The first step to promoting a healthy gut is to eat a healthy diet. I can’t stress this enough. You are what you eat is absolutely true. A healthy diet promotes healthy gut flora, which leads to a healthy gut mucosal blood barrier and healthy digestion, cognition, and immunity.

A healthy diet should supply the essential nutrients needed for optimal immune function, both in the gut and throughout the body. But it can be difficult to eat a healthy diet these days because we are inundated with unhealthy food choices that are readily available and often inexpensive.

Healthy food takes a little more work. It should consist of organic food sources free of refined sugar, salt, and oils. Healthy food should also be free of pesticides, insecticides, and herbicides.

In grocery stores, the healthy food is usually found around the perimeter: the produce section and the refrigerated sections. However, healthy food can also be mixed in with the conventional, less healthy food choices.

Therefore, you have to read labels. It takes a little extra work, but the effort is worth it. Any food that contains added sugars will not be healthy. You need to avoid those products. Fruits and vegetables as well as eggs, meat, chicken, and fish should not have sugar added to the finished product.

When buying animal products, it’s important that the animals not be raised with hormones. And it’s best to buy products from animals that were organically fed (the label should say that). Studies have shown organically raised animals provide a healthier food source compared to conventionally raised animals.

In regard to fish, I suggest only eating wild-caught product and avoiding farm raised. Most (if not all) Atlantic salmon are farm-raised. This means they live in pens and are fed food that is not organic. Farm-raised fish contain altered fatty acids that are not healthy for the human body.

Furthermore, farm-raised fish contain toxic chemicals and have lower nutrient levels. In the case of farm-raised salmon, coloring has also been added to make it more appealing.

Finally, farm-raised fish can contain high levels of organic pollutants such as forever chemicals that wreak havoc with the body’s metabolism.