Avoid Food Poisoning by Taking Probiotics

It's summertime and our weekends are filled with travel, outdoor BBQ parties, and a wide variety of foods. Summertime is also the time of overeating, indigestion, and a host of other stomach illnesses. If you're traveling (or even if you're staying at home for a "staycation" this summer), one of the best ways to help you stomach a wide variety of foods and avoid food poisoning is by taking probiotics.

What Are Probiotics?
The word probiotic literally means "for life" in Greek, and believe me, if you have ever had a case of food poisoning, the words "for life" sound pretty good as you're puking into the toilet!

To understand how taking probiotics helps you ward off food poisoning, you have to first understand what causes food poisoning. It's really quite simple. Food poisoning is the result of unfriendly bacteria taking up residence in your gut. You've probably heard of some of these unfriendly guys: salmonella, e.coli, or botulism. Some of the ones that you might not have heard of include campylobacter and shigella.

It's one thing to avoid eating undercooked meats so as not to invite guests like salmonella into your gut, but sometimes you can't help it, especially if you aren't the one doing the cooking. The good news is that if you have "friendly bacteria" already living in your gut (which is natural), then the unfriendly bacteria like salmonella can't take up residences.

What Are Friendly Bacteria?
The friendly bacteria that are native to our guts and help protect our bodies from harmful bacteria include L. acidophilus, Bifidobacterium, and L. bulgaricus. When we have plenty of these friendly bacteria in our gut, then there isn't room for the types of bacteria that cause food poisoning.

But our friendly bacteria do more than that. For instance, acidophilus produces a useful natural antibiotic named acidophillin, which kills off the toxins produced by unfriendly bacteria. Acidophilus also tends to use up all the oxygen in the gut, being an aerobic bacteria, and most unfriendly bacteria can't survive in that environment. Finally, acidophilus produces several kinds of fatty acids that destroy the e. coli bacteria. And that's just acidophilus. Bifidus has other benefits, as well.

Daily Life Habits Kill Probiotics
Unfortunately, the effects of our daily life tend to kill off these kinds of friendly bacteria. For instance, stress, taking antibiotics, and drinking chlorinated water all kill off the friendly bacteria that live in our gut.

So what can we do to change that? Simple.

1. Stop drinking chlorinated water and switch to spring water.
2. Add high-quality acidophilus and bifidus to your daily regimen.

How do you know that an acidophilus or bifidus is of the highest quality? By where it is stored. The best probiotics are stored and sold in refrigerators. Don't fall for the cheap imitations sold on a regular shelf. Most yogurts also don't have enough probiotics to make a difference.

If you need a recommendation for a high-quality source of probiotics, consider these.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Photo credit: Adventuress Heart