It’s not as pretty as cruising a lovely Venetian canal, but let’s take a visit inside your intestines!  If you’ve been eating well it is likely that your large intestines houses a powerhouse of allies, trillions of little cells known as your microbiota, the more you know how to care for them, the better they can be at helping you unleash robust health.

Allow me take you on a cruise down the alimentary canal, that’s the medical term for the pathway our foods take that begins at your mouth and comes out at, well, the other end, take the ‘c’ off of ‘canal’ and you’ll get the picture.   Along this tour we will focus on the lower intestine, which is what should be home to a lush garden of a variety of friendly microbes that we refer to as our microbiota, or microbiome.  When we have a healthy microbiome, we’ll have a more robust immune system, better digestion, better moods and generally better overall health.  The probiotics coming from our foods (mostly fermented foods) will augment our resident flora of microbes.  The better we feed our microbial friends, with fruits, vegetables and healthy foods, the more beneficial molecules they will release into our systems, and all is well in the gastrointestinal world.