Transforming Parent Soils for Healthy Wicking Beds

by Colin Austin | Sep 29, 2025 | Soil Health

Parent soils, such as clay, sands and potting mixes can be transformed into soils suitable for wicking beds. Here we start by looking at what characteristics we should aim for.

The importance of biology

Most people understand that the current system of factory farming and processing food is unhealthy – too much fat, sugars and salt and lacking critical vitamins and minerals. While medical experts praise the benefits of eating more fruit and vegetables the problem is not resolved by eating sterile – chemically farmed fruits and vegetables

We depend on biology. There are more bacteria in our bodies than native cells, they help us digest our food and produce hormones which signal that we are full. Without these signals we always feel hungry and tend to overeat. Further hormones signal our bodies to store excess calories as fat – our bodies mistakenly protecting us from starvation in the future.

We need to be eating fresh fruit and vegetables grown in healthy living soil. The easiest way is to grow them ourselves. Wicking beds enable almost anyone to grow healthy food but they need healthy soil – so what do we really mean by healthy soil.

Wicking beds – anyone can grow their own food

Wicking beds make it easy to grow vegetables even for people with limited time or space – such as an apartment -however the quality of the produce – like in any growing system – is totally dependent on the quality of the soil.

The obvious benefit is that wicking beds don’t need to be watered so often – they almost thrive on neglect – so home growing has been taken up by many people who would have never contemplated growing in a traditional garden.

An even greater benefit of Wicking Beds is that nutrients are retained in the bed and not flushed away.

The greatest benefit of wicking beds is that virtually anyone can grow healthy plants but the soil must be a living soil. Health starts in the soil if nutrients aren’t in the soil they can never be in our food.

Soils for Wicking Beds

We have to make wicking beds soils starting from what is readily available and transform it to what we want.

The soil must have a high void space to hold water – if there is enough void space there is no need for any additional water reservoir – the soil can hold all the water that is needed.

It must be hydrophilic – water loving – so it will wick and hold onto water and nutrients.

It must contain the nutrients essential for both us and our plants and the nutrients must be available to the plants and not locked up. This comes from a living soil.

We know a great deal about the chemistry and physics of soil but the most important technology is soil biology – a young and rapidly growing science. But we still have only identified, isolated and studied a fraction of the millions of different species of soil biology.

Soil biology is more than a collection of many species – it is a living eco-system with all the myriad species working together.

Parent Soil

You have to start with what you have. If you have a garden you have access to soil but you are very lucky if you have that magic loam. Most people have soil which is from the extremes, either heavy clay or sand.

Clay may appear to be pretty horrible stuff with a lousy structure but it is generally fertile and has good water attraction properties.

Sand may be the opposite with a good structure but generally little nutrients. Some sands are hydrophilic with good wicking properties but many others, particularly if there are gum leaves around are hydrophobic and repel water, it just sits as little globules.

If you do not have a garden then you may have to buy potting mix. Factory production can also turn out bags of cheap potting mix by the truck load. But it is not a living soil and needs transforming.

Biology transforms soils

Soil Biology can transform soil. I t can cause the ultra fine particle in clay to aggregate creating a large voids space.

These voids need to be connected and the large creature in the soil can do this for us. If we simply flood the bed the critters will come to the surface making little channels through the soil.

The fungi can dissolve minerals and make them available to the plants.

Wicking Bed soils need a high void content so they can hold water. The voids need to be connected so air and stagnant gasses can readily move through the soil.

A good Wicking Bed soil will have at least 50% void content.

If you have a high void content there is no need to worry about using stones and cloths – the soil will hold all the water that is needed and it allows all the volume of a wicking bed to be occupied by the root system.

Soil Chemistry

If it is not in the soil it cannot be in the plants. Fortunately the science of soil chemistry is well developed and it is easy to get your soil tested. A lot depends on the parent soil but there is no difficulty in adding the needed minerals.

For the typical gardener there is no too much need to worry over the primary and secondary minerals as compost will usually provide these.

In the section on soil biology I talk about the importance of fungi. Calcium is essential for fungi so adding extra calcium in the form of gypsum and dolomite is recommended.

Many people are very selective in what they put in their compost and avoid adding citreous, onions, garlic etc. I respect that view but to be frank I don’t bother to sort my compost – if it is organic in it goes – however I am carful to endure that it does not become acidic by adding plenty of lime and other calcium sources.

Soil Physics

In a Wicking Bed the soil physics are very important. The particles need to be hydrophilic e.g water loving so it attracts water and wicks well and also must have the surface which can attract and hold onto nutrients.

This is always important but particularly for Wicking Beds.

Types of Wicking Beds for Healthy Soil & Plants

by Colin Austin | Sep 28, 2025 | Wicking Beds

Wicking systems rely on the attraction between soil and water so water (and nutrients) will rise up from a water storage to the soil where the plant is growing. Here we review the various systems and conclude that the soil is the most important factor.

Wicking Flower Pots

A flower pot sitting in a saucer is the simplest wicking system. It catches any excess water which can then wick back up into the pot as the plant uses the water.

It is a very old system probably dating back to when pottery was first developed and was likely used by the ancient Egyptians.

They rely on the soil acting as a wick to pull the water out of the saucer. They catch both water and nutrients — avoiding losing nutrients is particularly important as it leads to higher growth.

Another version is simply putting drain holes in the side of a container rather than on the bottom so automatically creating a water reservoir — so simple.

Normally a layer of organic material is laid in the base. The water is stored in the organic material and in the soil. The same system can be used in larger in-ground beds. The water is stored in the soil which needs to have a high void space to store the water as well as being hydrophilic or water loving for wicking to occur.

Pots with Wick

A simple extension of the basic pot-and-saucer system is to put a wick in the hole in the base of the pot so that water can wick up from a lower container. The wick should be made from a material with good wicking properties — a dish cloth is both cheap and effective.

