My secrets to a healthy gut 🌟 (science-backed)

This is your gut. And these are the trillions of microbes that keep it healthy. Like any living thing, they need to be fed. But they don't eat what you eat. They eat the parts your body can't digest. Mainly fiber and the colorful plant compounds from whole plants. Now in 2016, a team of researchers set out to answer the question, what happens if we deprive human gut bacteria of their food? And the answer was quite a shock. They found the microbes didn't simply go hungry, they just changed what they ate. Some of them began to break down the protective mucus lining the gut. And when the gut was later exposed to a pathogen, it became far more vulnerable to infection. So to maintain a healthy gut, it is essential that we properly feed our gut bacteria. But it's not just one type of microbe we have to feed. It's a whole community of different ones that each feed on different fibers. So the more kinds of plants you eat, the more kinds of microbes you can support. This is also observed in the American Gut Project, where people who reported eating 30 or more different plants in a week tended to have more diverse gut microbiomes than those eating 10 or fewer. So to show you just how easy it is to get in enough plant variety, today we're going to be making three different easy recipes. And as we make each one, I'm going to let you know which ingredients are helping to support your gut health and why. And I'm going to keep a running tally, which you can see right here, of the plant diversity we're going to be eating along the way. All right, let's get started. First up, we're making a high-protein breakfast smoothie. So we've got a frozen banana and soy milk as the base. Now this could technically make an okay smoothie, but with a few simple additions, we can give our gut microbes a lot more to work with, such as mixed berries. This gives us fiber and polyphenols, which are colorful plant compounds that make it all the way down to our large intestine, where our gut bacteria are waiting to eat them. And mixed berries are also a hack in the sense that they are a combination of several different berries and therefore offer several different plants in one scoop. Then we're going to add in some rolled oats. Now this contains a soluble fiber that's called beta-glucan that your gut bacteria love to feed on. Next we're going to add some peanut butter for a little protein and fiber. And then our surprise ingredient is silken tofu. Now don't worry, you're not going to taste this at all. We're just adding it for some extra protein as well, plus some creaminess. Lastly, we'll chuck in some maple syrup and vanilla extract, pop the lid onto the blender, and blend it all up until it's completely smooth. This is also why a blended smoothie, in my opinion, beats juicing, because juicing throws all the fiber away, but blending it keeps it all right here in the drink, which your gut loves. In total, this one smoothie offers up nine different plants, a good hit of fiber, and nearly 20 grams of protein per serving. Not bad for a smoothie. So that's one recipe down, two to go, but first a quick little shout out because all the recipes that we're making today come from my first ever cookbook, Simply Plants. If eating more plants has ever felt complicated, or like it's too much work, this is a cookbook you're going to want to get, and a cookbook you're going to use again and again. It's packed full with simple everyday recipes that use easy to find ingredients, and it makes getting a real variety of plants onto your plate genuinely easy. The cookbook comes out in just two months, but you can pre-order it right now, and pre-ordering actually comes with some perks. So first, as a thank you, you're gonna get a bonus ebook that I made that has 10 recipes in it. So you can already start cooking while you wait for your cookbook to arrive, and on top of that, you get the chance to win one of 10 lifetime memberships to our Pick Up Limes app. So there's more details for you below, or you can scan this QR code right here. I just wanted to say thank you so much because this wouldn't have been possible without you, and this is a dream come true. Thank you, thank you. Okay, on to the next recipe. This is my husband, Robin. He loves noodles. He could eat noodles for every meal of the day, breakfast, lunch, or dinner. And if you're like, hey Sati, noodles aren't very gut friendly. You're tripping. This recipe doesn't belong here. I'd be like, look, it's not about the noodles. It's what's served with them. If there's one thing I want you to take away from this video, it's that you don't have to give up your favorite foods. The best thing that you can do for your gut health is add variety. Focus on addition, not elimination. So let me show you what that looks like while we make a Korean-inspired bibim guksu. So first up, let's cook those noodles. I'm using samyang noodles, but any thin wheat noodles should work. And once it's cooked, we'll rinse them under cold water to stop the cooking process. This is a cold noodle dish, by the way, meant to enjoy cold, so it's perfect for this warm summer weather. Now for the veggies. Let's shred some cabbage. Cabbage is in the same family as broccoli and kale, and this contains glucosinolates. Our gut microbes then break those down into compounds that help to calm inflammation. Next, we're going to cut some carrots into matchsticks. We'll do the same for cucumber. And lastly, we're also going to add in some edamame. Now edamame is a two-for-one. It offers up protein and fiber, and this is what I love about plants. Like if we were to compare to animal proteins, which only offer proteins and no fiber, plants give you both. So it's a win-win. And then we're going to add in our all-star fermented ingredient, kimchi. Now kimchi is packed with a whole bunch of different veggies. That's more plant diversity. That's great, but one thing that makes this magical as an ingredient is that it's full of live bacteria. All of the different ingredients we've talked about so far are