Decision time

It is decision time – to bug or not to bug, that is the question (William Shakespeare modified)

Let me explain. For three billion years, which even to an old crony like me is an awful long time) the Earth was dead, nothing living just a dead rock whizzing around the sun.

Then, we guess from outer space some microbes appeared, they broke down the rocks to make soil, plants grew in the soil, then creatures ate the plants and creatures that ate the creatures that ate the plants appeared.

But they all bred and died and when they died other creatures came along, the recyclers, the worms, ants, larvae, protozoa, nematodes etc came along and they had guts full of microbes, just like us to create yet more soil.

It did not take that long, a mere billion years and much of the land mass of the Earth was covered in soil, sometimes many metres thick.

Then yesterday, well a million years ago, the first humans appeared and nothing much changed, just more bodies to convert into soil.

Then just a moment ago, well actually two thousand years modern humans appeared, they were hunter-gatherers and apart from exterminating a few slow and stupid creatures made little difference.

But then a puff ago, actually ten thousand years but that is just a puff in geological time, they invented agriculture which led to an increase in food supply and an explosion in the population and the creatures of cities and civilisation.

Well, it was more of a loud bang than an explosion as cities led to diseases but being an inventive creature in the blink of an eyelid, in the last couple of hundred years we humans developed a lot of good things to fight diseases, sewage systems, clean water, hygienic beds (we don’t like bed bugs) and antibiotics and there was a real explosion in the population.

And they all had to be fed so being ever inventive we ramped up our food production with industrial chemical agriculture and developed highly processed food you could just pop in your microwave and have an instant meal.

So life should have been wonderful – but it was not.

We found out that our gut was full of microbes which did much more than digest our food, they had intelligence that controlled our bodies, particularly our appetite but we found out a bit too late that all our wonderful technology produced more easy to-use food and our desire to kill off all those nasty microbes that made us sick that we had created a new epidemic of non-infectious diseases stemming from a failure in our control system so we were storing the wrong fat in the wrong places.

And it was bad news, over half the population was overweight, diabetes was rampant with eight million people a year suffering a limb amputation, heart disease was the most common cause of death and dementia was causing major misery.

And all because we did not understand that those bugs that live in our gut are really our friends trying their very best to keep us fit and healthy for as long as possible.

So ‘to bug or not to bug – that is the question’.

If your answer is to bug then here is what you have to do.

Step 1 finish reading this article so you understand how the bugs control your appetite.

Step 2 sign up and learn how to breed beneficial microbes.

Step 3 put on your daggies and do it.

How we goofed up

Creatures are born, they breed and die, but the next generation continues on.

There is a flock of magpies in my garden, they have been living there for years, they look the same, but they are not the same birds.

We call this dynamic equilibrium, it is like walking up a down-going escalator, everything looks the same, but it is not.

Our bodies are like this. This is obvious with our hair and nails, they grow, we cut them. We look the same, but it is new hair and nails.

But it is not just hair and nails, it is our whole body. Cells in our kidneys, skin and knee caps, and from all over our bodies, are continuously dying and being replaced.

It may appear to be simple, but it is a very sophisticated system. In our gut, we have trillions of cells which communicate with each other to create intelligence – our gut-brain.

It reads sensors from all over our bodies. If it sees that it needs to replace a few cells, from some part of the body, it will talk with our head-brain, which is continuously monitoring what we eat and how that affects our bodies.

It will tell our gut-brain that we need this food, and the gut-brain will create a spectrum of hormones so we crave that particular food. This may not contain the exact nutrients that are needed, but our gut-brain will process that as raw materials to create the complex chemicals that we need to replace the part that needs replacing.

Pretty neat, eh!

But our gut-brain itself is in a state of dynamic equilibrium with new microbes dying and being replaced very rapidly. This happens very fast with new microbes being replaced daily.

These new microbes breed mainly in our gut from the food we eat, but they continuously need to have a fresh supply of new microbes from outside.

This has been happening automatically for the last million years or so since humanoid creatures first inhabited the Earth. Examine the species of microbes in the soil, and you will find the same species as in our gut.

This is not a coincidence; it is the way we have evolved, eating fresh plants full of the beneficial microbes breeding in from the soil, and it has worked very well up until recently.

We changed our food system so we no longer eat plants grown in soil full of breeding microbes, while they are still fresh, before the microbes die.

The result has been a disaster for humanity. Without the beneficial microbes in our gut that regulate our bodies, we now have an epidemic of chronic or non-infectious diseases -obesity, diabetes, heart attack and dementia. It costs us dearly both in our lives and financially to our health system.

But it is a problem easily solved – breed the beneficial microbes at home.

Collect up the organic waste from kitchen scraps and other organic waste. Put this in the lower of a pair of nesting containers, with a starter kit of soil containing the beneficial microbes and creatures of the soil.

This starter kit is called “rhizobug soil” because it is made by breeding the beneficial microbes in the rhizosphere or root zone, where the creatures of the soil flourish.

In the upper container, add regular potting mix and grow plants in the normal way.

Irrigate using the flood and flush principle so that what we call soil blood, because it does the same job as our blood, circulates through the upper box, into the lower box, then is caught in a container for reuse.

This flood and flush system expels any stale air from the soil when flooding and sucks in fresh air when draining. You are making the soil breathe, just like us.

Just pick and eat the plants while fresh, and you will be on the road to a long and healthy life free of the modern epidemic of chronic disease.

Grow your own gut bugs

Health starts in your gut. If you want a long and healthy life, you need healthy gut microbes.

Modern food may be full of energy and hygienic, but does not lead to a healthy gut.

Your health is more important than the profits of a few mega companies.

Take matters into your own hands and grow your own gut microbes.

It is simple and inexpensive, even if you live in a flat, you can do it in a container. Microbes are a randy lot and breed easily, they just need the right combination of food, water and air.

You just need a starter kit and organic waste like kitchen scraps, and a watering can used the right way to create Goldilocks conditions.

We show you how. Read on, and if you have any questions, just email me at colin@gbiota.com or read the next article about innovation here

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