The hole in the base of the pot also acts as a drain so there is no danger of the soil becoming water-logged.

There are typically two separate pots so normally the top pot is lifted and the lower pot filled with water.

These are very easy to make as a do-it-yourself project.

Cotton makes a very effective wick and takes up little space so virtually 100% of the reservoir is available for water storage. This is the basic principle of wicking baskets but in this case the basket fits inside a bucket (which is convenient) but means a drain tube must be fitted.

The drain tube can be twisted to control the water level — it can also be used for filling. The water level can be raised when seeding and lowered as the roots develop.

A similar system uses a standard horticultural tray which just sits on a lower container filled with soil and water. In this case the roots go straight through the mesh so there must be good contact between the soil in the upper and lower containers (e.g. no air gap).

This very simple ‘hole in the side’ box uses a pipe so the water is filled from the base and rises. This helps flushing and avoids stagnation.

Soil Fingers

Another version of the wick is to use the soil as a wick by having soil “fingers” going down into a lower water reservoir.

These systems are more complex to make and often use a plastic moulding so they are not so suitable for the handyman.

Soil fingers reduce the volume of water in the reservoir and are not as effective at wicking as a cloth wick and there is a compromise between the size and number of soil wicks so less of the water reservoir is available for the plants.

They are widely used because they are sold at high prices which give margins for promotions — there is no promotion margin in a dish cloth which is technically superior.

Crates

Another version is to have some form of internal container to act as a reservoir. The container (which could be an old crate) is wrapped in geotextile to prevent the soil getting into the box.

They are really a version of the soil wick as the soil must surround the crate.

Gravel Beds

Gravel beds aim to create a water reservoir by filling the base with stones so the water can be stored in the spaces between the stones. Water storage is a lot less but is practical for the larger boxes.

A distribution pipe is laid in the bottom, then a layer of stones, then geotextile, then soil on top. Stones do not wick but roots are aggressive and will push straight through the geotextile to pick up the water. Also water will evaporate from the water surface and condense on the soil above. This can be quite effective if the soil is hydrophilic when it will readily absorb the water from the air (a bit like silica gel).

The water storage can be significantly increased by using a porous rock (like pumice).

Larger Beds

Beds can be made in many ways such as raised beds made from shade cloth lined with plastics. How the beds are built is not important as long as they hold water.

Drainage is essential; this sight glass and drain tube can be swivelled to adjust water level. The drainage pipe can be connected to an external reservoir which can be very large, holding a lot of water to extend the time between irrigations.

Which Are the Most Water Efficient and the Best?

This is a natural question to ask — but is it the right question? The fact is that they all supply water on a fairly continuous basis to the plants, so they all work pretty well when judged by increasing the time between watering.

But let us see whether we are really asking the right question by asking why people use Wicking Beds.

Of course some people just want to save the work and inconvenience of watering, but I would hope that most people would say it is because they are concerned about the chemical farming of commercial produce — high in calories and low in nutrients — and want to eat healthy food, full of minerals, vitamins and phytonutrients to improve their health.

On that basis all of the above systems are just ways of delivering a steady supply of water to the plants, but do not directly improve the health-giving benefits of the plants. Wicking Beds can do that very well because there is no flushing of nutrients.

Growing Healthy Food

Science has known for many years the minerals and vitamins that are essential for health; however our soils have become depleted in trace minerals. The “productisation for profit” of our food system has been a disaster leading to the world’s worst health crisis.

At one time it was thought that all we had to do was to take vitamin pills and we would be healthy. More recent science has shown just how complex the human body is and the food chain which powers it. We are just becoming aware of the importance of gut bacteria and the hormones which control our body and how they can be affected by the minerals and biology in the soil in which our food is grown.

Closed Wicking Beds

In a closed wicking bed there is no direct connection from the surrounding soil, so both minerals and biology must be added to the bed.

Soil biology creates the right surface chemistry for wicking and to hold onto the nutrients so they are available to the plants.

Whatever type of wicking bed you choose, having a living soil with the needed minerals and soil biology is the single most important factor. The spectrum of soil biology from the microscopic fungi and bacteria to the larger creatures releases the minerals in the soil and makes them available to the plants. The larger creatures like worms release glues so the soil forms aggregates and creates tunnels which give a high void capacity.

Worm bins (buried — not as shown) can be used directly in a wicking bed. It is easy to add the needed minerals to a wicking bed and they can be inoculated with pre-grown soil biology to start the process.

However adding soil biology is not like adding an inert fertiliser. Soil biology is living and while it can grow very rapidly, it must be cared for like a farmer looks after his animals.

How Types of Wicking Beds Work Together

Whatever the system, the principle is the same: water moves by attraction (wicking) through the soil, supplying moisture and nutrients to the plant roots — provided the soil is hydrophilic, porous, and biologically active.

The way the soil is constructed and cared for is far more important to the long-term health and nutrition of the plants (and thus people) than the particular wicking configuration chosen.

Download ‘Types of Wicking Beds’ (full PDF)

Why We Need to Change the Modern Food System

by Colin Austin | Sep 28, 2025 | Gbiota

For the first few billion years the earth was just a barren rock. Then microbes appeared, they broke down the rocks and made soil which led to plants flourishing.

Next came animals that ate the plants which were full of microbes so some microbes ended up in the guts of these animals. These microbes digested the animal’s food, manufacturing the spectrum of complex chemicals the animals needed and, most significantly, regulating appetite—sending out specific hormones to make the animals hungry for a particular food when they were low in it, and yet other hormones so they would stop eating when full.

Microbes didn’t just make soil—they became the hidden regulators of life itself, controlling appetite, energy, and survival.

Microbes Make Life Possible

We need the microbes to power the intelligent control system which regulates our bodies. Without these microbes we don’t live a long and healthy life—we overeat and get fat and sick.

