What a gut microbiome scientist wants you to eat every day

[Celerity]

Focus on eating fiber-rich foods, especially those high in a special type of fiber called resistant starch.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2025/10/08/what-to-eat-healthy-gut-microbiome/

https://archive.ph/zCxzs



Every time you eat a meal, you’re hosting a dinner party. Your guests are the trillions of microbes that live in your gut. These hungry microbes, collectively known as your gut microbiome, directly affect your long-term health for better or for worse depending on what you feed them. Eat the right foods, and your gut microbes will churn out beneficial compounds that protect and improve your health. Feed them the wrong foods, and they can wreak havoc on your gut, setting off inflammation and increasing your risk of chronic diseases.

That’s according to Karen Corbin, an associate investigator at the AdventHealth Translational Research Institute of Metabolism and Diabetes in Orlando who has published groundbreaking studies on nutrition and the microbiome. “If you take good care of your gut microbes, they’ll take good care of you,” said Corbin, who is also a registered dietitian nutritionist. “But when you don’t feed your gut microbes properly, they get hangry — they literally do. They break down the mucus layer of the gut, and they produce metabolites that aren’t healthy.”

You can make your gut microbes happy by doing the following, Corbin said: Limit your intake of ultra-processed foods, and try to eat items that contain plenty of fiber, particularly those that contain a special type of fiber called resistant starch. These include plant foods such as beans, peas, lentils, bananas (especially green bananas), apples, pears, and whole grains like barley, brown rice and oats. Health authorities recommend that adults eat around 28 grams of fiber daily — yet most people eat far less than that. If you make an effort to eat more fiber-rich foods, you’ll invariably end up eating a lot of resistant starch.

One simple thing you can do, Corbin said, is to make “upgrades” to your meals, by switching from low-fiber foods, such as white bread, to higher-fiber versions, like whole-wheat bread. “If you want to have a healthy gut, ask yourself one simple question every day: Have I fed my gut microbiome today?” Corbin said. “If the answer is no, then find something in your meals that you can upgrade.” Here’s what you need to know about your gut microbiome and how to keep it happy.

Fuel your microbiome with fiber......................

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