When it comes to the best foods for digestive health, perhaps the best way of thinking about it is this: If it doesn’t cause any symptoms, then it’s good. There are “foods that clean out your bowel system, foods that help to keep you regular, those that will not increase reflux and those that won’t cause diarrhea,” Kristi King, R.D., a senior dietitian at Texas Children’s Hospital and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, tells HuffPost.
Good digestion starts the moment you put a food in your mouth, King adds, noting that foods that are “good” for digestion are generally those that make the digestive process easier.
Different nutrients from foods benefit the body in different ways, says Dr. Matthew L. Bechtold, M.D., F.A.C.G., a gastroenterologist at the Digestive Health Center at the University of Missouri – Columbia. However, even nutrients that aren’t readily absorbed by the body can be healthy — fiber, for instance, helps to ensure regular bowel movements.
Fiber is the “Roto-Rooter, the Drano, of the digestive system,” King says, though she notes that it is possible to have too much. People should generally have between 20 to 30 grams of fiber each day, which is the amount in five to seven servings of fruits and vegetables and about four to five servings of whole grains.
The body is designed to digest many types of foods, but everyone is different in that some foods may trigger digestion-related symptoms for some and not others, Bechtold says. Bechtold and King offered up some of their picks for the best and worst foods for digestion, based on their ability to help keep things moving in the body, as well as their likelihood of triggering nasty symptoms like diarrhea and acid reflux.