Our modern food system is a highly sophisticated industrialised chemical process relying on synthetic fertilisers and toxic sprays which have eliminated the microbes. This has led to the modern epidemic of chronic diseases which is causing so much personal suffering for the population and so much cost to the Governments in charge of our health system.

Obesity affects much of the population.
Diabetes is the fastest growing of all diseases, with over eight million people a year having a limb amputated.
Heart attacks are the most common cause of death.
Dementia must be one of the most heartbreaking conditions.

All these stem from not having the beneficial microbes in our gut that regulate our appetite.

Solution – Breed Microbes at Home

But we can solve this problem.

Microbes breed in organic waste, which makes breeding microbes easy, and they naturally move into plants. But they also die very quickly, which means they must be grown and eaten shortly after picking. In practice—since most people now live in apartments or have little garden—this means using special breeding containers at home.

The solution is not in more chemicals—it is in restoring our partnership with microbes, right in our homes.

This is cheaper than buying aged plants from a supermarket, but it does mean a change in behaviour, like having a breeding container on your balcony if you live in an apartment.

Microbes have a short life.

We already have the technology of breeding beneficial microbes. Gbiota basket-boxes breed beneficial microbes in organic waste under controlled conditions to grow the plants which contain the beneficial microbes.

This is straightforward, but we need to create a social change where people grow that critical part of their diet—gut-brain food—at home rather than relying on the centralised industrial chemical food system.

For that, we need a food social movement. The community has to be educated about the importance of our gut microbes and shown that they can grow these microbes at home, even if they have no garden or growing skills.

Local Gut-Brain Food Industry

We need to create a new industry where people can buy everything they need—the soil, boxes, seeds, etc.—from a local supplier and, if needed, get the critical support from a suitably qualified dietitian who understands how the gut microbes act as the control system for our appetite.

What we need is not just a product, but a movement—a cultural shift toward food that nurtures microbes, and in turn, nurtures us.

How do we create this societal change? We need to create a team of people with a range of skills who understand the benefits to the community of the gut microbes in regulating our bodies.

Energy and Regeneration in Wicking Beds

by Colin Austin | Sep 15, 2025 | Wicking Beds

Food gives us energy and regenerates our bodies. Most commercial foods now contain a lot of energy or calories based on simple hydrocarbons but lack the complex chemicals needed to regenerate our bodies are much more complex.

Our bodies are in a continuous state of regeneration, we may not realise this is happening as there may be no apparent change. For example, our hair and nails are continuously growing so the hair we had a few months ago has been replaced by new hair which looks just like the old hair, but every molecule has been replaced. It just looks the same as the generation of new cells is controlled by our DNA. This is happening all over our body with old cells dying and being replaced by new cells.

This regeneration of our bodies requires far more complex foods that have evolved from the synergistic relations between plants and animals. Plants are the master of chemistry.Plants produce chemicals which are highly beneficial for us animals – the vitamins are a classic example but science is continuously discovering new beneficial chemicals (called phytochemicals).

These beneficial chemicals often incorporate minerals which the plants do not need themselves but we need. Over the years soils can become deficient in these minerals required to regenerate our bodies but still provide high calorie food which can be profitably sold. This is the way our food system works.

So what can we do about this? The answer is simple – grow some of our own food.

That is what this website is all about – helping people to grow food which contains the minerals and phytochemicals to regenerate our bodies.

The wicking bed is a convenient way of growing food, they save water and can extend the time between watering but they are much more than a simple self-watering pot – they produce the phytochemicals needed for our bodies to regenerate.

The production of these beneficial phytochemicals needs a food chain from a balanced ecosystem. The starting point is the minerals which are insoluble and need fungi to break them down and make them available to the plants.

But fungi need worms to distribute the spores and worms need bacteria to break down organic material to make it digestible, compost is important both as a food source for the biology but because it can hold onto nutrients (CES or cation exchange capacity). All this together creates a working eco system.

How to Replenish Your Gut Microbes

by Colin Austin | Sep 2, 2025 | Gbiota

The microbes in our gut are critical for our health but in an effort to feed the ever increasing population and avoid infectious diseases we have adopted a food system which no longer breeds the beneficial microbes we need. But we can modify the traditional way we bred microbes by carefully controlling the conditions so the beneficial microbes out compete the harmful microbes. This is a powerful tool in combating the current epidemic of chronic diseases.

Our intelligent control system

The microbes in our gut do much more than digest our food; they communicate with each other and our head-brain to provide the intelligent control system which regulates our bodies and determines our overall health. Initially, the microbes may first come from mum at birth and then from her milk, but after that, it is from our food.

Historic food production

Historically, our food was grown under natural conditions in soil teeming with life from the creatures of the soil, like the worms, larvae, beetles, fungi, right down to the microbes themselves. This certainly provided a broad spectrum of microbes, including the beneficial microbes we need to keep ourselves healthy, but often also contained harmful microbes which made us sick or even killed us.

Change for the worse

To increase production to feed the ever-growing population and to avoid the harmful microbes, we changed to chemical farming, which meant we lacked the critical beneficial microbes. We have tried to overcome this by the use of probiotics, the breeding of known beneficial microbes under tightly controlled laboratory conditions.

We need a full spectrum of microbes

However, this has limitations: only a small number of the naturally occurring microbial species are incorporated, they often fail to reach the gut, and even if they do, they do not reproduce because of a lack of fibre in the diet. This has led to the idea of studying the natural process of breeding microbes in the soil, so it can be mimicked without the danger of breeding harmful microbes. This is intrinsically a very simple and effective process: breed the microbes in the soil under controlled conditions, grow plants in the soil so the microbes enter the plants, then eat the plants while fresh before the microbes die. This leads to a broad spectrum of microbes which is highly beneficial, while any harmful microbes are outbred by the beneficial microbes.

The Food Trap

The shops are full of food, often from the other side of the world, so always in season. It tastes good and is hygienically processed and wrapped. So what could possibly be wrong? To help us understand what is rather a sneaky situation, we can compare the food our bodies need with an aeroplane.

