Principal 1

In the modern food market, all apples are not created equal. The same goes for beef, eggs, dairy, water, make-up, and anything else you might consume. 

Some foods contain more toxic additives than others. Some have glyphosate (a patented antibiotic used as an herbicide in conventional agriculture around the world); Others don’t. Some sources of dairy contain loads of added hormones; others don’t. Some processed foods are preserved with natural extracts like rosemary, while others are preserved with chemicals. All of these differences impact your gut. The gut loves real food, and it dislikes chemicals, additives, fillers, hormones, and anything on a label you can’t pronounce. 

The first principal of PG eating is quality because right off the bat before we even get into what to eat, we want to exclude all of the food that’s been bathed in gut killers; the wolves in sheeps clothing; the apple that was harvested 3,000 miles away, 10 months ago, and grown, preserved and transported with the assistance of many different chemicals to make it all possible. This is poor quality food. What we want is high quality food; organic, non-gmo, chemical and hormone free, pasture-raised, wild caught, food. 

TLDR: The first principle of keeping your gut happy is to choose organic, non-gmo, 100% grass fed, wild caught + pasture raised food sources whenever possible. Try to eliminate as many possible sources of toxins in your food as you can.

Principal 2

In addition to not all apples being equal due to huge variations in quality, apples of the 21st century aren’t the same as they were even 70 years ago. There are some pretty shocking side by side comparisons of the nutrient values in fruits + veggies from our grandparents’ time vs. now. Vitamin B2, for example, was on average 38% lower in modern produce than it was in 1950. This is partially thanks to mono-cropping and other modern agriculture practices that strip soil of its nutrients. If the soil lacks nutrients, the plant grown in it will lack nutrients, and so will the people who eat them. Additionally, many large scale farms will harvest crops before they are ripe in order to account for time needed to transport them long distances. Many plants lose their nutrients pretty quickly after they’re harvested so transporting them far away often means even more nutrients are lost. It’s no wonder why so many people today have nutrient deficiencies.

How do nutrient deficiencies affect the gut? Well, for starters, we need nutrients to create stomach acid, digestive enzymes, bile, to maintain a healthy intestinal lining and to support detoxification processes in the liver. Most people with any history of gut issues are already starting with an impaired ability to digest and assimilate nutrients. This is made worse by the nutrient depleted state of our food. One very common nutrient deficiency in people with gut issues is Vitamin D. The best way to compensate for all of this is with a very nutrient-dense diet. 

TLDR: Many people (especially those with gut issues) will benefit from making a conscious effort to eat extra nutrient dense foods. This includes things that inherently contain more nutrients, like sprouts, super fruits, and organ meet. It also includes sourcing from small scale, biodynamic and permaculture farms wherever possible as they tend to be grown in more nutrient-rich soil. 

Principal 3

People who eat a wide variety of fibers + prebiotics have healthier, more diverse microbial communities in their colon. A 2018 study of more than 10,000 people concluded that people who ate 30 or more unique plant foods each week have the healthiest microbiomes. In addition, polyphenols (represented by the colors you find in food, for example the bright red of a raspberry or the orange of a carrot) have also been shown to feed the beneficial bacteria in the gut. Gut bacteria love when you eat a rainbow. They want variety. Why? Because every strain and species of bacteria have different food preferences. So in order to keep a large variety of them alive and well inside us, we want to feed them all their favorite foods.

TLDR: Eat rainbows everyday, and vary what you eat.

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