There is more to these little furry brown fruit than meets the eye. Kiwi fruit are packed with more vitamin C than an orange as well as other lesser known benefits for your gut health.

Constipation reducing fruit – the power of kiwi

Did you know eating two kiwi fruit a day has the potential to speed up your bowel transit time? This can be very useful in managing constipation through diet.

Eating two kiwi a day in one study helped to reduce the transit time of food through the gut, and also increased the amount of bowel movements

Kiwi fruit are also well tolerated, meaning they don’t give you the same levels of bloating and gas as other dietary interventions for constipation. One study compared psyllium and prunes to kiwi and found people had similar benefits in terms of bowel movements, but had less negative effects.

Kiwi Fruit are a source of fibre

Kiwis contain a prebiotic, which feeds the good bacteria in our lower intestine.  This kind of fibre also helps to form a soft stool which can improve constipation in some people. Sufficient fibre can also reduce cholesterol levels and support a healthy heart.

Digestive enzymes – Kiwi fruit contains actinidin, a digestive enzyme which may help us digest our food, supporting better absorption of nutrients from your diet.

Can Kiwi Fruit improve sleep?

Sleep – new research has shown eating 2 kiwi before bed can improve sleep quality and duration of sleep. It may be the high levels of antioxidants in the fruit (low levels of antioxidants is linked to sleep problems like sleep apnea).

Kiwi fruit also contains serotonin which is our happy hormone, needed to create melatonin, the sleep hormone.

If you’re adding kiwi to a fruit salad add them just before serving as the digestive enzymes will start to digest the other foods making them soggy!

So, adding a few kiwi fruit to your diet every day could have lots of health benefits