Easy Ways to Boost the Good Bacteria in Your Child’s Gut

By Unknown February 16, 2018

Hi, guys! Happy Friday! I can’t wait to tell you guys about these super easy ideas for boosting the good bacteria in you and your child’s gut!

I’m so glad the weekend is just about here because the Haupert family is on vacation! Woohoo! Starting tonight with Disney on Ice, we have a jam-packed weekend before we leave for Scottsdale on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, Murphy won’t be making the trek to Arizona (he’d lose his mind on a plane), but he’ll be staying with our favorite babysitter-turned-pug-sitter for the week. She has a dog too, so Murphy always has a fun time!

This morning started with my go-to breakfast of the week: Iced coffee with a Banana Flax Protein Breakfast Cookie (with a little smear of peanut butter on top). I tend to pick one or two breakfasts to make throughout the week just so I don’t have to think about it in the morning. Then, by the time I’m sick of eating the same thing over and over again, it’s a new week, and I try something totally different. It’s a good way to keep breakfast easy and exciting!

So, I listened to the best podcast episode on the Wellness Mama (loving her content) last week: Decoding Autoimmune Disease with Dr. Tom O’Bryan. You guys know how obsessed I am with learning all things related to automimmune disease and even more so now that I have a tiny human to worry about. Dr. Tom O’Bryan shared so much awesome information, but I really appreciated his advice for what parents can do to help their kids potentially avoid autoimmune problems by boosting their microbiome and good bacteria in the gut. His ideas were super realistic and definitely kid-friendly, so just had to share!

Buy non-pasteurized fermented vegetables – There are many different flavors of fermented foods nowadays and you only need a little in your diet. As adults, he said one forkful a day is great. For kids, maybe a teaspoonful, and if they don’t like it, you can mix it into their mashed potatoes or other foods,so they won’t taste it. I actually bought some fermented orange ginger carrots at Whole Foods last week and successfully mixed a tiny bit into a smoothie for Qman. Some is better than none, right? I’ve also added at least a forkful to my own meals. They’re actually really good!

Serve root vegetables – Get turnips, parsnips, rutabaga, yellow beets, red beets, carrots, sweet potatoes – even if you don’t know what to do with them! Then have one or two root vegetables every day as part of the meals that you prepare for your family. Sweet potato wedges? Parsnip fries? Just serve them with ketchup, right? 🙂 I’ve been making a big sheet pan of root veggies and then just storing them in the fridge to reheat as needed. Why root veggies? Root vegetables are prebiotics. The good bacteria in your gut are probiotics. The root vegetables are the prebiotics that feed the probiotics.

Make homemade applesauce – Here’s Dr. O’Bryan’s quick tutorial: Take 4 apples, dice ’em up, throw ’em in a pot, pour water in to about one-third the level of the apples, add some cinnamon and a few raisins, and then bring the water to a boil for about 5 to 8 minutes until the skin of the apple starts to glisten. When it starts to glisten, turn it off. That’s it. Easy as that! The glistening means that you are releasing the pectin from the apples so that it’s easily accessible. When you eat the applesauce, the pectin triggers increased production of good bacteria in your gut. He said this is especially helpful after giving kids antibiotics.

Don’t you love these ideas? They’re so simple and such a great way to help boost your family’s gut health! 🙂