Fabulous family meals your tummies will love, too

We aLL love to think we are in charge of the decisions we make — from when we go to bed to what we put in our mouths. But the truth is that a lot of our decisions are made subconsciously, guided by signals and cues we are not even aware of.

My recent obsession with the trillions of microbes that live in our guts has convinced me they might have a much more controlling influence over us than we ever previously realised.

all this week, I have been relating the many ways in which our ‘microbiome’ — our personal mix of gut microbes — affects our health, and explaining the tiny tweaks you can make to your diet to ensure your armies of ‘ good’ bacteria are happy, and the bad guys that cause misery and disease aren’t given the chance to take over.

Making the switch to a gut-friendly diet isn’t only about weight loss or easing existing gut problems (though it helps on both counts) — it could have far-reaching implications for every possible aspect of your mental and physical health.

and this applies whatever your age or gender. That’s why I would encourage you to get the whole family to join you on your gut-friendly mission.

We all need to be aware that every single food choice we make (‘Shall I have that slice of cake or a handful of almonds?’) decides the fate of countless billions of microbes living in our colon.

So do try some of the delicious and easy family-friendly recipes in today’s pullout, which have been created with the help of nutritional therapist Tanya Borowski and GP Clare Bailey.

There are plenty of options for even the fussiest eaters, and lots of plant-based goodness to give everyone’s biomes something to chew on.

We now understand that the microbiome plays a part not only in protecting our guts from dangerous invaders, but also in teaching our immune systems how to tell friend from foe.

Over the past century, we have seen a massive rise in allergic diseases, such as asthma and eczema, and autoimmune diseases, ranging from inflammatory bowel disease to type 1 diabetes, which are all very often the product of an over-enthusiastic, out-of-control immune system.

Many scientists used to blame the ‘ hygiene hypothesis’ and claimed that problems arose because we are just too clean these days. Like a surly teenager without enough to do, the immune system lashes out at random, wrecking the house it lives in — in other words, us.

It sounds plausible, but I prefer the ‘ old friends hypothesis’, which argues that your immune system is not bored, but ignorant. Like us, it comes into the world with a lot to learn.

One thing it needs to learn quickly is how to distinguish between what inside us is dangerous and what is OK and should be left alone.

In the past, the immune system would have been taught these essential lessons by the gut microbes that evolved with us over millions of years — our ‘old friends’. Sadly, the overuse of antibiotics and a diet based heavily on highly processed foods means many of those friendly bacteria are now in short supply.

However, the very good news is that there is also evidence that changing the mix of bacteria in your gut — by changing your diet — can reduce the impact of these diseases.

Follow the advice I’ve been giving out all this week and stick to my healthy gut plan, and you will be able to cultivate and reestablish contact with some of the old friends who really can do you a world of good.

In doing so, you could start to see some significant changes in your mood, and the quality of your sleep as well.

Just as our microbiome controls many aspects of our physical health, it has a significant role to play in the way we think, too.

You may be surprised to learn that we have a second brain in the gut ( called the enteric nervous system) which contains as many brain cells as you’d find in the skull of a cat.

This network of neurons communicates directly with the brain via a superfast ‘broadband’ connection called the vagus nerve, which your microbes hack into to talk directly to the brain.

They also produce a range of hormones and neurotransmitters that reach your brain via your bloodstream.

For example, they produce the feelgood hormone dopamine, plus chemicals that control your mood, and they even make a range of chemicals that are strikingly similar to the main hunger hormones that control your appetite.

So microbes have the means to manipulate us. And they also have the motive. Scientists believe microbes not only influence how much we eat, but what we eat, by altering the signals up and down the vagus nerve, changing taste receptors, producing toxins to make us feel bad and releasing chemical rewards to make us feel good in response to eating certain foods.

In a diverse microbiome, all those tiny creatures will clamour to be heard and, like a gang of children shouting at once, they can be ignored.

The problem comes when one group — say, the ones who thrive on junk food — start to dominate. As a gang, these bad guys will now be much more influential and, by producing chemical signals, generate cravings for junk food — cravings that you will find hard to resist.

If cravings really are being generated by a group of cunning bacteria in your gut, then it is within your power to starve them out. All you have to do (and I don’t underestimate how tough this can be) is keep away from the thing you crave, and hopefully the pangs will reduce as those microbes die off.

Starving the bad guys and eating plenty of plant fibre to feed the good guys means they will start to produce all sorts of hormones and other chemicals that improve not only your gut health and your weight, but also, possibly, how well you sleep.

A recent study found that fibre-rich meals improved the quality of the volunteers’ deep sleep, and also meant they managed to fall asleep faster.

Eating more saturated fat and sugar, on the other hand, led to poorer sleep quality that was lighter and less refreshing.

The foods I’ve been talking about all week

are particularly rich in the sort of fibre that seems to help.

As well as more conventional food, I’ve been experimenting with a type of fibre that gut bacteria seem to particularly like — potato starch. It is a form of resistant starch made by crushing uncooked potatoes and harvesting the starch grains from the destroyed cells. You can buy it in health food shops or online.

The anecdotal evidence is that a teaspoon taken in the early evening could help sleep and also lead to more vivid dreams. There is currently very little solid work linking diet, sleep and the biome, but studies are underway.

If you are a poor sleeper, it is certainly worth doing something about it, because it can also make you overeat.

Poor sleep means you produce more of the stress hormone cortisol, and more of the hunger hormones that drive appetite. You are more likely to eat badly because poor sleep cranks up your desire for sugary carbohydrates and high-fat snacks, which encourages a shift towards the growth of ‘ bad’ microbes in your gut. You put on weight, get more cranky, sleep even worse, and so on and so on. It is a horrible, vicious cycle. But my healthy gut diet could help break it.

I hope I have managed to convince you that even if you don’t have any noticeable gut-related problems or any weight to lose, you and your family can still gain something from keeping your own personal armies of gut microbes happy.

Whether you are fit or sick, happy or depressed, overweight or slim, we can all benefit from taking better care of the alien life forms living in our guts. It’s just a question of increasing the diversity in your diet, embracing new and different foods and realising every food decision you make counts.

Try to avoid heavily processed food, sugar and sweeteners, and include lots of vegetables and fruit in your diet, plus goodquality protein such as fish and chicken.

And while you’re at it, why don’t you open the windows, play in the grass and get your hands dirty to let in some bacteria? Bring some old friends back into your life!