Prebiotic Superfoods

When I first read about prebiotics, I thought someone made a typo, that it should say “probiotics.” However, Wikipedia offered me some insight: “Prebiotics are non-digestible food substances that encourage the development and/or activity of micro-organisms in the intestinal system in ways reported to be useful to health.” In other words, prebiotics are non-digestible carbohydrates that act as “food” for probiotics. Prebiotics help probiotics grow and remain in your digestive system.

The established definition by Dr. Roberfroid is:

“A prebiotic is a selectively fermented substance that enables specific changes, both in the structure and/or activity in the intestinal micro flora that confers advantages upon host well-being and overall health.”

Resources of prebiotics include beans, garlic, raw oats, raw dandelion leaves, leeks, inulin sources (like jicama, Jerusalem artichoke and chicory root), and onions. Essentially, if you eat raw leeks, raw onions, or raw garlic, and you add onions to anything you cook, you’re definitely acquiring enough prebiotics. Studies have confirmed evident effects on calcium and other mineral assimilation, immune system effectiveness, bowel pH, hypertension, inflammatory bowel problems and intestinal constipation. Prebiotics also reduce the risk of colon cancer. So, if you add raw onions or raw leeks to all of your salads and cook with onions, you are all set .

Many people know that the red wine is great simply because it contains antioxidants and resveratrol. But studies showed that individuals who drank 2 glasses of dry red wine per day had high levels of effective bacteria in their gut and low levels of bad bacteria in the gut. The research concluded that, while the red wine intake reduced bad bacteria in the gut, it in fact had a prebiotic effect in the gut in that it reinforced the development of colonies of healthy gut microbes which defend your health.