Five Meals to boost your microbiome in a week.
The word “microbiome” and its importance in health is everywhere these days, but what on earth is it? And how can we keep ours healthy without resorting to adding yet another supplement in?
The term microbiome is defined as the population of microorganisms in a particular environment and there are multiple different ones throughout the body (eg. on the skin, vagina, in the nose) but the one most commonly referred to - and the one I’m referring to here - is the gut microbiome. It’s health has an impact throughout the body with regard to digestion, energy, immune function, brain health and more. The careful balance of bacteria in the gut microbiome can be disrupted by a variety of factors such as poor dietary diversity, lack of probiotics, alcohol consumption, certain medications, lack of physical activity and stress.
One reasonably simple way to enhance the “health” of your gut microbiome is to eat a wide variety of fibre sources - the “optimum” number being 30 per week. This has the added benefit of also ensuring you are taking in a wide variety of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and ensuring you have plenty of fibre to maintain bowel health as well as guard against certain cancers.
Now, 30 DIFFERENT sources of fibre may sound impossible, but with some clever additions to common recipes you can achieve this in just 5 meals a week. Sound too good to be true? What if I also told you that I managed to adapt these recipes to ensure my children were happy eating them too? (The surprise bonus was that they also requested I make these meals every day!). So here we go, 5 meals that total OVER 30 sources of microbiome happy food…
Cottage pie with a twist - (8 veg) - Ingredients: Red lentils, white onion, carrot, peas, spinach, wild garlic, potato, sweet potato. Method: Pop your potatoes on to boil while you sweat down your finely diced vegetables in a little oil of choice then add a cup of lentils with an equal amount of water and simmer for 5-10 minutes before turning off the heat and covering. Make your mash and once the lentil/veg mix is ready, assemble your pie as usual. I like to make this one early in the week and then freeze any leftover portions for easy lunches later on.
Roasted butternut squash soup with sourdough - (5 veg) - Ingredients: Butternut squash, garlic, onion, pepper, tomato. Method: Half your butternut squash, onion, tomatoes and pepper (discard any seeds), crush and peel your garlic. Add it all to a baking dish and drizzle a little olive oil over along with adding some mixed herbs, and salt/pepper to your preference. Bake for 45-60 minutes (until all veg are tender), then transfer to a food processor along with 1 litre of veg stock or water (bonus points for bone broth) and blend. I like to use a large handful of herbs for this one to get bonus fibre in and you can also change it up by varying the flavours you use - it also goes well with paprika, turmeric and cumin.
Veg biryani (7 veg) - Ingredients: Basmati rice, broccoli, quinoa, mushrooms, french beans, courgette, leek. Method: Add your prepared broccoli, mushrooms, beans and courgette to a large frying pan or wok along with a little oil of choice and gently sweat for a few minutes. Add any herbs and spices that you’d like - I tend to go with ginger, cumin, coriander and garlic powder for this one. Then add half a cup of rice and half a cup of quinoa along with 1 cup of water, mix well and simmer for 10 minutes. remove from the heat, cover until the rice and quinoa have absorbed all the water. Now stir and serve - this goes nicely with poppadoms or roti and a little natural yogurt.
Quick and easy Stir fry - (7 veg) - Ingredients: Savoy cabbage, beef (leave out for vegetarian option), mushrooms, rice noodles, beansprouts, water chestnuts, grated carrot, spinach. Method: If you are using meat finely slice and add to a hot wok or large frying pan to cook. Add your rice noodles to a pan and cover with boiling water then put a lid on it and put it aside. Finely slice your veg and grate your carrot then add these along with the beansprouts and drained water chestnuts, to your wok with your preferred flavourings (I use ginger, five spice and sesame oil). Drain your rice noodles which should now be cooked and serve. This is one of my favourite mid-week meals as it’s super simple and can be rustled up in 10-15 minutes when the kids are starving after school clubs!
Buckwheat Nicoise salad with pink hummus (10 veg) - Ingredients: Iceberg lettuce, rocket/watercress, cucumber, tomatoes, egg, tuna, radish, buckwheat pasta, beetroot, butter beans. Method: Bring a pan of water to the boil and add your buckwheat pasta (you could also use lentil, pea, chickpea or rice pasta alternatives for variety). In another pan boil your eggs. While those are cooking prepare your salad and wizz up your pink hummus - take your drained butter beans and cooked beetroot and either add to a blender or mash in a bowl, adding seasoning to your preference (I like to add a little garlic infused olive oil). Then once all components are cooked/prepared assemble your very colourful meal.
Let me know how you get on with these - I’d love to see your meals so please do share/tag me on insta @fettlewell_therapies or fb @fettlwell or use the hashtag #fettlewellblog