Fuel or Energy Food

They both need fuel, and in large quantities. For us, it is mainly carbohydrates, sugars and fats—simple chemicals, largely consisting of carbon and hydrogen, which we burn off to release energy.

80% of the food we eat is simply burned off for energy. We have been amazingly successful in producing energy-dense food. The human population may have rapidly expanded, doubling every fifty years or so, but our production of energy food has expanded even faster.

There is no shortage of energy food. If some people do not have enough, it is not because of a shortage of energy food but a political problem of inequality.

Body Building and Replacement Food

Both an aeroplane and our bodies are complex machines which need a lot of input to build and replace all the parts. The picture here is not quite so rosy. The total amount of nutrients in our food has not expanded as fast as the population, and there are some deficiencies in our diet. Most people are a little short of magnesium, women lack iron, and men lack zinc. There are a few trace elements and vitamins where we are falling behind. There is still plenty of magnesium, iron, zinc and the other trace minerals available. The problem is more one of awareness and education rather than a physical shortage.

The Pilot and our Intelligent Controls System

An aeroplane needs a pilot—even a drone has a remote pilot—who is in charge of reaching the destination safely. The pilot has instruments for fuel level, weather conditions, obstacles, and tools to control the plane. This is a highly skilled operation requiring extensive training and practice.

Our bodies have a similar control system made up of both our brains. Yes, we have two brains. Our head brain starts learning from birth, storing information and developing logic and instinctive actions (the subconscious). We also have a second brain in our gut. The microbes in our gut communicate with each other to provide real intelligence, which plays a different role than our head brain.

Together they form an integrated system, learning how the foods we eat work for us and how they provide the energy or nutrients we need. Sensors throughout the body detect deficiencies and help create the hormone mix that makes us crave particular foods. This is a highly sophisticated and much under-appreciated wonder of the human body.

The Trap

However, there is a trap. The microbes in our gut are an integral part of this intelligent control system, and if we don’t have the right sort of microbes in our gut, it does not work properly. This is the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of chronic disease.

We have been so intent on avoiding harmful microbes through extreme hygiene that we now lack the beneficial microbes. This leaves us with the challenge of creating a system which has the beneficial microbes we need without the harmful microbes. This is more challenging because microbes have a very short life, living in dynamic equilibrium—continuously breeding and dying. So, how do we breed beneficial microbes without breeding harmful ones?

Control the conditions

This may sound difficult, but it is actually simple. We just need to create the conditions that benefit the beneficial microbes so they outcompete the harmful ones. The beneficial microbes need a combination of nutrients, air and water. Provide those conditions, and the beneficial microbes will prevail. This is the essence of Gbiota technology—simple, inexpensive, and usable by virtually anyone.

Blue Zones

People in the Blue Zones enjoy long, healthy lives—and the common pattern is well known. Much of their food is fresh and plant-based, grown in living soil fertilised naturally so it teems with life.

Microbes breed in the soil, enter the plants we eat, and help build our gut biome. These microbes work with our brain and body sensors to regulate health—shaping whether we stay well or develop chronic disease.

So why aren’t we all eating that way? It often costs less and can be more convenient and healthier than buying highly processed “always fresh, always there” food. This matters because healthcare is now a major social cost, with many chronic diseases linked to the wrong fats in the wrong places—often driven by the wrong diet. Food and health feel different from other technologies, even though the benefits of microbe-rich diets are clear. Yet sustainable, health-building food systems haven’t reached critical mass.

So how will that be solved?

Like all major innovations: people with real need adopt it, prove it works, and generate momentum. That is the purpose of Gbiota—building the critical mass so a healthy, microbe-rich diet becomes normal and accessible to all.

The Gbiota Mission

by Colin Austin | Aug 6, 2025 | Gbiota

Plants capture energy from sunlight and carbon from the air to make sugars, which they exude from their roots. This feeds microbes in the soil, which break down the rocks to provide minerals to the plants.The plants pull water from the soil together with microbes, which enter the plants. We eat plants that contain the microbes that enter our gut and break down our food, allowing us to digest it.

But the microbes do much more. They have crowd intelligence and regulate how much and what sort of food we want to eat, where and how much fat we store, power our immune system, and even affect our psychological state. That’s how life works and has worked for many millions of years. Then we changed our food system, relying on chemicals, often toxic, so this microbiological balance was upset and we, yes we, created an epidemic of chronic diseases - obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, cancer and dementia all for the sake of profit. But we created this crisis, and we can fix it. Gbiota provides growing kits comprising a mix of seeds selected to feed the microbes, together with an inoculant containing the initial beneficial microbes.

