The Nuance
The World’s Healthiest Foods Are Missing From Your Diet
When was the last time you ate barley, millet, or buckwheat?
The study’s design was simple: Every day for four weeks, people ate a serving of either whole grain barley, whole grain brown rice, or both. They changed nothing else about their diets or lifestyle.
At the end of those four weeks, fecal samples revealed that the people’s microbiomes had undergone healthy changes; bacterial diversity had improved, and populations of several beneficial gut microorganisms had expanded. Meanwhile, blood samples showed a reduction in some biomarkers of inflammation, as well as evidence of heathier glucose and insulin responses.
“We showed that whole grains have a significant effect on the composition of the fecal microbiota that coincided with metabolic and immunological improvements,” the study authors wrote in the paper detailing their findings.
That study, published in 2012, was one of the first to show that whole grain foods may promote healthy microbiome shifts. But it’s just one in a long line of research efforts that have tied whole grain foods to health benefits — which is why pretty much very major public health organization in the world recommends that people eat more of these foods.
