Start by Doing This One Thing Every Week for a Healthy Gut

“Each different category provides your gut microbiome with different fertilizer,” Rossi noted. “So what I get people to do is, firstly, think about diversifying their plants and trying to get 30 different kinds of plants across the week… once people nail that I think, OK, are you getting something from the ‘super six’ most days?” She added that many people aren’t getting enough of certain plants, like legumes. “Those are really important for feeding specific types of bacteria that have specific functions.” 

Rossi told us that eating lots of plants from the “super six” groups on a daily basis ultimately will provide everything we need for a happy microbiome. “If we want this diverse range of bacteria in our gut, which has shown to have a diverse range of skills and, kind of like super powers, then we need to feed them that diverse range of fertilizers, otherwise they’ll die off — they won’t grow.”

We also discussed how our favorite vices, like alcohol and weed, might be affecting our microbiomes, whether probiotic supplements actually do anything for our guts and much more: Listen to the full episode here.

Need some help with something you’ve been doing wrong? Email us at [email protected], and we might investigate the topic in an upcoming episode.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.