The Gut Brain at work

Biochemistry is an amazing technology. We understand the needs of the body from the basics of calories, through minerals, trace elements and vitamins, right down to micrograms. So you would expect that we would all be healthier and living longer. But that is not the case, life span and particular health span - how long we remain fit and healthy - are decreasing. What is going on? Some facts can be really puzzling. We can take foods that are highly desirable - say, pizza and cheesecake. It is not surprising that some people will stuff themselves while others will eat in moderation. It is hardly surprising that of those who stuff themselves on a regular basis, some will get fat, but what is surprising is that of those who stuff themselves, some will remain slim, fit and healthy. To understand this, we require a new technology of control theory. This is again a highly sophisticated technology in the engineering world. We can balance a rocket on a stream of hot gases so it remains stable and land it on a faraway plant within metres of the target - truly amazing. But we are just at the beginning of understanding how the control system that regulates our bodies works. We know that the microbes in our gut play a critical part in this control system. The trillions of microbes in our gut communicate with each other to create genuine intelligence - it is like having a supercomputer inside us. Sadly, we do not have access to the code that drives this supercomputer, but we do know that it is essential for a long and healthy life. We also know that in our desire to avoid infectious diseases, we have crippled our natural gut microbes. The gut microbes in existing hunter-gatherer tribes are far healthier and more diverse than those of people eating a modern, ultra-processed diet. Modern science may have overcome the worst of infectious diseases, but we have created a new epidemic of chronic or non-infectious diseases, which is now by far the biggest health crisis facing humanity, causing great personal hardship and costing our health system trillions of dollars. So what can we do about this? We can develop the technology of breeding beneficial microbes without breeding harmful microbes. This may sound incredibly difficult, particularly since we have yet to understand how the intelligent control system works. In fact, it is relatively simple and is the basis for the Gbiota technology. Our gut microbes originate in the soil, where they breed, enter the plants that we eat and then into our gut. If we control the condition in the soil, we can breed the beneficial microbes, so they will out-compete and out-breed the harmful microbes. The first step is to feed them. Plants naturally capture energy from the sunlight and carbon from the air to create sugars. They exude sugars from their roots, which feed the microbes on which the plants depend for their food. Different plants exude different sugars, which attract different species, so all we have to do is grow a mixture of plants which will feed the spectrum of microbes we need. But in addition, we need to control the water-to-air ratio. If the soil is too dry, the plants won’t grow. If the soil is too wet without air we will breed the wrong sort of microbes. This is easily done by the Gbiota flood and flush system, which sucks fresh air into the soil. It is all so simple that virtually anyone can do it. But therein lies another problem. How can a technology that is so simple solve the greatest health problem on the planet? It sounds unbelievable. So how do we convince people that it works, by the simple method of getting people to try it and show it works. Seeing is believing. The results are obvious and very rapid, people just feel better. So why not join the Gbiota movement, breed beneficial gut microbes and make the world a better place to live in?

The Gbiota mission

The essence The Gbiota technology breeds beneficial microbes in the soil. Plants are grown in the soil which when eaten, transports the microbes from the soil into our guts. The microbes in our gut have intelligence and regulate our appetite, how much and where we store fat, much of our immune system and our physiological well-being. It is a simple and inexpensive process, but microbes have a short life, so the plants must be harvested and eaten straight away, which in practice means people growing their own plants at home. The Challenge Across the globe, people’s gut microbes have deteriorated as our food system has changed from growing plants under natural conditions to intense agriculture based on chemical inputs and the adoption of ultra-processed foods, which are inert and devoid of microbes. There are three ways of changing the gut microbes. Poo transplants are effective but are high-risk depending on the health of the donor. Pro-biotic pills have not stood the test of scientific investigation and proved effective partly because the range of microbial species is limited and they die before they become part of the gut micro-biome. Eating plants is highly effective, but plants are now typically grown using chemicals, which do not feed the microbes that would have died well before the plants are consumed anyway. But by far the biggest challenge is the power of the food and drug industries, which have multi-billion dollar advertising budgets which are manipulative and highly effective, and dwarf any promotion from alternatives. It is simply impossible to out-sell and out-promote the marketing power of the food and drug industries. The Solution - create a social movement We may think that people are driven purely by self-interest, and that may be true for some people, but the majority of people care deeply about the society in which they live. The solution is to create a social movement of people who care about their, and their communities, gut health. They can breed their own gut microbes and see for themselves the improvements in their health, but above all, they can show their friends and contacts how they are improving their health, and there is no better way of spreading ideas than people seeing other people achieving benefits. The message The microbes in our gut have intelligence, controlling our appetite, how and where we store fat, much of our immune system and our physiological state. The lack of these beneficial microbes is the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of chronic disease - the major health problem facing the world. Solving this is incredibly important, so failure to achieve adoption was serious. It was not working because the internet is so saturated with promotions for dubious magic pills, which are so obviously marketing crap that now no thinking person believes a word. Then, out of the blue, I watched the Australian Story on Jane’s story. Just Google ‘Australian Story poo transplant’. This had 30,000 views on YouTube in the first day. This showed me that I should forget about the fake world of internet marketing. Intelligent people tend to dismiss this as marketing hype. They want to hear stories of sensible people who are prepared to take their health into their own hands, who have tried the new technology for themselves - not a load of marketing hype. However, poo transplants are a risky business, presenting difficulties for large-scale trials, even if supervised by a recognised University or research institute. By contrast, the Gbiota technology has minimal risk, making it suitable for such trials. If you have an interest in changing your gut microbes and are prepared to pioneer a new technology by participating in a supervised trial, please email me here. This would benefit you and many of your fellow human beings.

The Gbiota technology enables people to breed their own gut microbes.

Microbes have a short life of around a day. They breed and die rapidly, typically in a day, in a state of dynamic equilibrium. Of the microbes you think you are buying as probiotics, some may just survive if they are kept cold enough, but the real solution is to breed them yourself. It is better and cheaper. Some people want to spend time studying some of the many articles about how to breed beneficial gut microbes before they start breeding themselves, while others want to start straight away. If you are one of these action people you can go straight to the post 'How to breed gut microbes yourself'.

What does the Gbiota technology do?

The Gbiota technology enables people with minimal training to breed beneficial microbes in special soil in containers where plants are grown. These beneficial microbes enter the plants and, when eaten fresh, enter our gut biome, so extending health span. These beneficial microbes communicate with each other, providing genuine intelligence, creating hormones which regulate appetite, and where, how much, and what type of fats are stored. The wrong fat in the wrong place is the cause of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases, and is caused by deficiencies in our modern diet. Our bodies sense these deficiencies and create hormones which make us want to eat more food, typically in our modern food system, sugary, fatty foods. The problem is not the sugary, fatty foods themselves but the deficiencies, and the biggest deficiency of all is the lack of beneficial microbes in our gut. It is simple - if you don't have the right microbes in your gut, then you are likely to end up fat and sick with a reduced health span. Let us be clear. We are not advocating a diet of sugary fatty food, nor are we saying that the fundamental laws of conservation of mass and energy do not apply to the human body. To get fat, you must consume more than you use. But eating fatty, sugary food is not the cause of why people get fat. It is an enabling factor, NOT the cause. The cause is that our bodies, or more specifically, the control system that regulates our bodies, decides that we need to store more fat. It then produces hormones so we crave food, consume more than we use and then we get fat and sick. Traffic lights enable or disable a car from crossing an intersection, but it is the drivers decision that causes the car to cross the intersection. This is not some pedantic academic argument; it affects the entire strategy for combating the modern epidemic of chronic disease, which is what this website is all about. The good news is that the strategy is so simple, easy and inexpensive to fix. The bad news is that no one will make a lot of money from such a simple and easy solution so promotion is left to community benefit organisations, like Gbiota, who are not into the mega budgets required for manipulative marketing, but we can afford good and innovative technology.

