Healthy food swaps to keep your gut health in check

‘A healthy gut = healthy you’ — you must’ve heard this phrase countless times. And, rightly so! Keeping your gut health in check not only aids digestion but also keeps a host of illnesses at bay. And, taking care of it starts making some conscious food decisions. To make it easy for you, nutrition Bhakti Kapoor recently shared some healthy swaps that you must make for your gut health.
Enjoy hot lemon/ginger tea instead of ice water
She explained that drinking cold water has a negative impact on one’s digestive health as cold beverages “constrict blood vessels and impair digestion”. Kapoor added: “When you drink chilly water, the natural process of absorbing nutrients during digestion is hampered.”
Instead, one can opt for lemon-ginger tea as “the combination of lemon, ginger, and water in lemon-ginger tea may help with indigestion. Lemon and ginger both include plant chemicals that may help relieve minor stomach aches caused indigestion”.

Use cold pressed oils instead of inflammatory oils
“Cold-pressed oils are high in important fatty acids, antioxidants, vitamin E, vitamin K, vitamin C, and other beneficial fats because they retain the potency of their components and keep them in their natural form,” the nutrition said, sharing why you must stop using inflammatory oils.
Eat vegetable noodles instead of pasta/refined grains
Replacing some of your carb-heavy meals with healthy alternatives is a “fantastic approach to actually improve your diet without the yoyo effects of extreme fad diets,” she said, adding that vegetable noodles are a good gluten-free option for reducing carbs found in pasta.

“They also provide a more complete set of nutrients, such as vitamin A (good for vision and the immune and inflammatory systems), C (an antioxidant that is good for skin and bones), E (good for heart health), K (good for blood and bone health), and fibre (good for digestion and cardiovascular health). Pasta noodles contain none of these nutrients. Zucchini, carrot, sweet potato, turnip, broccoli parsnip and squash are some examples of vegetable noodles,” Kapoor added.
Replace juice with a smoothie
It is suggested to consume smoothies as they include additional nutrients since the vitamin-rich fibrous pulp is not eliminated, she explained. “Smoothies can be an excellent source of important nutrients, minerals, and phytochemicals as a snack or as an addition to a meal, especially if a variety of fruits and vegetables are utilised. Using different coloured fruits and vegetables might ass to change the nutrients in your smoothie.”
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