India Harridge
The gut microbiome is taking the dieting world by storm. Containing trillions of tiny organisms called microbes which are made up of bacteria, viruses and fungi, the microbiome is crucial to digestive, and overall health. So how does the microbiome work? As your body breaks down the food you eat, they are converted into chemicals. These chemicals are essential in the prevention of blood clotting and diseases. Everyone’s microbiome is different, so it becomes difficult to consider what is ‘healthy’ for the gut microbe. However, your diet has a great influence on your gut microbiome. Below, India Harridge discusses the pros and cons of different diets, their effect on the gut microbe and how the promotion of specific gut health diets can potentially do more harm than good.
The Mediterranean Diet:
If there is one diet with a good guarantee, the Mediterranean diet is it. No calorie counting, no restrictions, and no bland meals. The Mediterranean diet emphasises the importance of fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, olive oil and seafood, essentially eating a balanced diet.
So what are the benefits?
- Easy to follow because of the variety of foods included.
- Tasty food.
- Opportunity to create colourful and vibrant meals that are exciting.
- High in fibre, which keeps you full for longer and less likely to snack.
But how does this diet affect your gut health? According to Forbes, a European study conducted on older adults found that after a year on the Mediterranean diet, their gut health improved. Signs of a healthier immune system improved cognitive thinking, and the reduction of ageing rapidly are key indicators of the positivity surrounding the Mediterranean diet.
Yet like any diet, there is often cause for misconceptions.
A content analysis on TikTok posts showed that around 20% of the videos focused on the Mediterranean culture and the aesthetics that are involved in this, instead of its health attributes.
A recent study found potential confusion over the term ‘Mediterranean diet’ as the varied diet is occasionally too broad. A content analysis on TikTok posts showed that around 20% of the videos focused on the Mediterranean culture and the aesthetics that are involved in this, instead of its health attributes. Many videos provide a variety of information which, although not harmful, could have the potential to confuse viewers and make the diet harder to follow.
This is why when a new diet starts to increase in popularity, the potential negative agenda that it could push, raises concern. So now that gut health is on the rise and different diets are being bulldozed into people’s lives, we all need to take a step back and look at the reality of these diets.
Food is displayed on a chopping board with no use of cutlery meaning that people are urged to eat with their hands.
The ‘Carnivore Diet’:
The ‘carnivore diet’ is a gut health-centred diet that has been rebranded to appeal to those of the younger generation, more susceptible to trends and closely resembles the keto diet. According to Jack Crosbie on Men’s Health, the “diet got some mainstream attention early this summer when big-name pseudo-intellectual Jordan Peterson endorsed it on Joe Rogan’s podcast.” The core idea of the diet is that it is an attempt to disconnect from outrageous diets that stress quantity over quality and switch to a diet that focuses on whole foods in their first form as ingredients. Even the type of dish used to contain the food has been scrapped from being over-complicated, the food is displayed on a chopping board with no use of cutlery meaning that people are urged to eat with their hands. Whilst the idea, in theory, is great because it forces people to eat food with no extra complications, in reality, it is only another branch of the fetishisation of aestheticism. This is because not only is there an official name for the diet that could be potentially misleading, whilst it is just eating 3 types of whole foods together, but when influencers with a large, impressionable following are showing their audience the food, the staple for the diet is that it must be on a chopping board and that it must be eaten in a certain kind of liberated, primal way, which is ironic because by forcing someone to eat in a liberated way, according to someone else’s definition of liberation, it forces people into conformity. So not only is this diet only another aesthetic but it is dangerous because people are not doing research into it because they are being told that these foods are the ‘essential’ food types that they can consume every day.
Whilst the gut and the gut microbiome have been extensively researched, there is still a lot of research to go and “only 10-20% of the bacteria in your gut microbiome will be shared with anyone else” meaning that one diet does not fit all, and that people’s bodies respond differently to different diets. Therefore, this diet which does contain significantly beneficial foods such as dairy, a healthy fat and a good source of iron, is only a diet that promotes three foods, which is not nearly enough for people who have a variation of tolerance levels for specific foods or food groups.
Primal desire
We know that the average Gen-Z consumer equates to a person who actively tries to adjust to the new ‘perfect’ on the market. But the danger here is that consumerism no longer means seeing something in someone and buying it, it has increased to seeing someone and adjusting one’s entire lifestyle to match this person or their aesthetic. Gen-Z are not casual consumers, we are obsessive by nature, meaning we alter our personalities to match a product, when a decade or two ago a product would be bought to enhance our personalities, not to contort them. Unfortunately, this does not stop at materialism but continues with the food that we put in our bodies and the habits that accompany them. In a recent UCL-led study from 2015, they found that “42 per cent of 14-year-old girls and boys said they had been trying to lose weight, compared with 30 per cent in 2005”, So whilst taking care of your gut is majorly beneficial, knowing where the limit is, is also of significant importance because whilst the gut is the second brain, the brain is still the first and the habits it learns to adjust to will always be of more importance.
India Harridge
Featured image courtesy of Maddi Bazzocco via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
In article image 1 courtesy of Zoshua Colah via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
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