- Home
- Health Guides
- Best Drinks for Gut Health: What to Sip for Better Digestion
Best Drinks for Gut Health: What to Sip for Better Digestion
Your gut microbiome plays a central role in digestion and overall health, and certain drinks, especially those rich in probiotics, can be an easy way to support it daily.
Key Takeaways
- 01.
Probiotic drinks offer a quick, convenient way to support gut health and maintain healthy gut microbe balance. From kefir to probiotic sodas, we’ll explore the different beverage options that contain probiotics.
- 02.
Determining which drink with probiotics fits with your lifestyle and your taste will help you actually prioritize and consume it to help replenish beneficial bacteria.
You’re ready to take your gut health to the next level, and that includes intentionally consuming probiotics. We thought we’d take a minute to go over the various probiotic drinks for gut health on the market, all of which make it easy to consume these helpful bacteria in liquid form.
And if you’re looking for a comprehensive supplement that includes probiotics, a daily health drink that includes probiotics like AG1 Next Gen is a great start. Our formula is clinically studied and designed to support your overall health, and that includes gut health and the microbiome. Alongside its broad range of other necessary nutrients, each scoop intentionally includes prebiotics, probiotics, and digestive enzymes.
Want to know more? Get our guide to gut health to plan out your journey to a thriving microbiome.
Benefits of probiotic drinks
Having a rich and diverse gut microbiome helps support how the human body functions.
Research continues to show that consuming probiotics helps foster an intestinal environment that allows for good bacteria, fungi, and other microbes (together known as your gut's microbiome) to thrive in a symbiotic balance. This assists with digestion and nutrient absorption. Probiotics also help generate short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which are other beneficial compounds for your gut health All that good gut health, in turn, helps provides a healthy gut barrier, mood support, and immune support.
Many people unintentionally disrupt their gut microbiome with excess alcohol, sugar, and processed foods. Adding probiotics via diet and supplements like AG1 can help restore balance and support healthy gut bacteria. If taking capsules or eating fermented foods like yogurt, kimchi, and sauerkraut isn’t for you, a probiotic drink might be. You could try kombucha, kefir, or a probiotic soda.
Ready to hydrate and support that microbiome? Let’s go over your options.
Top probiotic beverages to try
It’s time for a taste test. Here’s an overview of the various drinks for gut health you can add to your fridge for easy, on-the-go, delicious probiotic consumption:
Kombucha is a fermented, fizzy, tart drink that contains probiotics. Often flavored with fruit or juice, it’s a popular alternative to juice, soda, or cocktails.
Kefir is a fermented, tangy, drinkable yogurt-like beverage made with milk and a unique mix of beneficial bacteria and yeast that contains probiotics. With a thinner texture than yogurt and a slightly sour flavor, it’s often enjoyed plain or flavored with fruit.
Drinkable yogurt sits somewhere between yogurt and kefir, offering a smooth texture and probiotic benefits with a wider range of flavors. Just watch for added sugars.
Probiotic (and prebiotic) sodas have added probiotics but aren’t fermented, so it’s unclear how many bacteria survive digestion to provide meaningful benefits. Still, they can be a better alternative to traditional soda or alcohol. But watch out for sugar.
Sparkling water with apple cider vinegar that has “with the mother” on the label contains a cloudy mixture of acetic acid bacteria and yeast byproducts from fermentation. These microbes aren’t well studied or standardized as probiotics, but may support digestion. Make sure it has “with the mother” on the label.
Jun is a fermented tea made with green tea and raw honey. Known for its probiotic content, and most commonly used in Tibet and parts of China, it’s similar to kombucha, but contains different ingredients.
Most of these options are easy to find in most US grocery stores. For the highest probiotic content, choose fermented drinks or specially formulated supplements like AG1.
Delicious gut health smoothie recipes
You can also add probiotics to smoothies, which already include prebiotic-rich fruits that help feed beneficial gut bacteria. Smoothies are also high in water content and fiber when made right, both of which help support smooth digestion.
For an extra gut-friendly boost, add yogurt or kefir to your favorite fruit, veggie, nut butter, and protein smoothie. Add a scoop of AG1 greens powder for a quick addition of probiotics, prebiotics, and nutrients. Or, pour a splash of apple cider vinegar for a tart twist.
When whipping up special smoothies for gut health, try adding:
- Green bananas
- Apples
- Pears
- Kiwi
- Berries
- Pomegranate
- Beetroot juice
- Prune juice
- Ginger
- Turmeric
How to choose the best drink for gut health
The way we see it, the best drink for your gut health is the one that you not only remember to drink, but that you genuinely enjoy:
Do you…
- …like a glass of milk and enjoy the taste of yogurt? Try adding a glass of kefir to your morning breakfast routine.
- …take fruit juice in the morning? Try drinking kombucha.
- …love smoothies (at any hour)? Blend up a gut health smoothie with AG1
- …enjoy a soda or a fun beverage with lunch? Try a new flavor of kombucha or treat yourself to a probiotic soda.
And when you’re…
- …hanging out with friends at the beach, outdoor barbecue, or watching the game? Try swapping beer for some hard kombucha or probiotic sodas in the cooler
- …hosting happy hour, but want to skip the cocktails? Switch it up and serve kombucha in a champagne coupe with a sprig of rosemary or basil—or mix some apple cider vinegar into sparkling water in a tumbler.
If you want a simple daily health drink that delivers probiotics along with essential vitamins and minerals, you know our answer. Enjoy AG1 whenever it fits your routine, morning, mid-day, or before dinner, because anytime is a good time to support your gut. While it can’t replace food, AG1 helps fill nutrient gaps and provides probiotics, supporting you on your journey to gut health. Now available in citrus, berry, tropical, and original, it’s an easy, tasty way to shake up targeted overall health.
That’s all there is to it. The best probiotic drink for gut health is the one you and your body like the best. Trust your gut.
References:
- The Nutrition Source. The Microbiome. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Accessed May 4, 2026. https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/microbiome/
- Markowiak-Kopeć P, Śliżewska K. The Effect of Probiotics on the Production of Short-Chain Fatty Acids by Human Intestinal Microbiome. Nutrients. 2020;12(4):1107. Published 2020 Apr 16. doi:10.3390/nu12041107
- Dreher ML. Whole Fruits and Fruit Fiber Emerging Health Effects. Nutrients. 2018;10(12):1833. Published 2018 Nov 28. doi:10.3390/nu10121833
