Digestive Health

Prebiotics Help Reduce Anxiety When Taken Daily, Says New Study

Prebiotics are insoluble fibers that, when ingested, help to nourish the beneficial bacteria in the gut. New evidence suggests that when consumed daily, prebiotics help reduce anxiety and boost overall mental health. Find out how you can help your gut microbiome by incorporating more prebiotics into your diet.

What’s the Difference Between Prebiotics and Probiotics?

While certain bacteria are harmful to your health, there are also strands of bacteria that are beneficial to your health. These helpful types of bacteria thrive in the intestines, and they form a community known as the gut microbiome. The helpful bacteria that exists in the foods we eat are called probiotics. By eating a broader range of natural foods that contain probiotics, you help to increase the population of helpful bacteria in your gut. A more diverse selection of probiotics in your gut helps to manage weight, boost the immune system and regulate many other biological functions throughout the body.

However, the “‘friendly” bacteria in your gut need nutrition to thrive and grow just like any other type of living organisms, and this is where prebiotics come in. Some of the plant-based foods we eat also contain certain types of fiber and other natural compounds that the human body can’t digest, which are known as prebiotics. Fortunately, the bacteria in your gut needs these compounds to survive.

Eating foods rich in prebiotic compounds will help grow the population of probiotics in your gut by giving them the sustenance they need to grow and multiply. In this way, probiotics and prebiotics form a process that’s beneficial to gut health and other aspects of your overall health. It also means that failing to eat enough foods that are rich in prebiotics can adversely affect your health by reducing the diverse range of probiotics in your gut.

How Can Prebiotics Help Reduce Anxiety?

The relationship between prebiotics and probiotics is important to understand in terms of mental health due to the recent findings in anxiety research. Even before the latest evidence was uncovered, researchers found that probiotics affect the brain’s ability to regulate mood. Additionally, probiotics are responsible for helping to manage stress before it has an opportunity to affect physical and emotional health. While it’s more commonly known that insufficient probiotics in the diet can lead to digestive disorders, including irritable bowel syndrome, it has also been found to increase the chances of developing depression, Alzheimer’s disease and other types of mental and emotional health problems.

Newer research has focused on how prebiotics help reduce anxiety when they are included as a consistent part of one’s diet. A recent study, conducted at the UK’s University of Surrey, focused on how prebiotic-rich foods affected a group of 64 healthy women between the ages of 18 and 25.

In the study, the group of women was divided in half with 32 receiving a daily prebiotic supplement. The women in the other group were given a placebo. Emotional health status among the women was evaluated by administering questionnaires to the subjects in both groups. The surveys inquired about mood changes, feelings of anxiety and sleep difficulties. The participants were also required to provide fecal samples to help researchers determine the health of each woman’s gut microbiome.

After 28 days, researchers found that the women taking the prebiotic supplements exhibited better gut health and reduced levels of anxiety. The women in the other group exhibited no changes in gut health or emotional health.

Dr. Kathrin Cohen Kadosh, who headed up the research project, concluded that the findings provided hope for improving both gut health and emotional health. She said that adding a prebiotic supplement to one’s daily routine could strengthen gut health, while also improving mental health. There’s also hope that this discovery may lead to new treatments for emotional and cognitive health problems in the future.

How Can You Add More Prebiotics to Your Diet?

There are a two primary ways to ensure you are getting sufficient amounts of beneficial prebiotics in your daily diet.

Take a Daily Supplement

You can directly introduce more prebiotics and probiotics into your gut by taking a high-quality daily supplement. Be sure to look for a supplement that contains a healthy supply of both probiotics and prebiotics, such as Florachron. This will ensure that you’re receiving all of the nutrients your gut needs to thrive and support your overall health.

Eat More Prebiotic-Rich Foods

Essentially, look to incorporate prebiotic foods that have high amounts of natural fiber and natural carbohydrates. The body converts the fiber and carbs into butyrate, which is a short-chain fatty acid. Butyrate is used by the bacteria in the gut for nourishment.

The best foods to eat for their prebiotic content are:

legumes and beans
peas
bananas
berries
asparagus
garlic, leeks and onions

Probiotics and prebiotics are not found in the same foods, making it important to develop a diet that includes a broad range of foods. For probiotics, you’ll need to eat more fermented foods, such as plain yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi and unpasteurized pickles. Any fermented food you eat should be unpasteurized since the pasteurization process kills the beneficial bacteria in the food.

