupt this natural rhythm leading to sluggish digestion and energy.
5. Slow down to eat
Digestion doesn’t start in the stomach – it starts in the nervous system.
Eating on the run, in front of a screen or while stressed makes it harder for your body to break down food effectively, leading to sluggish digestion and an unhappy gut over time.
In contrast, sitting down, chewing well and giving meals your attention helps switch your system into a true rest-and-digest state. Even a few deep breaths to regulate your nervous system before meals can make a noticeable difference to digestion, bloating and how you feel after eating.
Gut health isn’t about doing everything perfectly. It’s about choosing foods and habits that nourish you most of the time – and trusting that these small, consistent choices add up.
References
- McDonald D et al 2018. American Gut: an Open Platform for Citizen Science Microbiome Research. mSystems 3:10.1128/msystems.00031-18.
- Lozupone CA et al. Diversity, stability and resilience of the human gut microbiota. Nature. 2012 Sep 13;489(7415):220-30. doi: 10.1038/nature11550.
- Heiman ML et al. A healthy gastrointestinal microbiome is dependent on dietary diversity. Mol Metab. 2016;5(5):317-20.
- Aziz T et al. Elucidating the role of diet in maintaining gut health to reduce the risk of obesity, cardiovascular and other age-related inflammatory diseases: recent challenges and future recommendations. Gut Microbes. 2023;15(1):2297864.
