Antibiotics can double the weight gain of a chicken, what are they doing to us?
A Gut Feeling
Some time ago I sent off a poo sample to the British Gut Project, to profile my gut flora.
I just got the result and it makes gripping reading. In our age of gluten sensitivity, wheat allergy, coeliac disease, irritable bowel syndrome and ulcerative colitis it’s good to see that it is now possible to find out, at a microbial level, what’s going on.
I realise this is the second time I’ve mentioned the ‘poo’ in a column, but the only other way to find out what’s going on in your intestines is to submit to deeply invasive surgery. Not worth it for someone who is casually interested to see what those little microbes are up to down in the depths.
The results were gratifying: I have a higher level of firmicutes than average – these are the lactobacilli that are so important to the digestion of carbohydrates and that produce the lactate that fuels the brain. I also have a stonking level of bacteroidetes – these are the bifidobacteria that love to convert fibre into butyric acid, the backbone of our immune system. Not so good on the proteobacteria, which you find in decomposing meat, because meat very infrequently gets a chance to decompose in my digestive system.
Those are the headlines. Then the chart compares your results to the average, people who eat a similar diet and are of the same sex, age and BMI. Then comes the final comparison: they compare your gut flora profile to that of Michael Pollan, the esteemed New York Times food writer and author of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto and Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.
Outcome? My gut flora profile exactly matches that of Michael Pollan. Result!
Pollan is the author of several memorable quotes that describe his view of diet and health. The best known one is his all-encompassing dietary advice: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” That’s how I eat. 2 meals a day, mostly whole grains and vegetables.
His other advice includes: “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognise as food” and ‘Shake the hand that feeds you” (in support of local food).
The natural food industry has always been on this page – while the ‘experts’ have been busy batting on about one nutrient after another without noticing that the nutritional factor that makes a huge difference is the invisible mass of 10,000 different microbes (mostly lactobacilli and bifidobacteria), weighing more than a human brain, that have to deal with the processed stuff we throw at them.
I’ll always remember a 1972 BBC Panorama programme in which they sat the experts on a panel and kept us natural food nuts in a small audience. The leading expert was Dr. Arnold Bender, Professor of Nutrition at Queen Elizabeth College. At the time 100% wholemeal bread was the iconic healthy food. We were put down sharply when the worthy professor announced that white bread was far superior to wholemeal bread because it had more protein and carbohydrate per slice thanks to the absence of all that bulky non-nutritious bran. This reductionist approach to food was set out in his 1985 book ‘Health or Hoax’ where he assured his readers that ‘there is no such thing as health food’ and that the health food industry is a fraudulent, non science-based, industry that takes advantage of consumer gullibility and fear. The continuing rule of white bread, hydrogenated fat and processed food was underpinned by experts like Bender and the Institute of Food Science and Technology, which he co-founded.
So it was refreshing when Michael Pollan used his position of influence and wide readership at the New York Times to set out the opposite case. The argument for natural foods is proudly unscientific: if your gut flora are in good shape they will drive you instinctively towards the whole, natural foods that you need. Far better to trust their judgement than some professors who tell you to stop eating butter and eat margarine (in those days typically 30% hydrogenated fat), then change their mind about butter after a few million have died of hydrogenated fat-induced heart attacks. Nature knows best – keep it simple.
Find out how you compare to Michael Pollan at http://britishgut.org/
Soil and Gut
Q, What's the functional difference between a carrot and an intestine?
A. Nothing.
One is the mirror image of the other. One is outward looking and the other is inward looking but they do the same things. The parallels between how we eat to sustain good health in your bodies and how we farm to sustain good health in the body of the earth have never been so clear. The digestive system is just a root turned inside out, but the functions are the same.
When you grow organically you are supporting a system of food production that is biological, using the marvelous intelligence of the trillions of microorganisms in the soil - when you eat organic whole foods you're supporting a system of food digestion that is biological, using the marvelous intelligence of trillions of microorganisms in your gut.
When we eat food it becomes soil-when we grow in soil it becomes food.
Plants consume sun energy, carbon dioxide and water to make carbohydrate-we consume carbohydrate and to make energy, carbon dioxide and water.
Soil is comprised of ‘soil biota,’ trillions of microorganisms that digest every bit of nutrient that comes their way- our gut is composed of 'gut biota,’ trillions of microorganisms that digest every bit of nutrient that come their way.
The soil microbes do 'transmutation' - they are little chemical factories that can convert stuff into other stuff – the nutrients that make plants healthy. Our gut microbes transmute our food into whatever our bodies need, including manufacturing stuff like vitamins such as B2, B12 or C and essential minerals from the raw materials of the food we eat.
When we put chemical fertilisers on the soil plants that are making the carbohydrates that feed the soil microbiota stop sending them down. Why should they? The farmer is giving the plants soluble nutrients for free. So the microorganisms that nourish the plant and defend it from disease are exterminated by disease-causing bacteria and fungi that attack the plant. The resulting disease can be controlled with toxic pesticides, which end up in our food, but the soil sickens and cannot support healthy plant growth anymore.
When we put excessive junk food and sugar into our digestive systems the microorganisms in our gut are not needed and die off or are exterminated by fungi like candida. The result is that the microorganisms that support our immune system no longer support health and vitality. The resulting disease can be controlled with toxic medications, which end up in our bodies, but the gut sickens and cannot support health any more.
The only real difference between a carrot and the gut is the that carrot looks outwards, sending its root hairs away from the carrot to collaborate with the friendly microorganisms and the food and immunity they bring. The gut looks inwards, sending its root hairs into the intestine to collaborate with the friendly microorganisms and the food and immunity they bring.
Not farming organically is shortsighted - you waste precious living soil microbiota in order to get temporary crop yield increases that leave you with degraded sickened soil that can't support healthy life and is dependent on drugs like fertilisers and biocides. Not eating healthily and organically is shortsighted - you waste your precious living gut microbota to get temporary energy increases that leave you with a degraded, sickened digestive system that can't support healthy life and is dependent on drugs and antibiotics.
When you add charcoal to soil it helps protect the microbes in the soil from dying off so they can cure soil degradation and plant disease. When you add charcoal to your diet it helps protect the microbes in the gut from dying off, curing gut degradation and disease.
A healthy soil is full of mucus, a sticky substance called glomalin that holds the soil particles together to ensure that nutrients and soil microbes all stay happily in the upper layers of soil
A healthy gut is full of mucus - sticky material made by gut flora that helps ensure that nutrients and gut microbes stay happily in the upper layers of the gut lining.
The parallels go on. Whether you grow organically or eat organically, you are following the road of biology. When you don't you're following the road of chemistry and drugs. Chemistry creates addictive behaviour. We have to kick the habit, in growing and in eating.
(Craig Sams will elaborate on these parallels at NOPE. He will discuss the implications and opportunities of this emerging awareness for vitamin and supplement manufacturers, natural food processors and growers and farmers)