While research into the gut microbiome’s affects on mental health continues, we already know that a diverse gut microbiome positively impacts cognitive functioning, mood and emotional health. By taking steps to create a more diverse population of bacteria in your gut, you can improve many different aspects of your health, including alleviating anxiety and stress.

7 Little-Known Gut Microbiome Facts

Apr 19 by Ewcopywriting

Chances are, you have heard of the “gut microbiome,” and may even have a general idea about its purpose and the importance of maintaining a healthy balance of beneficial bacteria in your gut. But there is a good chance that you were not aware of these seven lesser-known gut microbiome facts.

What Exactly is the Gut Microbiome?

Your gut microbiome consists of the various bacteria, fungi, viruses and other tiny organisms that live inside your intestines. These microbes are primarily found inside a small pocket of the large intestine known as the cecum. Collectively, the microbes present in the large intestine are known by scientists as the gut microbiome.

Even though there may be up to 1,000 different types of bacteria species in a person’s gut microbiome, each kind plays a crucial role in protecting your overall health. While they are all microscopic individually, taken as a whole, they can weigh up to five pounds.

Gut Microbiome Facts

Now that you have a basic understanding of the gut microbiome, here are seven interesting gut microbiome facts that most people do not know about this important body system.

1. The Gut Microbiome Can Alter How Well Your Medication Works

Researchers have found that it is not uncommon for your gut bacteria to interfere with the effectiveness of medications. Not only may the state of your microbiome reduce the efficacy of important medications, but it could also render medications toxic in certain circumstances.

2. People with Fibromyalgia Have Different Gut Bacteria

Scientists in Canada were recently able to shed a little light on how women with fibromyalgia have different types of gut bacteria than those without this disease. The study found that a patient’s symptoms demonstrated a direct link to an increased amount or a significant absence of particular types of bacteria in the gut. This breakthrough will hopefully make it easier for doctors to diagnose this condition more quickly and may even help medical researchers to discover new treatments.

3. Certain Gut Bacteria Can Help Protect Against Food Allergies

Promoting a healthy gut microbiome may also help to protect against deadly food allergies. Research has shown that babies and children that suffer from food allergies are often missing particular species of gut bacteria. This revelation may provide clues to scientists as to the best ways to treat food allergies. For example, rather than using traditional oral immunotherapy treatments, it may be more beneficial to focus on introducing missing strands of gut bacteria to the patient’s microbiome.

4. The Quality of Your Diet Affects Your Microbiome

What you eat can also have a significant effect on the proper function of your gut microbiome. Being intentional about nourishing your body with a healthy and varied diet will boost the number of good bacteria in your intestine. Conversely, regularly eating foods that are void of nutritional value may increase the amount of harmful bacteria that reside in your gut. The best foods to eat if your goal is to improve the health of your gut microbiome includes naturally fermented foods, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables and whole grains.

5. The Gut Microbiome May Play a Role in Prostate Cancer

As one of the most common types of cancer in men, prostate cancer is also the second leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. This makes it vitally important to find ways to better diagnose and treat this deadly cancer. A recent study found that men with diagnosed prostate cancer had less microbial diversity than men without prostate cancer. While this does not prove a causal effect, the knowledge could be helpful in diagnosing this type of cancer.

6. Gut Microbes Have Been Shown to Help Extinguish Fear in Mice

An experiment performed on mice has shown a clearer connection between the gut and the brain. The research detailed how microbes located in the intestine of the mice are capable of influencing the ability to unlearn certain fear responses. The results of the study showed that mice who had reduced gut microbes were not able to ascertain if a threat was present, showing a connection between the often misunderstood gut-brain axis.

7. Your Blood Type Helps Co-determine the Composition of Your Gut Microbiome

A study out of Kiel University has recently established a connection between the genetic variations that are responsible for your blood type and the occurrence of some of the bacteria that reside in the gut. These results show that an individual’s genetics are a key factor that affect the bacteria in the gut. This revelation proves that the gut microbiome is more than just a group of microorganisms that are influenced by the outside environment. Instead, your blood type and genetics can also influence this collection of helpful bacteria.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding the gut microbiome. Digging deeper into the inner workings of the gut microbiome has also posed new questions that scientists will continue to explore to gain a better understanding of many health issues. This fascinating biological system holds many clues as to how you can achieve optimal health and wellness by working to maintain optimal gut microbiome health.

