So quick and easy to put together with a combination of ingredients that help support your gut health, and therefore boost your overall health and wellbeing. Making these overnight oats up in the evening is a lovely little 2 minute self-care act to yourself, as you will have a delicious, nutritious, wellness boosting breakfast waiting for you in the morning.
Why overnight oats are great for your gut health as opposed to cooked porridge oats…
Soaked oats are super good for your gut. Uncooked, rolled oats that you use in overnight oats contain 8.5 grams of resistant starch, whereas cooked oatmeal only contains 0.3 grams. Resistant starch is a type of dietary fibre that your body doesn’t digest. Instead, it passes through your digestive system untouched until it reaches your gut, where it is fermented by your gut bacteria and helps to promote a healthy gut environment. And a healthy gut equals a healthy mood as it’s where most of your ‘good mood’ hormone is made.
As an added extra bonus, overnight oats provide more nutrients. How? Soaking oats overnight reduces the phytic acid, which helps your body utilise the nutrients much more effectively, and also makes them easier to digest (great if you have gluten sensitivity). Oats are loaded with good-for-you nutrients like fibre, protein, magnesium, potassium, and omega 3 fatty acids - so it's worth soaking them overnight to reap more benefits from these nutrients.
Other gut boosting ingredients in this recipe…
Banana: Bananas also have a great fibre content which is great to support gut health. A top tip here is to use bananas that are still slightly under-ripe and showing a little green on the peel because this makes them an excellent source of prebiotics, a type of fibre that helps feed the good bacteria in your gut.
Chia seeds: Not only do they give you a great dose of prebiotic fibre to help feed your good bacteria, but they also give you a generous supply of omega-3 fatty acids. You are probably aware that omega-3 is great for a whole range of health benefits from our brains to our hearts to our knees and joints, but omega-3 fatty acids also benefit our gut microbiome. A healthy microbiome is a diverse microbiome, with a population of many different types of microbial inhabitants. But unfortunately, many of us have less diversity in our gut microbiome than we should. The good news is that in addition to taking a quality probiotic and prebiotics, omega-3 can help to improve the diversity of our bacterial ecology.
Cacao & Cacao nibs: A little chocolatey pick-me-up with none of the refined sugar plus it’s packed with magnesium – sometimes referred to as nature’s chill pill. Cacao is one of the plant foods with the highest content of magnesium, which helps us to handle stress better. And as you can read on this blog about gut health, managing stress is really important to help keep our gut microbiome happy and healthy.
Baobab powder: Great to add into your diet as it is a rich source of prebiotic fibre to support your good gut bacteria.
Moringa: A stellar superfood for gut and overall health as it contains nutrients, fibre, and phytochemicals. These compounds, including polyphenols and isothiocyanates, have been shown to promote gut health by stimulating the growth of beneficial bacteria and suppressing that of pathogenic bacteria. It also helps you de-stress (vital for gut health) and is high in calcium to help with digestive enzyme function for gut health.
Ingredients:
1 cup cashew milk (or milk of your choice)1/2 cup rolled oats
1 mashed banana
2 tbsp chia seeds
1 tbsp cacao nibs
1 tbsp Super Cacao Powder
1 tsp Baobab Powder
1 tsp Moringa Powder
Juice from one orange
Extra cacao nibs and desiccated coconut to top
Method:
Just mix all the ingredients together in a jar, jam jar or container with lid. Pop in the fridge overnight. When ready to eat top with extra cocoa nibs and desiccated coconut.
Article and recipe by Louise Murray. Check out her 5 day mini gut health re-set blog post.
