Food & Drink
Get a healthy gut
River Cottage’s Rachel de Thample shares natural ways to improve gut health and boost your wellbeing.
10 March 2025
This article first appeared in our Organic September 2025 issue of My Green Pod Magazine. Click here to subscribe to our digital edition and get each issue delivered straight to your inbox
Back in the 1940s, at around the time he helped to co-found the Soil Association, celebrated botanist Albert Howard stated: ‘The health of soil, plants, animals and (hu)man is one and indivisible.’
While scientific papers are only now beginning to explore the gut microbiome in any sort of depth, it’s hard not to draw parallels between this unique aspect of our bodies and Howard’s words – spoken more than three-quarters of a century ago.
Today we are rediscovering the impact of soil health and farming systems on the nutritional value of our food, and how that food ultimately impacts our bodies – including our gut.
This Organic September, Soil Association Certification wants to highlight the fundamental connection between healthy soil and healthy food; every small swap to a delicious organic option will help you to nourish your gut’s ‘garden’.
Various studies have demonstrated that organic food is higher in some nutrients than its non-organic counterpart.
Without artificial pesticides and insecticides, the organic plants must develop more of their own resistance to pests – and this comes in the form of more antioxidants.
According to one study, organic produce had 30-40% more polyphenols than non-organic alternatives.
Polyphenols are crucial for promoting good gut health because they act as prebiotics, feeding good gut bacteria and helping to reduce inflammation.
They are particularly high in leafy green vegetables, onions, garlic, berries and spices including turmeric and cinnamon.
For Organic September, why not boost your polyphenol intake and opt for an organic option of one of these prebiotic powerhouses?
A review of 117 studies revealed that the residues of chemical pesticides on our food can wreak havoc with our gut microbiome.
Other studies have shown that they can kill off the good bacteria in our gut, creating an imbalance that allows bad bacteria to thrive. This can, in turn, lead to inflammation.
Glyphosate, a popular and powerful artificial weedkiller that is banned in organic farming, works by blocking a chemical pathway in plants which causes them to die.
While humans and mammals do not have this same chemical pathway, microbes do.
It is therefore not hard to see how glyphosate could be having a negative effect on microbial diversity in our gut, as well as microbes in the soil – which, as I’ll explain later, are crucial for determining the nutritional value of our food.
The best way to avoid residues from these pesticides and herbicides is, of course, choosing organic where possible, as their use is banned in organic farming.
The Pesticide Action Network (PAN) publishes an annual list of the ‘Dirty Dozen’ fruit and vegetables most likely to be contaminated with multiple pesticides (see box). Switching to organic versions of the products on this list would be a great place to start.
PAN’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ is based on the UK government’s own reports on pesticide residues.
While residues for each pesticide may fall within the safe limit, the effect of multiple, combined pesticides is not monitored.
A 2019 Soil Association report, The Cocktail Effect, explored this exact phenomenon; it referenced studies performed on humans, or which simulated human exposure, where even though each individual pesticide was below the set safe level, the combined chemicals caused adverse effects on the liver, cancer cells and body weight.
Another product to consider buying in an organic form is oats, as non organic oats are often sprayed with glyphosate before harvesting.
Studies have found that oats can contain five to 10 times more glyphosate than other grains.
Finally, it really does all go back to the soil. The proliferation of non-organic farming, which relies on fossil fuel-based fertilisers and pesticides, has depleted the good bacteria and microbes in our soil.
Microbes in soil are crucial for breaking down organic matter and transforming it into the nutrients that plants can absorb.
If there are fewer microbes in the soil, it becomes harder for plants to absorb these nutrients – which ultimately affects their nutritional quality.
One US study found that important nutrients in some garden crops were up to 38% lower in 1999 than in 1950.
A more recent study on UK fruits and vegetables found that between 1940 and 2019, on average iron levels had decreased by 50%, sodium by 52%, copper by 49% and magnesium by 10%.
Instead of using fossil fuel-based fertilisers, organic farming helps to nourish healthy soil through natural growing methods that use compost, manure and crop rotations.
This helps soil microorganisms to thrive, ultimately resulting in more nutrients being absorbed into the produce being grown.
Pesticide Action Network (PAN)’s list of the ‘Dirty Dozen’ fruit and veg most likely to be contaminated with pesticides
River Cottage’s Rachel de Thample shares natural ways to improve gut health and boost your wellbeing.
Johann Ilgenfritz launches new book ‘that could change your health for ever’.
Leading UK doctors back call to end factory farming to improve public health.
Live Frankly founder Lizzie Rivera busts three organic myths this Organic September.