Research Indicates Modern Life Destroys Gut Microbiome

Mar 19 by Ewcopywriting

As more research becomes available, it is becoming clear that modern life destroys gut microbiome, contributing to a variety of health issues in the process.

What is the Gut Microbiome?

The gut microbiome is the term used to refer to the ecosystem of living things that exist in the large intestine and throughout your gut. This microbiome is home to trillions of bacteria, fungi and viruses. Today’s dietary preferences and modern life destroys gut microbiome, leading to a myriad of problems. The promising news is that there are steps that you can take today to encourage and support a healthy balance of bacteria throughout your digestive tract.

Why it is Important to Maintain a Healthy Gut Microbiome

The bacteria in our bodies play an integral role in the functioning of the gut. While many people think that a well-oiled gut microbiome is there to just break down food, this system is also responsible for a host of other bodily functions. In fact, many physicians will start to explore the health of your gut as a first step in isolating, diagnosing and treating a wide variety of concerns.

Gut health has a significant effect on the function of your immune system, digestive activity, sleep patterns and more. By taking steps to boost the function of your gut microbiome, you can improve your overall health and well-being. This includes your physical health as well as your emotional and mental health.

How Modern Life Destroys Gut Microbiome

In recent years, scientists have begun to discover how modern life destroys gut microbiome. A 2009 study demonstrated how increased consumption of processed foods is a major contributing factor to a weakened microbiome. This includes eating too much conventionally raised meats.

In addition, the overuse of antibiotics is also a significant reason why people may be having issues with their gut. Numerous studies have shed light on the fact that children who take too many antibiotics early in life are at a greater risk of developing celiac disease, obesity, asthma and more. Other factors that reduce the ability of the body to harbor healthy bacteria include the overuse of pesticides and reliance on antimicrobial products.

Doctors also point out that a proclivity in recent times to more cesarean births could potentially minimize the number of healthy microbes that a newborn brings into their system as they pass through the birth canal. Without this passage, the baby is not likely to receive as many as these healthy bacteria, negatively affecting the gut microbiome.

Steps to Take to Encourage a Healthy Gut Microbiome

It is important to understand that the gut microbiome is a fluid entity. Everyone has an individual gut microbiome profile unique to their body and lifestyle. The makeup of your gut microbiome changes over time. It is also possible to take steps to influence the microbiome so that it is functioning at optimal levels. Here are just a few ways that you can encourage a healthy gut microbiome for better health.

Choose the Right Foods

What you eat has a profound effect on the health of your gut microbiome. Choosing foods that are high in fiber should be your first step in improving this system. It is also a good idea to incorporate fermented foods, such as kefir and yogurt, into your diet on a regular basis. Eating prebiotic foods, including bananas, oats and apples, will also promote the development of healthy bacteria in the gut. In the end, you want to choose a varied diet that is rich in whole grains, polyphenols and vegetables if supporting a healthy microbiome is important to you.

Take a Probiotic Supplement

Probiotics deliver living and helpful bacteria into your gut. Taking a supplement that provides probiotics can go a long way towards maintaining a healthy gut microbiome.

Breastfeed

If you are considering having children, you can promote a healthy gut microbiome by breastfeeding your new infant. Research has shown that babies who are breastfed for a period of at least six months build up greater amounts of the beneficial Bifidobacteria compared to infants that are bottle-fed.

Avoid Temptation to Over-sanitize

It is important to keep in mind that the presence of bad bacteria helps to train your body to recognize what is a true danger. The overuse of sanitizing products deprives the immune system of the chance to react appropriately. Over-sanitizing can possibly lead to bacteria resistance and contribute to the development of superbugs. While you should wash your hands before eating and after using the bathroom, it is better to resist the temptation to over-sanitize.

Limit Use of Antibiotics

In addition to limiting your use of sanitizing products, you should also be wary of leaning on antibiotics too much. Antibiotics are not able to discriminate between good bacteria and bad bacteria, killing the productive bacteria in the process. This is why many physicians recommend taking a probiotic supplement when on antibiotics.

