​If you believe that probiotics are important for better gut health, would you be surprised to know that there are other foods called prebiotics that may be even more important?  If you've been following this page for a while, you know that in order to have a healthy digestive tract, many times I've shared that probiotics, not only play a significant role in your health, but also ensure you have a strong gut and immune system.  But is that it? Is that all of what you should do in order to have a healthy gut.... take probiotics?  It's my thought that in order to get probiotics to improve your digestion, it's important that everyone incorporate more prebiotic foods into their diets. 

Let's take a step back though and ask, "What is the end goal of simply taking probiotics?" Will your health, and more specifically, your gut health improve immediately? Although I believe your gut health and digestion will greatly improve by consuming probiotic foods, there are things that are actually more important for your body when it comes to the long-term health of your gut.  Those being prebiotics and prebiotic foods.  

Do kids need probiotics?  Is it important for children to take probiotic supplements or eat probiotic foods?  How about kombucha?  Should kids be drinking kombucha or other fermented drinks?  This is definitely one of the top 5 questions I receive when a parent wants to know whether it's important for their son or daughter to take probiotics or drink Jared's Kombucha or Jared's Kefir Soda.  And in 90% of the situations, my response is always the same... a definite "yes".

​It's important for me to throw a couple of caveats in there before I give a resounding "yes" (every family is different in terms of what they choose to eat and how they provide for their children), but from an overall perspective, a strong healthy gut is vitally important to a child during it's growing years, and probiotics and fermented foods can assist in that.   

.Probiotics and losing weight are not words that many put together, but have you ever wondered if there was a relationship between gut health and weight loss? Millions of people feel as if they are constantly fighting a war between losing and gaining weight. It seems the daily question is, “which one is winning now?” But don’t despair, if you feel you are not able to lose that last bit of fat around your midsection, there may be a specific reason why you can't shed the weight. The reason for it may be addressed by looking at the health of your gut. It could be either it isn't working the way it should or you just don’t have enough helpful gut flora or probiotics in your body.

I've discussed it many times before on this blog (Why You Have The Hardest Time Losing The Last 10 Pounds or How To Get More Energy From Foods) of the importance of having a proper (and a significant) amount of good, healthy gut bacteria thriving in your microbiome to help maintain an ideal weight. We could actually say having good gut flora is crucial for most hormonal issues, including insulin (blood sugar) and melatonin (sleep patterns), but for the purpose of this article, we are only going to address the hormones required to digest, process, and eliminate foods and ultimately the waste in your body.

I’m going to touch on a topic most people know of, but few really understand… antibiotics and prescription drugs and its relationship to our gut health and the probiotics that live in our gut. In my earlier life, I experienced several bouts of sickness and depression that, at the time, debilitated me beyond belief.

Not feeling like you were “right in the head” or that you couldn’t accomplish everyday tasks was something that I’ll never really be able to explain to those that have never experienced it before. Based on every bit of information and advice I received, it seemed like the end result was for me to take medications or antibiotics to get me healthy. “It will help me smooth out the edges,” they said. “It will cure what ails me,” they said.
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The point of persuading people to accept your conclusions of how to get to better mental and physical health is to help them draw their own conclusions as to why that is important, help them draw a line between two points. For me, this meant I must first understand and deal with the fact that having good brain health means you must first have good gut health.

This inevitably means that if those doctors, physicians, or friends wanted me to actually become a “better person” they might have helped me realize that I had a severe case of gut dysbiosis, and that my significant fluctuations in weight was due in large part to my inability to eat, digest foods, or keep food down, not the other way around, that my mental state was an effect of my weight fluctuations and inability to deal with them.

I decided that drugs and medications would not be the preferred method of dealing with my issues, so I began to learn about the importance of gut health and digestion. Inevitably, most research always ended up with me finding new information on the values of using, eating, and supplementing with probiotics.
Based on my experience in dealing with mental health and digestion issues, I believe everyone, whether or not they have issues, should be aware of the value of probiotics and how these living bacteria can play such a crucial role in helping each of us function and be coherent in thoughts and actions.

Many people have heard of probiotics, some of them know the value, and even less know what specifically they do. What’s a little alarming is that when you ask people about their knowledge of antibiotics, most everyone knows what an antibiotic is, believes what we’ve been told what it can do to “improve” our health, and that if you have any type of physical sickness, antibiotics will generally be the cure.

Now, why do you take an antibiotic? Mostly it’s because your immune system has broken down, you’re sick, or you don’t have the ability to fight disease or an infection. Your immune system becomes compromised because of some imbalance and it begins to break down.

So many times, and prior to even having a general conversation with me, many people who are interested in losing that "bloat" begin to inevitably realize how many "diets" they have been on over the course of their lifetime have given them limited or even no great long-term success. (Captain Obvious here, but) that's essentially the reason why we are even having a conversation anyway.  If you have followed me for any length of time, you know I am a firm believer that probiotics can help you with weight loss.