After a Vacation, Reset Your Gut Microbiome with a Vegetable Bean Soup

When I come home after a vacation, I make a special effort to eat many DIFFERENT whole plant foods in order to help my gut microbiome recover from having eaten too few plants while I was away. Research has shown that if we eat 30 or more plants a week, we help to improve the diversity and health of our gut microbiome.

The gut microbiome is made up of trillions of different microbes which promote the health of your digestive, nervous, immune and endocrine systems. To help these microbes survive and thrive, you need to feed them the food they eat and that’s fiber and polyphenols, both of which are only found in plant foods.

There are thousands of different fibers and polyphenols and about 500 different species of gut microbes, each of which feeds on specific fibers or polyphenols. So the best way to feed ALL of your gut microbes is to eat a wide VARIETY of whole plant foods.

Enjoy this simple vegetable bean soup along with a few seeded crackers and give your gut microbes a feast of 26+ different plants!

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Vegetable Bean Soup with Seeded Crackers

• 1 jar Trader Joe’s Garden Vegetable Soup (contains 16 different plants)
• 1 jar or can of beans (contains one or more different beans)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Chopped fresh cilantro or parsley (optional)
• Squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice (optional)

Directions: Mix the quantity of soup and beans you want in a serving bowl or in your own soup bowl. Heat in the microwave or on the stovetop. Garnish with olive oil and cilantro or parsley. Add a spritz of lemon or lime juice, if desired.
Serve with Trader Joe’s Seeds & Grains Crispbread.
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Trader Joe’s Garden Vegetable Soup
This Trader Joe’s soup contains real foods and no ultra processed ingredients, such as modified starch, a common ingredient in many soups, including organic soups. The sole purpose of these ultra processed ingredients is to make cheap food taste better and last longer. Unfortunately, we are only beginning to know what damage these ultra processed ingredients do to our bodies!

Note: I have not done an extensive search for vegetable soups that do not have ultra processed ingredients. If you know of any other soups that do not contain ultra processed ingredients, please leave a comment to let us all know. Thanks!

Jovial Beans
Jovial beans are high quality organic beans that have been pressure cooked in small batches and canned in glass jars. I like the just-right firmness of the beans and how clear and clean the bean liquid is. Jovial beans come from Italy and are available in most supermarkets. Amazon Fresh sells them for a lower price than most stores.

Trader Joe’s Seeds & Grains Crispbread
In our local Trader Joe’s, there are two varieties of these delicious crackers, but only this variety is pictured on the company’s website. I prefer the other variety, Seeds and Grains Crispbread, the one that’s not shown on the website. It contains sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, wholemeal rye flour, oat bran, oatmeal, flaxseed, spelt wheat bran, wheat bran, water, sea salt, salt, oregano, thyme, for a total of 9 different plant foods, though only the seeds and spices are whole plant foods. These crackers are made in Norway.
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If on vacation you do not eat a sufficient quantity and variety of plant foods, your microbiome is going suffer a setback. No worries! You can rehabilitate your microbiome by eating lots of whole plant foods like the ones discussed here and many others. Also, consuming fermented foods, in small amounts and frequently during the day, will help your microbiome to reboot. In addition, make sure to have plenty of water because if you eat more fiber you need more water.

Note: If you are someone who normally does not eat a lot of foods with fiber, go slow and increase your fiber intake gradually. You may want to work with a dietitian to help you do this.

If you find this post useful or have any questions, please leave a comment so we can all benefit from your thoughts.

Thanks and all the best,
Leni

On this blog, I mention specific products in order to make the information more practical. I realize that some people do not have access to the products. So my hope is that for those people, the products will serve as guideposts for their shopping. I am not affiliated with Trader Joe’s. Also, I am not compensated in any way for any product I mention.

Purple Barley – Love it!

Like oats, barley is rich in beta glucans, a type of soluble fiber that has an impressive list of health benefits: good for gut health, helps to lower blood cholesterol, improves blood sugar control and immune health.

I love cooked barley (and other whole grains, too)! My favorite barley (so far, anyway) is Timeless Natural Food USDA Certified Organic Semi-Pearled Purple Prairie Barley. This Timeless heirloom barley is semi-pearled, meaning a portion of the outer bran has been removed. This barley is originally from Tibet and it’s purplish in color, which indicates that it contains anthocyanins. Anthocyanins have many health benefits.

Today I cooked up some of this wonderful barley. I followed the cooking instructions on the package, but simmered the barley for less time than specified, because I like it a bit chewy and because I will be adding it to cooked dishes that get reheated before serving. How much less time did I cook it for? I can’t say exactly. But when the grains started to look plump, I cut one of the grains open with my front teeth to check to see what the center looked like, and I continued to do this until I could see that the center of the barley was just a tad uncooked — just a slight white line remained in the center of the grain.

Also, I added a little oil to the pot so the grains would stay separate. When the barely was cooked to my liking, I drained off the extra liquid and put that aside. Then I cooled the barley as rapidly as as possible by fanning it out and up the slanted sides of this wide bowl. I waited until the barely was cool and then I put it into a plastic freezer bag. A little trick: Place your plastic bag on a thin cutting board (or some hard flat surface that you can move around), add the cooled cooked barley and then spread out the grains to fill the bag. Place the cutting board with the bag of grains lying on top of it into the freezer.

I saved the barley’s cooking water which was dark purple-brown in color so I can use the next time I make a soup, stew or chili.

Now I can’t wait for tomorrow’s breakfast because I know I am going to love the texture that this almost-ready-to-burst barley will add to my “overnight oats.” (I’ll write about my overnight oats in another post.) Goodnight!