Understanding how your lifestyle may be negatively impacting your gut microbiome and what you can do to keep it in proper alignment will encourage good overall health across a multitude of body functions.

Leveraging Probiotics for Weight Loss

Mar 01 by Ewcopywriting

Obesity is one of the most common health conditions throughout the world. Being overweight can lead to a host of chronic medical conditions that may shorten your life expectancy and cause serious issues as you age. As such, the medical community is always looking for ways to combat this growing health crisis. In recent years, the use of probiotics has emerged as a potential way to encourage weight loss and live a healthier lifestyle. Here is what you need to know about probiotics and how you can leverage this to shed that weight once and for all.

What Are Probiotics?

To understand how to use probiotics for weight loss, you need to learn more about these live microorganisms. Some foods boast naturally occurring probiotics while other products intentionally include this feature for health purposes. The most common way that most people get their probiotics is through the use of dedicated supplements. These supplements offer significant doses of live bacteria, most commonly in the form of Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria. These live bacteria are primarily known for their ability to boost the presence of healthy gut bacteria.

Benefits of Probiotics

Over the last few decades, scientists have zeroed in on how probiotics can be instrumental in boosting the function of the body’s immune system, lowering levels of harmful inflammation and aiding in the ability of the nervous system to work at optimal levels of productivity. In addition, some research has also demonstrated that the use of probiotics may be beneficial when treating certain skin and oral conditions.

Probiotics are also the star when it comes to improving your gut health. A balanced gut microbiome is essential to your overall health and wellness. The connection between gut and brain health has suggested that probiotics may prove useful in treating some types of anxiety and depression.

Leveraging Probiotics for Weight Loss

One of the most exciting emerging benefits of probiotics is how these supplements may be able to aid in weight loss efforts. Recent research has shown that the risk of obesity can be related to the gut microbial dysbiosis.

Because they are active microorganisms, probiotics are known for their ability to regulate and improve the gut’s microecosystem. This may lower levels of chronic inflammation and oxidative stress. As a result, probiotics may be instrumental in preventing and treating obesity through their ability to regulate and support the gut microbiota.

Additionally, the use of probiotics is believed to improve sensitivity to insulin. The live microorganisms may also positively influence your appetite and metabolism.

A 2019 study out of China looked at 12 randomized controlled trials to determine the effects of probiotics on obesity. The findings of the meta-analysis found that 10 of the studies demonstrated changes in body weight, 11 showed positive reductions in BMI, eight studies reported a change in the circumference of the waist measurements and nine studies showed reductions in fat mass with six demonstrating a change in fat percentage.

Protecting Against Weight Gain

An additional study demonstrated that the use of probiotics may also guard against future weight gain. A study of 20 men in 2015 gave the participants a multi-strain probiotic over the course of four weeks as they followed a high caloric and high fat diet. The men on the probiotic gained 3.12 pounds as compared to 5.06 pounds for the participants who took the placebo. All of the men were at a healthy weight when the trial started.

Because obesity is such a widespread health issue for nearly any developed nation, the results of this research could have potentially significant advantages in the battle against the bulge.

Incorporating Probiotics Into Your Diet

Up until the time when the use of supplements became mainstream, health-conscious individuals were forced to get their probiotics from food. The most common food that people turn to for probiotics is yogurt. However, it is important to note that not all yogurt contains live probiotics. Because of this, you need to be intentional about choosing yogurt that contains active or live cultures.

Other good sources of probiotics include sauerkraut, kimchi, tempeh, kefir, pickles and some types of cheese. Clearly, not everyone enjoys a steady diet of these types of foods. If this is the case, you can turn to a high-quality supplement that provides both probiotics and prebiotics to ensure that you are getting adequate amounts of probiotics into your daily diet. For some individuals, this is a much easier way to ensure adequate amounts of probiotics to promote weight loss.

Regardless of whether you are looking to lose weight or improve your gut microbiome, it is likely worth your time and monetary investment to explore how probiotics can boost your overall health and meet all of your wellness goals.