Why a plant-based diet

Observational trials Many extensive trials involving many thousands of people have been conducted by reputable scientific organisations and have shown that people eating a predominantly plant-based diet are healthier, live longer and are relatively free of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases, such as overweight, diabetes, heart attacks, cancer and dementia. We need to know why But there are purely observational trials; they do not tell us why. A diet of predominantly hydroponic lettuce will leave us short of protein and the essential vitamin B12. By contrast, Flax is full of protein and the beneficial Omega-3 three, essential for managing cholesterol and avoiding heart problems. But Flax also contains cyanide, which, if eaten in excess, can be dangerous. We need to understand how the plant system works. Phytonutrients Plants do not have legs, so they cannot run away, so they have developed an incredible array of complex chemicals we call phytonutrients. Some will deter predators like insects, while others will attract animals and birds to spread their seeds. A single tomato will contain over a thousand different phytonutrients, so animals will find them delicious to eat, while the seeds are protected from gastric juices, so the plants will spread. Specimen-quality plants can be grown chemically It is perfectly possible to grow plants which appear near perfection by growing them in a biologically inactive soil and feeding them a carefully balanced chemical formulation. Much of our modern food is produced this way and is why our Supermarkets are stocked with specimen quality fruit and vegetables. But this is not the way plants grow naturally and is the root cause of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases. Plants are naturally part of an eco-system In the natural state plants thrive by being part of a natural Eco-system. They need microbes to break down the rocks and recycle dead organic matter so the nutrients become bio-available. Plants exude nutrients from their roots so beneficial microbes can breed. Different plants exude different nutrients so plants of different species naturally grow together with a broad range of creatures in the soil like worms and larvae to create a system which has proved sustainable for over a billion years. Microbes and humans are synergistic The microbes in the soil enter the plants and have become a natural part of us. They do much more than help us digest our food, they communicate with each other to create genuine intelligence which regulates our bodies. They control our appetite, what type and how much fat we store, and play a major role in our immune system. The benefit of this intelligent control system far outweighs even the nutritional benefits of phytonutrients. A billion years of evolution This incredible eco-balance is not an accident; it is the product of a billion years of evolution. If we maintain it, our species could survive another billion years. If we destroy it, we face the same fate as countless extinct species. The important and the critical Eating a plant-based diet is important. But how we grow those plants is critical. If we grow plants using the principles developed through evolutionary eco-balance, we thrive. If we ignore it, we risk collapse. And as humans, we tend to ignore symptoms until we reach crisis… then scramble to fix what could have been prevented.

Action Plan

Saving our species from extinction by changing the global food system is not trivial and is made more difficult by our information system, which has trained us to have the attention span of a moth. We need to breed the right sort of microbes in the soil, then eat the plants while fresh, so we have the microbes in our gut which regulate our appetite and how much, what sort and where we store fat. Gbiota shows you how—it is not difficult. We have been doing it for a million years without thinking about it. It only became a problem when we changed our food system to chemicals toxic to microbes and increased the delay between harvest and eating.

Breeding your own gut microbes

by Colin Austin | Jul 24, 2025 | Uncategorized

How to breed gut microbes yourself

We may live in our cities of concrete and steel, but we are totally dependent on the Earth’s Ecosystem to survive.

Our energy comes from the sun captured by photosynthesis from the plants, plankton or algae. Our nutrients come from rocks, broken down by fungi, while the system of digestion and natural replacement is powered by the microbes.

But the microbes do more than that, they communicate with each other in our gut, creating natural intelligence which regulates our appetite, how much and where we store fat.

Sustained life is not possible without microbes, yet our modern food system has decimated the natural microbes and led to a worldwide crisis of chronic diseases, yet it is so simple to resolve.

Forget about thinking you can just go and buy a bag of microbes from your local chemist’s shop or online.

dynamic equlibriium Microbes have a short life of around a day. They breed and die rapidly, typically in a day, in a state of dynamic equilibrium.

Of the microbes you think you are buying as probiotics, some may just survive if they are kept cold enough, but the real solution is to breed them yourself.

It is better and cheaper.

No, don’t think you need a Ph D in microbiology to breed microbes, they are a randy lot and breed like crazy with a little help from us. We just need to control the conditions so we breed the beneficial microbes and not the harmful ones that make us sick or even kill us.

Hunter gatherers This is not some wonder new technology; ancient hunter-gatherer tribes had a healthy gut biome, as do the few remaining hunter-gatherers. Their gut biome has been extensively researched, so we can be sure of that.

True, it can be a delicate process but I have experimented to find the easiest way so virtually anyone can breed their own gut microbes and have the benefit of a healthy gut.

Here’s how.

Containers

drillingbox The easiest way, particularly if you live in a flat with no garden or growing experience, is to grow the beneficial microbes in containers, or more correctly, container sets.

You will need several to provide the volumes and reliable supply that you need, but let us just start with a single container set.

You will need two containers, which you can buy from any hardware shop.

Eventually, I suggest you buy a number of small containers rather than one big one. Technically, it allows much better control, and in practice, they are heavy.

I use 20-litre containers.

