Jonathan Steedman (00:01.699)

Hey food groupies. I get lots of questions about eating after antibiotics and I'm recording this in May, which in Australia is peak flu season. I myself have just come off the flu, man flu actually. you know, quite serious. Anyhow, didn't need antibiotics. That's overshadowed. No one cares. But you know, quite common that you may need antibiotics to deal with some of these things. And so obviously this question is being asked quite a lot at the moment. And there are a few nutritional things you can do.

post antibiotics to help support because you know, unfortunately the nature of antibiotics are there, they can be a little bit indiscriminate, which means they just kind of attack a whole host of bacteria. Obviously they kill the infection, which is fantastic. But unfortunately they can also kind of hit the gut bacteria a little bit hard and reduce your, the amount and also the variety of your gut bacteria.

And so that's the priority post antibiotics. I'm certainly not suggesting for a single second that you don't take them or that you don't finish the course. You damn well do what your doctor has prescribed. Please and thank you. And then you look to rebuild because there's things that you can do to support that gut health coming back online. Now there's nothing too crazy. So if you're looking for a secret hack, just stop listening because it ain't coming. I would say the closest thing to a moment I'm going to give you is it's actually not.

overly recommended to take a probiotic supplement after antibiotics, which I know is like, doesn't make sense. But there's a couple of studies that kind of show that that can almost blunt your natural, natural, the existing gut bacteria's ability to bounce back. So by taking a probiotic, you might be hamstringing your own gut bacteria a little. And so it's actually better to just look at

supporting them through a few dietary choices, which we'll talk about in a second. And then still taking in probiotic foods, which just kind of have different amounts and different things, ways that things are a little bit sort of better. So the first thing I would say is just start small, particularly if you have noticed your gut has been a little bit different, maybe your bowel movements, like bowel habits have changed and things. Like don't do everything I'm about to say the second you stop, okay?

Jonathan Steedman (02:17.909)

The way I often talk to people about the gut is it's like a muscle in that, let's say that you've never gone to the gym before, or even your regular gym goal, but you had to take four weeks off because you were injured in the same way that you had to take antibiotics. So you don't go straight back to the gym and smash out five days back at the weights you were doing when you started, or you shouldn't. And even if you try to, you know how you're to feel for those first few days, right? Just like sore and wrecked.

and the gut kind of does the same thing. It needs to be built back up. Okay. If you just go from zero to 100, it's going to get cranky. And you might be like, oh, I'm not tall. I can't tolerate this food anymore. I've got a food intolerance where an actual factor was like, you just went too hard, too fast. So start small, maybe pick one meal each day over the next kind of, so you're like, okay, for dinner, I'm going to add these things in. And then the next time I'm to lunch and dinner, I'm going to add these things in each kind of build it out from there. Always listening to your gut.

And that sounds so woo, but just like if it makes you feel crappy dial it back and kind of build it up slower if you need to. So what I would look to do is kind of standard gut health stuff around plant variety. So it's something in my eye, plant diversity, trying to get as many different varieties of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, legumes in as you can, different colors, different varieties. so...

If you're only having blueberries, can you swap that out for mixed berries? If you're only having baby spinach, can you swap that out for mixed leaves? You're just getting exposed to different foods and colors and things. That's one of the main thing your gut bacteria loves because it gives them a broad variety of all of their favorite foods. Because they predominantly feed off and ferment the fiber component of those foods, but they also feed off a lot of the polyphenols in that food, which is often the thing that gives that food its taste and its color.

which is why eating lots of foods with different tastes and different colors, plant foods with different tastes and different colors is really helpful. One thing, sorry, bit of a side quest, because we're going to talk about fermented dairy in a second, but you might need to be a little bit more careful with lactose than typically you would. It's different from person to person. Even if you fully tolerated lactose prior, that might be the last thing that you add on your journey back to eating normally, okay? Because you might find that your lactose tolerance has dipped a little. So...

Jonathan Steedman (04:38.73)

If you're nervous, better to be safe than sorry. Well, depends if you're at home and you don't mind being sorry in the safety of your own toilet and go for it. But yeah, it's not going to cause any damage if you want to do that. But if you want to avoid that, then going for lactose free stuff or avoiding higher lactose dairy like milk, cream, ice cream and things. Most yogurts are going to be fine. Particularly a lot of the high protein yogurts have lactase in them like the Chobani Fit and the Yo-Pro.

And then hard cheese, just regular cheddar is so low in lactose, it's not going to be a problem anyway. So yeah, just play around with that a little bit. But speaking of dairy, fermented foods are another really great one to bring back into the mix to bump up that probiotic component a little, just not to the intensity of a supplement. And so my all time favorite fermented foods based on the literature, right?

not just what I like the taste of, but based on their impact is fermented dairy. And particularly we need to look for fermented dairy like kefir and flim. I never know how to say it. Fimjok, flimjok. It's the rockerby version basically of it's the, well, the Icelandic skir version of kefir, which is like a fermented yogurt drink. I can't just say, like when I say fermented dairy, I don't mean all yogurt, because we specifically want something that has really high CFU count, which is fun to say.

CFU stands for colony forming units. And essentially if they have enough colony forming units, they are allowed to claim probiotic and they will absolutely loudly put that on the label. That's why you look at like Chibani and YoPro and they won't say anything about probiotic benefits because they can't, okay? Doesn't mean they're not good for you in other ways, just means they're not ticking this box that we're kind of looking for at the moment. I think it's like Activia has one, there's a good gut one that has recently come out, but honestly the kefirs and the fym...

The Rockabee blueberry one is off the charts. It's so good. And it's got an insane amount of CFUs and a really great variety of strains. So it's honestly actually just my go-to, not sponsored, buy it with my own money, but it's a fantastic one. I just add a little bit each day to kind of help my gut. Fermented veggies are really great as well, kimchi, sauerkraut. And if you're into like natto and tempeh and stuff like that, they are also really good. Last thing I would look at doing is

Jonathan Steedman (07:01.259)

trying to include some resistant starch. This is actually probably the last thing I would bring in just because it's probably the more, this is like the squats and deadlifts for your gut. So really good for it, right? Don't avoid it, but just don't jump straight to it. Make sure you've warmed up, make sure that you've worked up to it and your body's ready. But resistant starch forms when you cook and cool starchy foods. So we're talking potato, rice, pasta specifically. You can freeze bread and then toast it and you still get the resistant starch benefits.

And yeah, if you cook the rice, cool it and then reheat it, you still get the benefits of the resistant starch. So that's fine as well. So if you wanna build some of that into your day or you can cook with like bake with like something like green banana flowers really high in resistant starch as well. So all of those options are really good. Again, don't just suddenly add these things to all of your meals on day dot, build up to it. And what you'll find is all of these strategies, all of these things will just help support your gut to rebuild back to where it needs to be.

And I would say within like a week or two, you'll be back to feeling like yourself. don't feel, if your gut feels fine after antibiotics, ignore everything I've just said. I probably should have said that at the beginning, sorry. This is for people who have finished their antibiotics and are feeling a bit like out of sorts down there. Down there is not your gut, is it? Now that I said that out loud. A bit higher than down there. If you're not feeling right in the tummy, then you might benefit more from.

these strategies than someone who's like, my gut's fine. That being said, everything I've just mentioned is good for peak gut health in general. So probably not a bad idea to just do between now and death. And so on that note, if you've got questions about antibiotics, no, no, don't ask me. But nutrition after antibiotics that I haven't covered, let me know and I'll see if I can help. Otherwise, I'll chat to you guys next week.