Are Legumes Easy to Digest? [ACID Reflux TIPS]

Digestive problems are becoming more common in the contemporary society.

One of the most challenging aspects of coping with digestive issues is that symptoms and causes vary greatly from person to person.

As a result, it takes some trial and error to determine which diet is best for you. Diets are not one-size-fits-all, particularly when it comes to dealing with digestive issues.

Can legumes cause acid reflux?

Acid reflux may occur when carbohydrates are inadequately digested by the body, according to Dr. Norm Robillard, microbiologist and author of Heartburn Cured.

Carbohydrates that are not fully digested may move into the small intestine, where our gut bacteria live.

These bacteria thrive on glucose (especially GOS, a kind of carbohydrate found in legumes), and the more we feed them, the more they multiply.

Some individuals may read this and instinctively conclude that having bacteria in our stomach is fundamentally negative, based on too basic reasoning that germs are bad.

This is far from the truth.

Bacteria are neither good nor evil, and we will always have many varieties of bacteria resident in various parts of our body, including the small intestine, as long as we are alive.

The issue seems to arise when some kinds of bacteria are permitted to thrive and outnumber other strains. H. Pylori is an excellent example.

When H. Pylori enters a human gut and is allowed to multiply, there is evidence that it may decrease stomach acid production.

In truth, acid reflux, indigestion, and gas are caused by low stomach acid rather than excessive stomach acid.

To conclude, acid reflux seems to be caused by a combination of carbohydrate malabsorption, bacterial overgrowth, and insufficient stomach acid.

Some studies suggest that following a low-carb diet may help to alleviate symptoms of GERD and acid reflux, possibly because eating low-carb stops feeding pathogenic bacteria in the gut.

This indicates that if you have persistent acid reflux, you should try limiting your carbohydrate consumption for a period of time (at least 2-3 weeks) to determine whether it relieves your symptoms.

In reality, this means avoiding grains, sugar, legumes, and starchy vegetables such as potatoes and sweet potatoes.

whether your symptoms improve, you might gradually reintroduce the foods you avoided to see whether it triggers acid reflux again.

Some individuals may need long-term carbohydrate restriction to manage their symptoms, but others may be able to enjoy higher carb meals after their stomachs recover.

Dr. Michael Ruscio, author of Healthy Gut, Healthy Body You suggest beginning your research on gut-healing diets with a regular Paleo diet.

This diet may be taken long-term or as a brief exclusion diet, in which you avoid certain kinds of foods for a period of time to determine whether it leads to symptom relief.

If your symptoms improve after following this elimination diet, you may reasonably conclude that one or more of the items you avoided were causing (or worsening) your digestive problems (such as acid reflux).

Dr. Ruscio suggests avoiding the following foods if you opt to utilize a Paleo diet as an elimination diet:

• Grains
• Beans, legumes, and lentils
• Processed foods
• Dairy products
• Most vegetable oils (for example, maize oil and safflower oil)
• Sugar and artificial sweeteners

If a Paleo diet does not relieve your problems within 2-3 weeks, you may need to tighten your diet to identify the problematic items.

This is where a low FODMAP diet may help.

This diet prohibits foods rich in particular kinds of carbohydrates that nourish gut flora, including Paleo-approved meals like some veggies.

The one thing that both of these gut-healing diets have in common is that they also advocate avoiding legumes for a period of time.

Legumes are regularly removed from diets to ease stomach issues.

However, if you enjoy eating legumes and want to find a way to incorporate them into your diet after your elimination diet is finished, you can experiment with different methods.

Here are some suggestions for include beans in your diet even if you have acid reflux:

• Reduce your consumption of beans. Try eating a cup of beans or lentils instead of a cup. If you handle that amount well, you may gradually increase the quantity you drink each meal while keeping track of when and if symptoms recur.
• Limit your consumption of beans to 1-3 times per week. Eating them every day may aggravate your symptoms, but eating them less often may help you handle them better.
• If beans aggravate your acid reflux, substitute lentils. Canned lentils, in particular, seem to be lower in GOS and may be better tolerated.
• Keep an eye on your total calorie intake, particularly while eating beans. Overeating in general (rather than simply eating beans) may cause acid reflux.
• Make it your objective to lower your body fat percentage to a healthy level if you are overweight. This might be a long-term technique for increasing your tolerance to old trigger foods.

As we previously discussed, acid reflux is most likely caused by bacterial overgrowth in the stomach.

In turn, high carbohydrate diets promote to bacterial overgrowth by preferentially feeding pathogenic bacteria in the gut.

When bacteria overgrow, the production of healthy stomach acid begins to decline.

Over time, this can lead to acid reflux or GERD.

As a result, low carb diets have been demonstrated to help with acid reflux.

The basic objective of a conventional low carb diet is to simply lower the total quantity of carbohydrates in the diet.

Adopting a particular carbohydrate diet, or GAPS diet, is another way to improve acid reflux via dietary changes.

A specialized carbohydrate diet limits certain types of carbohydrates, while the general low carb strategy just attempts to minimize total carb intake.

Grains, legumes, and starchy vegetables such as potatoes and sweet potatoes are avoided in this diet, while fruits and non-starchy veggies are abundant.

This may not be a low-carb diet, but it may be useful in lowering acid reflux symptoms.

The hypothesis that longer-chain carbs (disaccharides and polysaccharides) preferentially feed pathogenic gut flora explains why a particular carbohydrate or GAPS diet may be useful in treating acid reflux.

These carbohydrate types are prevalent in the foods that are avoided (grains, legumes, and starchy vegetables).

Shorter-chain carbohydrates (monosaccharides) on the other hand, do not promote bacterial growth.

Monosaccharides are more frequent in non-starchy vegetables and may therefore be consumed safely, even by persons who suffer from acid reflux.

Another important consideration is that in order to preserve long-term digestive health, you must be able to control the quantity of calories you take on a daily basis.

If you constantly overeat, even if you consume nutritious meals, it may be too much for your digestive system and cause your symptoms to recur.

The most basic piece of advice for managing calorie intake is to avoid calorically-dense meals, which contain a high number of calories but a low number of nutrients.

Foods with high carbohydrate and fat content, such as donuts, ice cream, cakes, and cookies, are especially easy to overeat.

Of course, while dealing with digestive issues, it is always important to remember that one person’s gut-friendly diet may look quite different from another’s.

If you really want to restore your gut health, you should avoid as many problematic foods as possible until you see a decrease or total remission of your symptoms.

Once you’ve experienced how good digestion feels, you can experiment with adding other types of foods if you want.

If what you ate causes your symptoms to recur, it should be evident.

If your symptoms reappear, you may revert to the tighter baseline diet that you know makes you feel the best.