Most containers nest neatly inside each other, but some are designed so they can either stack or nest. Both work fine, but you need them in the nesting position.

You will need to drill a drainage hole, at least 15mm in diameter, in the edge of both containers, but preferably at the opposite end of the boxes, so the water has to flow through the boxes.

The top box

top box Fill the top box with any good potting mix and seed in the normal way.

The potting mix will not contain the beneficial microbes that you need in your gut biome, but we will come to that later.

Plants exude sugars

rhizosphere Plants use sunlight and carbon from the air to create sugars. They exude some of these sugars to attract and feed the microbes into the root zone.

Plants need these microbes to process the nutrients for the plants.

This is one of life’s greatest synergistic relationships, and without this relationship, you would not be here to read this article. It is the result of a billion years of evolution. Nature may take its time, but it produces incredible results in the end.

Different plants exude different sugars to attract different microbes. Gbiota distributors supply seed kits containing the needed spectrum of species to grow baby greens; the easiest and quickest plants to grow to breed gut microbes.

The bottom box

The bottom box is where most of the breeding action occurs. This is fuelled by organic waste, which you might otherwise throw into the green waste bin, at least if your local council is environmentally sensitive.

Put a piece of dishcloth over the hole so the waste does not fall out and make a mess.

You may need to poke the cloth with your finger from time to time so it does not silt up.

But this organic matter is not waste; it is a highly valuable resource which is part of the process of leading you to a long and healthy life. Pretty valuable!

But you can’t just throw in a load of kitchen scraps; the flies may be happy, but you will not be happy.

You will also need to add an inoculant kit to the bottom box. This contains the starter microbes but also a variety of creatures of the soil, the great recyclers which break down organic waste for the microbes to digest and have guts like us.

It is no coincidence that the microbes in our gut are also found in the soil. Put it simply that is where they came from in the first place.

If you live in Australia you can sign up as a home grower when you will automatically receive a Gbiota inoculation kit in the post. Delivery does have to be arranged as the kit contains living creatures which must be put into the Gbiota box as soon as it is received so they don't die.

You can sign up to become a home grower here.

The recyclers

worms You need the aid of the recyclers, that myriad of creatures which recycle waste into something that is valuable.

There are many recyclers, each doing the job they are best suited to.

Worms are at the front of the list, but they don’t have teeth to break down tough waste, but they do have a very active gut biome, which can process their own weight in a day, but they do need the help of the other recyclers.

Soldier fly larvae do a great job here, but they won’t win any beauty competitions.

beetles Beetles (not the musical Beatles, who have a good beat, but no beet) are also a critical member of the team.

But recycling is a team effort with many and varied species involved. Ask any soil micro-biologist and they will talk for hours about the world of recyclers.

But you don’t need to become a soil microbiologist; that is the job of the Gbiota breeders who supply the Gbiota distributors the material to make the kits, which consist of a combination of both the seeds and the inoculant.

All you have to do is buy the kits from your distributor.

Preferential breeding

Labile compost

labile compost If you just watered the top box, you would have two boxes: the top box growing plant in the conventional way. They will grow quite happily, but they will not be the beneficial microbes you need.

The bottom box is teaming with what is commonly called labile or young compost, meaning that some microbes will be the beneficial microbes you want, while others will not be properly processed as yet. Labile rhymes with nubile, which implies young

That is why you need two boxes.

Creating the conditions

water,air,nutrients But now comes the critical part, which is creating the conditions so the beneficial microbes will out compete and out breed any less beneficial microbes.

This may sound tricky, but in practice it is very simple - it is just a question of creating the right balance of air and water.

If the soil is too wet, the harmful microbes will breed; if the soil it too dry, the beneficial microbes won’t breed.

Goldilocks moisture

We need that magical Goldilocks moisture.

If you are one of those sorts of people who like to read long, boring technical articles, such as mine on how water moves through the soil and hydrophilic and hydrophobic soils, then please go ahead - but you don’t have to.

All you have to understand is that most soils love water and will hang on to it in a deep embrace and not let it go. Romantic but a bit of a pain.

So what we have to do is to thoroughly wet the soil until all the soil is saturated, then let the water drain away.

When the water saturates the soil, it will expel all the stale air, and when it drains, it will suck in fresh air.

Flood and flush

soil blood That is how we get the Goldilocks moisture, and it is just so simple and is actually less work than dribbling water in every day.

It is so simple. Take the drainage from the bottom box and add enough water to completely flood both the upper and lower boxes.

If you are using 20 litre containers, that may be about 5 litres, but you can easily tell, water needs to drain out of the bottom box and if it does not, then next time use more.

Soil blood

flushing Unless you are wearing exceptionally dark sunglasses, you cannot help but notice that the so-called water is not clear water, but a dark brown.

If you are that sort of person, you may look at this under a microscope, when you will see that it is full of wriggly little creatures. Unless it is a very powerful microscope, you may not see the microbes themselves, but you will see that it is just full of life.

Where there is life, there is microbes, so you can be sure that when you pour this liquid over your plants, they will be covered in microbes.

We call this liquid soil blood because it is doing the same job as our blood - distributing air, water, nutrients, and other essentials around our bodies and among those essentials are the microbes that we need to regulate our bodies.

Does it work

old man Right now, I can’t tell you that it will extend your health span or life. It should, but now I don’t know for sure, you will have to wait a few more decades until you are really old, when it will be a bit too late.

But you can very quickly tell if it is working, maybe not right now but within a month or so.

You don’t need any complicated piece of scientific equipment to see if your appetite and food cravings are reduced. They should be, but there are some people who suffer from a genetic permutation that makes them continuously hungry, but that is very rare.

The most common cause of excessive hunger or getting fat is the wrong microbes in your gut.

You can also tell if you feel better. But if you want to be a bit more scientific, you can measure your weight or waist dimensions.

Risks and balances

giveitago But life is a question of risks and balances.

What are the benefits?

