Can anyone recommend day to day foods that are classified as prebiotic? For example, I am aware that onions are highly rated but what other foods would help?
Maybe you have a favourite prebiotic meal that by just including standard ingredients helps healthy bacteria thrive?
cooked potatos and cooled enough to make a salad with picked beetroot and lots of oilive oil.
jicama is lovely in a coldslaw.
yogurt i eat every day with a fruit salad, or on its own.
whole weat bread is what i mostly eat and and i think that good as well.
I have never heard of jicama and it is not something that I have seen in the UK. I looked up its description and does seem very promising as a prebiotic.
I think apples do have some prebiotic properties and of course combining probiotics with prebiotics sounds like a good idea.
I have never thought of cooled potatoes as a prebiotic. Thanks for that.
I'm a fan of leeks & asparagus, but there's lots of other prebiotics:
prebiotin.com/foods-contain...
healthline.com/nutrition/19...
mensfitness.com/nutrition/w...
I could eat leek & potato soup every day in winter. I prefer it very leeky as I'm not too good with starch, so I use about 3:1 or 4:1 ratio of leek to potato. I make about 4 or 5 portions, & only gently reheat it after it's cooked, so the potato is turned to resistant starch which then acts as a prebiotic.
Thanks. Some really good sites bookmarked for reference.
There's lots, though they pretty much say the same things. Jerusalem artichokes are lovely, if you can get some. Like very creamy potatoes. Very tasty with asparagus! 
BadHare I've just joined this Healthy Eating forum to find out the difference between Probiotics and Prebiotics; and found you here. You have put some excellent links here... thank you. I must hotfoot it round to my nearest Asian or West Indian store
You're welcome, marigold22 !
Prebiotics are the probiotics food source. Any high fibre foods with indigestible fibre are prebiotic, though there's lots that are especially good, I crave leeks all winter as I think my tummy beasts want them. Look up resistant starch, too. this is a good prebiotic, & fills us up.
Probiotics are the microorganisms that act in symbiosis with us. Kefir is the best, & only type proven to reach where it's needed. I did a post on this last year. It's great stuff. Even the type grown in sugar water is beneficial.
Mel
Could you possibly let me have a short sample of your daily foods you eat. Do you spend a lot of time preparing snacks and meals? thanks x
I rarely spend a lot of time cooking as my main winter meal is some sort of veg & lentil or bean soup, stew, curry, sort of thing, & I make enough to last a few days at a time. Sometimes, I'll have something like a baked potato with lots of veg, & occasionally I'll have something like pasta, though I store starchy foods too well so my portions of pasta, potato, rice, porridge etc, are small compared to vegetables & plant protein intake.
When the weather's warm I eat salads most days, usually with hummus, or something like mixed beans, sprouted beans & alfalfa, very occasionally a veg omelette as I don't like the taste of eggs, or a lightly cooked stir fry.
I drink 2-3 glasses of kefir a day (less in winter than summer), & lots of nuts & seeds for protein, & a little cheese though mostly as a seasoning, & I eat at least two pieces of fruit a day including something citrus. I like medjool dates & >70% cocoa chocolate for snacking. I drink a few pots of green or white tea with lemon, always one pot before breakfast. Some days I swap my huge late morning coffee for a golden milk with turmeric, which seems to have a nice perk!
Something that suits me, as well as being vegetarian, is sticking to restrictive eating times. I have a shorter eating window with only water between. Breakfast is rarely before 11am, though usually nearer lunchtime, then I leave a gap of a few hours & take an iron supplement with fruit, followed by another gap. I try not to eat after 7pm. I'm flexible with this, especially if I'm not at home, & feel I need a longer eating window in the winter. The past few days I've not eaten until after 1pm, so will likely stop at 8.
I take iron sulphate & biglycinate & chelated magnesium (or transdermal) for minerals, & vitamin B complex (or nutritional yeast), sublingual B12, & D3. I'm unaware of anything else I might be missing, though I'm thinking of trying the mineral complex SSS recommends on TUK.
Most times I maintain a 90% healthy, 10% naughty ratio at home, though this slips when I'm out, under the weather, or away, as I'm human.
Thanks BadHare . Lots to think about.
You're welcome marigold22 !
Most important for basics is avoiding processed foods as much as possible & trying to eat what suits your body as best you can. Don't loose sleep over it!
