Bacteria gets a bad rap, altogether. All those adverts for cleaning products that kill 99% of our little bacterial friends, for example.
Why do we want to wage war on these tiny microbes? After all, in the average adult, there are as many resident microbes as there are human cells themselves. And a huge amount of them are swimming around in your gut, keeping you healthy.
Of course, there are bad bacteria too. And telling the difference between the good and the bad, and which kind of foods can contribute to the health of your gut, is very much the subject of a new book, Gut Feeling – Delicious Low FODMAP Recipes to Soothe the Symptoms of a Sensitive Gut.
Its authors, dieticians Paula Mee and Lorraine Maher, joined Sean O’Rourke on the Today programme to talk about maintaining your gut health.
“The more we understand about the nervous system in the gut, the more we realise that it really is a second brain."
"The brain-gut access is extremely interesting because emotion can make us sensitive in the gut. Even having thoughts of low mood, depression, all that has an effect on the gut. Likewise, what we put into the gut, and what is growing in the gut, has an effect on the brain. For example, serotonin and dopamine are made in the gut.”
Minding your gut health is an issue for all of us, but it’s of specific concern to people who suffer from conditions like Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Crohn’s Disease. The authors have studied the impact of food on the gut and they’ve come up with advice and recipes in the form of this new book.
Get the recipe for Gut Feeling's Power Omelette here and Cheesy Courgette Boats here.
Paula Mee is a past president of the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute (INDI) and is known to Irish television audiences as the dietitian on the RTÉ TV series, Health Squad.
Lorraine Maher is a member of the INDI and completed her Low FODMAP training in Kings College London in 2013. She’s been compiling recipes to help her clients undertake the diet ever since.
And so, to the question, you have been asking as you’ve been reading this article. What are FODMAPs?
Fodmaps stands for fermentable, oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols. These are small constituents of foods that are poorly absorbed in people who have irritable bowel syndrome and other functional gut disorders.
They are found in carbohydrates, including healthy carbohydrate-rich foods such as apples and garlic, as well as not-so-healthy processed carbohydrate-rich foods like battered fish, croissants and biscuits. They are not found in proteins and fats.
In relation to specific ills, such as irritable bowel syndrome, the authors are keen to stress that they are not offering a cure, just offering recipes that will help to manage these conditions.
To listen to the full interview, click here.
Gut Feeling – Delicious Low FODMAP Recipes to Soothe the Symptoms of a Sensitive Gut, is published by Gill and retails at €19.99.
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