foods that feed the microbes we already have, but fermented foods, they add more living microbes to the mix. Kimchi does this, but so does sauerkraut, miso, tempeh, and plant-based yogurts. And you can go out and buy vegan kimchi if you'd like to, or you can make it yourself at home. We do have a full recipe for this in video form too, so I'm going to link that for you here and in the description box below. All right, so now we're going to add all the ingredients that we've prepped so far to a bowl, and the recipe does call for adding three tablespoons of kimchi. Please measure though with your heart. I'm usually a fan of adding way more. All right, now the last thing we need to do is make the sweet, spicy, and tangy sauce. So we're going to start with a minced clove of garlic. We'll add that to a small bowl, along with some gochujang, which is a fermented Korean chili paste. Then in goes some rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds, and a little bit of brown sugar. And just give it all a good whisk. Now we can pour the sauce over the noodles, toss until everything is well coated, and there you have it, a noodle dish with 12 diverse plants represented, from edamame to veggies, seeds, and most importantly, a fermented ingredient. So no need to cut out rice or noodles, just consider how you can add variety to those meals. For the last recipe, this is my personal favorite of the bunch. It's a creamy tomato chickpea curry that I make so often and still never get tired of. And here's what I love about it for a video on gut health. It's almost entirely pantry staples. Some days you just don't have a lot of veggies in the house, and that's okay. I'm hoping that this recipe shows you that you can still enjoy a gut-friendly meal with what you do have in your pantry. First, let's start with making our curry base. We're going to start with very finely chopping a large onion and we'll mince a very generous six cloves of garlic. It's worth mentioning that both onion and garlic are rich in prebiotics, which are a specific type of fiber that feed the beneficial microbes in our gut especially well. Next, let's get our spices ready, and this is actually where a lot of plant variety sneaks in. So we've got mustard seeds, coriander seeds, curry powder, ground cumin, and chili flakes. Every single one of these spices is a plant, so this is one of the easiest ways that you can add variety to your meals without much extra effort. There's no chopping, no prep required, just a few spoonfuls of something you likely already have in your pantry. All right, let's get to cooking. We're going to add some oil to a large pot. In go our whole seeds first. Just stir them until they're fragrant and until some of the seeds start to pop. Then we're going to chuck in the onion. Cook until it's softened. Then we'll add the garlic. Cook for another few minutes, ideally until it's kind of golden. And you can always add a splash of water as needed to deglaze the bottom of the pot. Next, we'll add in some tomato paste, freshly grated ginger, and our ground spices, along with a bit of salt. And we're just going to stir this for a few seconds to toast those spices. And now we can add our pantry superstars. We've got diced tomatoes, coconut milk, and the real star of the dish, chickpeas. So beans are one of the best foods for our gut, and most people just aren't eating enough. So it contains fiber and resistant starch, which means our body can't digest it. So it goes down to the colon, where it feeds our microbes, and they then turn it into compounds that help to nourish the lining of our gut. Cool stuff. All right, while the curry cooks and thickens, we're going to chop up a generous pile of spinach. Toss this into the pot. Drizzle in some optional, but highly recommended tahini. And when the spinach is wilted, this curry is ready to enjoy. Now I'm going to serve this curry with some brown rice for a little extra fiber. But if the cooking time of brown rice puts you off, I get it. I have a little hack for you. Try to find quick cooking brown rice. Most grocery stores carry these these days. It cooks in just a fraction of the time, and it's a great way to get more fiber in your diet. Now that said, it's also delicious with white rice or some warm garlic naan. Once you've plated up your curry alongside the rice, you can also serve it with some cilantro and lime wedges, if you'd like. I promise this is a simple 30-minute meal you're going to want to make again and again. And like I said, look how little of this needed a trip to the store. This recipe already represents 16 different plants in one meal, and it's so good. And there you have it friends, three gut-friendly recipes. And if you were, for example, to enjoy the smoothie for breakfast, the noodles for lunch, and this curry for dinner, you'd actually have eaten over 30 different plants in a single day. Where if you remember the study we talked about at the beginning of the video, was about trying to get in 30 different plants in a week. So it's not all that difficult to do, just focus on adding variety. Your gut is going to love you for it. And if you're interested in over 100 additional plant-packed recipes, that's what my cookbook offers. What are you waiting for? Go pre-order it right now. The link for this is in the description box below, as are the links for the recipes that we made today. We're actually putting those on the website for you, so you have access. I think that's it for now. Thanks so much for hanging with me, friends. I really appreciate it. Pickled Lime, signing off. I'll see you in the next video. I got red on my shirt from the berries. Who looks like her daughter when she does that? It's about what you add when served. You can, I just noticed that this was here, and so it threw me off. Focus on adding. And, ah, ----. God, come on. That's me trying to do too much. Jeez. Beans, beans, the magical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot. The more you toot, the better you feel. So beans, beans at every meal. That's it. Okay, thanks for listening.