My opinion is that good probiotics are initially more important than prebiotics such as from fermented foods, yoghurts or unpasteurised cheeses as these will introduce the bacteria into the gut. Prebiotics is the icing on the cake except they can be a good food source such as alliums, soluble fibres or vegetables in season such as asparagus. Eating quality unprocessed foods in a varied healthy diet may Just do the trick without considering whether they are prebiotic.
As badhare suggested don’t get hung about it and I would add enjoy your food and have those occasional treats that you like.
Which comes first, it's a hen or egg question! 
My reason for the post in the first place was that I had to reluctantly take a course of antibiotics for a tooth infection.
I did not feel that probiotics was enough just to populate my gut, hence why I felt that prebiotics was needed too. By just posting, it reminded me how good alliums are in the diet. So I now make sure that I have a good supply each week. I am no longer eating them as I think they are prebiotics but because of all their other nutritional value plus I enjoy them.
Have I just argued against what I said in the my last post? Anyway, I shall have both fermented foods and prebiotics and just enjoy eating them.
Not at all! Probiotics can't be fed if they're not there, & prebiotics just keep them happier.
Hope your dental problem is resolved, & your tummy beasts are back in action. I hate antibiotics, & had to take two courses for sinusitis a few years ago. I was as distraught with pain as at the thought my kefir was going to waste whilst on them, then drank a litre a day for weeks after.
I once made soup with no onions as I forgot to buy them. Not a mistake I'll make again, or swapping onions for leeks in pea soup. 
I love garlic, but draw the line at eating it in ice-cream.
I took probiotic capsules whilst still taking antibiotics but took them as far apart as possible. This was a suggestion that I found on the livestrong website. I made sure that my meals had prebiotics, live yoghurt and fruit for a snack and mixed wholegrains for breakfast. Fortunately, I had some sauerkraut just maturing after I finished the course of antibiotics.
Maybe I was lucky but I had no reaction from the antibiotics apart from clearing up nearly all the tooth pain. Or maybe it was not luck but down to good food management before, during and after?
That's a good idea, & especially so that you tried it with success. I've never taken probiotic pills, so will up my kefir intake should I need to, though hope neither of us will!
Here's a nice slideshow from a very reputable website:
livestrong.com/slideshow/10...
I have found Livestrong very useful too. Thanks, I have bookmarked your slide.
I thought that apart from onions which can be cooked ALL the other prebiotics had to be eaten RAW and that bananas needed to be eaten green. It all seems a bit vague about why they need to be eaten raw as no one appears to know the amount of degradation to the fibre from the cooking process. I'm up for adding raw dandelion leaves but much less likely to feast on raw chicory root...or Jerusalem artichokes.
Although I like garlic eating it raw is taking it a bit too far for me. I did notice that reheated potatoes may offer benefits.
I am wondering whether cooked wholegrain oats as porridge is a prebiotic. Would you know? Does it depend on the cooking time?
I'm about to have dinner (no sign of a prebiotic) I'll have a read through the paper below later...complicated subject area to say the least...you really need to go back to the academic papers to understand any of this...
PhilFreeToAsk - read way too many papers on this...basically the research states it NEEDS a shed load more research...the caveats have caveats. They have done the most work on Inulins...(list of foods at the end of the wiki page)
To date, only one prebiotic, chicory inulin, has received an EU health claim: “Inulin improves bowel function” (Ref. 153). This approval was based on demonstration of a cause–effect relationship between consumption of the non-fractionated mixture of monosaccharides (<10% of total carbohydrate), disaccharides, inulin-type fructans and inulin extracted from chicory with a mean DP ≥9, and maintenance of normal defecation by increasing stool frequency. Additional product approvals hopefully will be forthcoming, once relevant evidence is available, aided by the contents of this consensus document. (Taken from the link below)
nature.com/articles/nrgastr...
Thanks. A really informative article in nature which will take time to digest. I certainly recommending reading just to get a better understanding of Prebiotics.
I am always a bit wary of internet sites, at times it appears to be sites corroborating each other but really they are repeating popular opinion. As I am not a scientist I rely on good sites that presents information well.
So for breakfast, I had mixed grains, seeds, nuts flavoured with cinnamon. I regard this as a good mix of fibre (soluble and insoluble), fats and protein to start the day, hopefully with some Prebiotics.
I think it's more to do with the cooling time, after cooking, then not overheating,
Possibly a good idea to eat with caution, increasing slowly if you are not used to them. My first, and last, experience of Jerusalem artichoke (inulin) was not pleasant!
This was the same for my partner 🙈
Constipation or Ibs?r
Fruits and Vegetables
Lethargic after eating!
Help need food to gain weight healthy 