Research Update: Gut Microbes Influence Mood, Bone Strength and Cancer Risk

Jan 22 by Ewcopywriting

In recent years, a great deal of new information has been uncovered by scientists regarding the role of the gut microbiome in overall health and well-being. That body of information is rapidly expanding as scientists increase their understanding of just how vital maintaining a healthy gut microbiome is to immune system function, disease prevention, heart health and optimal mental health. New information links gut microbes to bone strength, mood and cancer risk. Diet is a major influence on gut microbiome health, underscoring the critical importance of healthy eating.

How Gut Microbes Impact Mood

While there are already established links between gut microbiota and brain functioning and mood disorders, a new study suggests yet another connection. Published by the North American Menopause Society (NAMS), the study found a connection between the amount of fiber in the diet and the risk of depression in premenopausal women. Researchers attributed this to the link between dietary fiber and gut microbiome health, as well as the role of gut-brain interactions in mood regulation and brain function.

According to the study, postmenopausal women didn’t experience as much depression risk reduction connected to dietary fiber as the premenopausal women did. Researchers suggested that this has to do with the way estrogen impacts the balance of gut bacteria, pointing to the difference in estrogen levels between the two categories of women. This study confirmed the importance of diverse and balanced gut bacteria.

The Role of Gut Microbes in Bone Strength

A number of studies have demonstrated that the gut microbiome plays a role in bone strength. Researchers have found that gut bacteria are involved in the modification of bone tissue, impacting overall bone strength. Gut microbiota also have a role in the regulation of bone density loss as estrogen levels decrease.

Researchers using mice demonstrated with fecal transplants containing segmented filamentous bacteria (SFB), a gut microbe that breaks down bone, that the gut microbiome can affect bone structure and density. The eventual goal of such research is to improve treatments for diseases and chronic health conditions that target the bones, such as osteoporosis.

Gut Bacteria and Cancer Risk

Microbial balance and a robustly diverse, healthy gut microbiome are important for keeping undesirable microbes in check. Enterotoxigenic Bacteroides fragilis (ETBF), a microbe typically located in the colon, has been connected to increased breast cancer risk, as well as to colon cancer. In animal studies involving mice, colonizing their breasts or gut tissue with this microbe consistently resulted in tumor cell growth and metastatic progression of those cells.

In another intriguing cancer related study, researchers found some evidence that a healthy gut microbiome may contribute to better breast cancer outcomes in relation to chemotherapy treatment success. This was a very small study, involving just 42 women; 21 with early stage breast cancer and 21 healthy women. However, the results have led researchers to plan further research and larger studies.

Gut Bacteria Impacts Numerous Health Issues

Scientists have connected the health of the gut microbiome to a wide range of health conditions. These include type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity. Some studies show that gut microbiome health can even influence how severely a person is impacted by Covid-19. People who had to be hospitalized due to severe Covid-19 symptoms were more likely to have a less healthy gut microbiome and a poor balance between good and bad gut bacteria. That probably relates to the role of gut bacteria in immune system function, which is essential to fighting off illness and disease.

New research, building on established links to cognitive development and function, indicates that the gut microbiome may even play an important role in the sleep-wake cycle, influencing the circadian rhythm and the production of serotonin and dopamine. Part of the influence of gut bacteria in these processes has to do with their role in the chemical reactions involved in the production of those substances, as well as their part in the chemical reactions that help make up the brain’s communication system.

A Healthy Diet is Essential to Gut Health

The daily diet is the key element when it comes to the health of the gut microbiome. In fact, researchers have been able to connect specific microbes to specific foods. In the future, that may be able to help produce detailed, food-specific diets to help people with a high risk of a particular disease reduce that risk via modification of their gut bacteria. The typical Western diet, all too often based heavily on overly processed foods, tends to be high in fat and sugar, and low in fiber and nutrition. This diet damages the diversity of gut bacteria that is so essential to overall health and well being.

Feed Your “Health Partners” Well

Your gut bacteria operate as important partners in your physical health, mental well-being and cognitive function. Feed them – and yourself – well for optimal health. Enjoy a varied, diverse diet and you’ll have a diverse collection of gut bacteria. Include real, whole foods, including plenty of fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes and beans in the daily diet. Reduce the use of highly processed foods with a goal of eliminating them altogether. Taking a high-quality supplement that provides both prebiotics and probiotics can also help promote a healthy balance of gut bacteria. Ensuring you are feeding your body what it needs to keep your gut microbiome healthy and diverse will undoubtedly improve your overall health.

