Okay, last week we looked at what not to eat if you have a leaky gut. So, what can you eat and should you eat more of and heal your leaky gut?

The first food to eat more of are those that are high in antioxidants.

Let me start by explaining what antioxidants do. It’s a term you hear a lot of, but not many people know what they are or do.

Certain foods, stress and less than optimum health are all factors that create free radicals in the body. Free radicals are like a gang of aggressive hooligans, running around your body, damaging cells and tissues, and causing inflammation in their wake. Hmm, inflammation again!

Antioxidants are like police officers, particularly good at catching those hooligans, slapping the handcuffs on, and escorting them off the premises – i.e. your body.

If you eat a diet high in antioxidants, your body is able to remove the free radicals very effectively, reducing the unnecessary inflammation.

Foods that are high in antioxidants are:

• Red/orange vegetables such as carrots, sweet potato, red capsicum
• Green vegetables like broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, Spinach
• Fresh fruit, especially high in vitamin C such as kiwi, citrus, guava
• Seeds and nuts

To heal your leaky gut you also want to eat more foods that are high in omega 3 fatty acids

In a study of more than 70,000 nurses in the US showed that it is not the amount of fat you eat that impacts your risk of Endometriosis, but the type of fat. Omega 3 fatty acids are known to help reduce inflammation.

Foods to include in your diet are:

• Fatty fish, like salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring, sea mullet, redfish, flounder, trevally, tailor, Sydney rock oyster, blue mussel, rainbow trout, and whiting.
• Oils like flaxseed, hempseed, canola
• Nuts, especially walnuts.

And a third type of food you want to eat plenty of are foods high in fibre. Fibre plays an important role in removing excess oestrogen from your body. It can attach itself to oestrogen, and then help remove it from the bowel.

Foods high in fibre are:

• apples (especially with skin on)
• fruit such as berries, pears (skin on), melon and oranges
• vegetables such as broccoli, carrots, and sweetcorn
• peas, beans, and pulses
• nuts and seeds
• potatoes with skin on.

A question I get asked regularly is: “How long does it take to heal my leaky gut?” And the answer is “It depends”. Not helpful, I know! But the recovery time depends on so many individual factors, that all I can say is that it can take anywhere from three months to two years. But you will start to notice improvements during the first month if you follow the two strategies described.

If all of this is making your feel overwhelmed and you’re not sure where to start, my program “12 Weeks to Eat Your Way to Less Pain” provides you with a step-by-step process, meal plans and recipes to help you heal your leaky gut and reduce your Endo symptoms.