Pre and Probiotics Explained
Pre and Pro biotics have always been around. But in just recent years they have become popular in the health and wellness industry. If your are having problems with your digestion your not alone.
Can pre and pro biotics help you with digestive issues? And how important are pro biotics? And what key role do pre biotics play in your digestive health? Let’s look first at what probiotics are. Probiotics are a combination of live beneficial bacteria, and yeasts that naturally live in your large intestine.
Pre biotics play a very important role in feeding the pro biotics aka good bacteria in your large intestine. Without pre biotics your pro biotics could not live long without food they would starve.
What is a microbiome?
Now that we know what probiotics and prebiotics are you can see why you need both. How can you tell when your microbiome is out of balance? Meaning your bad bacteria are more than your good bacteria. Well that is easy you will have more than likely digestive issues. Gas, bloating, heartburn, diarrhea, constipation, irritable bowl syndrome.
What foods and drinks have pre and probiotics?
How do you rebalance your microbiome? Easily you add more good bacteria to your gut and plenty of pre biotics to feed them. Where do you get the good bacteria you ask. In case you haven’t heard. There are probiotic drinks like kombucha, kefir, or you can eat sauerkraut, and yogurt. Just to mention a few. You can also find supplements with live bacteria. Where can you get pre biotics? Prebiotics are in bananas, Jerusalem artichokes, garlic, leeks, asparagus, apples, Jicama, peas, turnips, parsnips, wild yams, carrots.
Kefir and Supplements
Kefir can be store bought or you can get kefir grains and make some at home. Milk kefir usually have about 12 live and active probiotic cultures and 25-30 billion CFU or colony forming units. CFU’s vary in probiotic supplements as well. Depending on what your needs are you may need to take a low or higher dose of CFU’s. They typically vary from 1 billion to 100 billion in some probiotic supplements. I would recommend you take probiotics especially after taking antibiotics as they kill off both bad and good bacteria.
Let me know what you think on comments.