Gut Bacteria May Hold the Key to Maximizing Vitamin D Benefits

Jan 07 by Ewcopywriting

In recent years, the understanding of the role of vitamin D in immune system functioning has greatly expanded. Numerous studies have connected low vitamin D levels to a wide variety of chronic conditions and diseases. Yet, clinical research trials of vitamin D supplements have revealed inconsistent results. A new study out of the University of California suggests a link between the active form of vitamin D and gut bacteria diversity, which may play a role in explaining those inconsistencies.

The Supplement Question

Aside from its role in building strong teeth and bones, vitamin D is essential to immune system functioning. Diabetes, heart disease and cancer have all been associated with low levels of vitamin D. Clinical studies have demonstrated that deficiencies in vitamin D have been linked to a higher risk of autoimmune diseases, respiratory ailments and, in some studies, worse Covid-19 outcomes.

Yet, when running clinical trials to test the efficacy of vitamin D supplements, the results have been inconsistent, with some studies even failing to show any benefit at all. Naturally, in the face of so much evidence connecting vitamin D to health and disease prevention, researchers want to know why there are inconsistencies in clinical results regarding vitamin D supplementation.

The Link Between Vitamin D and Gut Bacteria Diversity

The Vitamin D that we consume in food and supplements must be processed by the body to become bio-available. In the liver and kidneys, vitamin D is converted to calcitriol, a usable, or hormonally active, form of the nutrient. The standard vitamin D tests measure the amount of this fat-soluble nutrient that has been stored by the body. Thus, the test measures what could be called the precursor to active vitamin D.

In the study, researchers measured three elements – the precursor to active vitamin D, the active vitamin D and the substance produced by the breaking down of the nutrient. They found a correlation between those with greater gut bacteria diversity and those with higher levels of the active form of vitamin D. Researchers also noticed that more diverse gut bacteria was also associated with higher levels of butyrate. This substance is a short-chain fatty acid that results from the process of digesting fiber that may yield a number of health benefits, including helping to prevent insulin resistance and colon cancer.

While this study does have its limitations, including a focus on older white males, the results are intriguing. Maintaining a diverse array of gut bacteria may hold the key to maximizing the health benefits associated with vitamin D by promoting efficient conversion to the active form. It is important to note that correlation isn’t cause. More research will have to be done in this regard.

Gut Bacteria and Health

Maintaining healthy gut bacteria diversity is an essential part of immune system health and brain health. Through their work in the body, for example in the digestive process, these bacteria play a critical role in a vast number of chemical reactions within the body. These chemical reactions encompass a wide range of critical activities, including extracting nutrients from food and converting those nutrients into forms that the body can use. Chemical reactions are also involved in the messaging and other functions of the central nervous system. Having less diversity in gut bacteria is associated with a number of chronic health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, obesity and autoimmune diseases.

Varied, Real Food Diet

The typical, modern American diet, incorporating far too many highly processed foods, has had a negative impact on gut bacteria diversity. Some studies show that artificial sweeteners and food additives, such as emulsifiers, also have a negative impact on gut bacteria balance and diversity. One of the most important steps to reestablishing a more healthy gut bacteria diversity is to eliminate highly processed foods and chemical food additives from the diet to the greatest degree possible.

The more varied the diet is, the greater the diversity can be expected in the gut bacteria. Choose whole grains and add plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables to the daily diet. Increase consumption of legumes, beans and probiotic foods. Some probiotic foods to consider incorporating into the daily diet include live-culture yogurt and fermented favorites, like sauerkraut and kimchi.

Diets don’t change overnight, so while working towards a healthier diet, consider taking a probiotic supplement. Some supplements combine prebiotics with probiotics, helping to improve the bacterial environment and diversity more efficiently. Antibiotics can kill off bacteria rather indiscriminately, so taking a good probiotic supplement after a course of antibiotics can be a smart health move.

Diversity For Better Health

The new University of California study linking active vitamin D and gut bacteria diversity adds to the growing body of evidence pointing to the importance of gut bacteria to health. In terms of overall health and well-being, including brain health and immune system functioning, the evidence is clear. Gut bacteria diversity is an essential part of good health. Fortunately, improving that diversity is well within the grasp of the average person via better food choices.