A longer health span and generally feeling better.

What are the costs? Apart from a bit of cost in setting up, the cost of the greens are a lot lower than buying decidedly non-fresh vegetables from the supermarket.

Apart from misreading the instructions and pouring raw sewage directly onto your plants, there is minimal risk from eating fresh home grown vegetables, certainly less risk than much commercially grown fruit and vegetables.

So what is the final conclusion?

In plain Aussie, just give it a go and see what happens.

Next read - Extinction or survive and thrive

Navigate to

main menu - videos - blogs - references

Extinction or survive and thrive

by Colin Austin | Jul 18, 2025 | Uncategorized

Extinction or survive and thrive

The wrong fat in the wrong place is at the core of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases.

Three out of four people now die from a chronic disease, which is crippling our health system, leading to 8 million people a year suffering from an unnecessary diabetic amputation, and is a direct result of misapplication of modern technology.

There are some who say that modern technology will lead to the extinction of our species. Most people dismiss this as alarmist, green woke talk.

But who is right?

Engineers Australia 1 I am in the hot seat. I was a pioneer of Computer Aided Engineering and have been recognised as one of Australia’s leading innovators. The company I formed became Australia’s leading exporter of technical software, a multi-million dollar company that changed an industry.

colinaiee Am I an evil creature leading to the extinction of my species, or can I become a leader to a better society where people not just survive but thrive?

The answer is simple: technology should be developed for the benefit of the community and not for greed or profits.

break down rocks But what is the technology we need to develop so we thrive?

For the first three billion years, the Earth was a dead rock with no life.

meerkats fighting Then microbes appeared, probably from an asteroid.

They broke down the rocks to create soil, plants followed, then life exploded, leading eventually to us.

immune system But not all microbes were beneficial: others were harmful microbes which made us sick or killed us, so only a few people lived to their natural life span.

health span But humans, ever inventive, developed technologies to combat these harmful microbes.

We initially increased our life span but that plateaued and our health span declined.

amputated foot Our life span increased dramatically, and all looked good until we realised that we had also decimated the beneficial microbes on which life depends, and our health span, how long we remained fit and healthy, was dropping dramatically with an epidemic of chronic diseases - overweight, obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, cancer and dementia.

gut brain We were slow to appreciate that the beneficial microbes did more than transform rock, recycled organic waste and digested our food. The microbes in our gut communicated with each other to create genuine intelligence, which formed part of the intelligent control system which regulated our bodies, particularly our appetite and where and how much fat we stored.

Fat people The wrong fat in the wrong place is at the core of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases.

The answer is obvious: we need the technology of breeding the beneficial microbes without breeding the harmful microbes. It had to be simple and inexpensive, so everyone could benefit from it and not limited to the laboratory.

So that is why I developed the Gbiota technology, so we can not just survive but thrive.

Interested? Join the Gbiota movement. Start here and sign up for our Newsletter, then act.

If I am honest, you will probably find my website overwhelming and at first confusing, with over 300 articles and videos.

Solving the world’s greatest health crisis is not trivial and requires a change in thinking from focusing on bio-chemistry to thinking about homeostasis and understanding the basics of control theory, which is an engineering rather than a medical technology.

But don’t give up, we are not some mega corporation focused on profits, but real people trying to save the people from the obsession with power and money.

When you are ready to take action to start growing your own beneficial gut microbes just drop us an email telling us a bit about your situation and we will direct you in the best way that suits your needs.

The theory may seem overwhelming but anyone can grow plants in living soil. People have been doing it for ages before our obsession with profits.

Next read - the Gbiota story

MM x Gbiota Marketing Strategy_v1

The Gbiota Story

by Colin Austin | Jul 16, 2025 | Uncategorized

plants

Bad things happen

There is a saying that bad things happen when good men stand by and do nothing.

Right now, bad things are happening, so we need good men (and women) to act. I will tell you how later.

The state of the world

But for now, just look at the state of the world. Decent, ordinary people, women and children, are being slaughtered in bulk with the aid of modern arms.

Bad, but things get even badder.

Mis and dis information are destroying the structure and confidence in our society.

Bad, but things get even badder.

Refugees across the globe are escaping from their native countries, looking for security, damaging both the countries they leave and try to migrate to.

Bad, but things get even badder.

People need a home where they feel safe and secure. We know how to build homes, but our political system blocks our ability to build at scale.

Bad, but things get even badder.

We all need to eat food that leads to a long and health life, yet we have a food system full of sugars, fats and salt but deficient in essential microbes and trace minerals and which makes us fat and sick and creating the modern epidemic of chronic diseases, obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, cancer and dementia.

The scale is overwhelming, three out of four people die from a chronic disease, diabetes is the fastest growing of all diseases with eight million people a year suffering from a limb amputation.

It is true there have been remarkable improvements in diabetic drugs but the first approach should be to avoid becoming diabetic is the first place.

This is not expensive, it actually costs less than buying highly processed food.

The emphasis should be on prevention using simple and inexpensive technology that works rather than complex technologies, that at best, reduce the damage when disease becomes established.

Sadly, there is little reward for prevention while cure is highly profitable.

Microbes - essential for life

But worst of all, it is destroying our ability to produce the critical components needed to grow our food, such as the right amount of water and nutrients, but in particular, the microbes which recycle nutrients and also live in our gut and control our bodies.

We know how important these microbes are. For three billion years, there were no microbes and no life on Earth. Then, a billion years ago, microbes appeared, leading to the proliferation of life and eventually us.

Life cannot exist without these microbes. But there are beneficial microbes that are essential for a healthy life, and those that make us sick or kill us.

We have proved very effective at killing microbes, but we need the technology of breeding beneficial microbes, without breeding harmful microbes.

That is where the Gbiota technology comes in.

Capability profiles

Everyone has their own capability profile; some people are good at many things, while others are very good at some things and pretty useless at many others.

I fit into the second category. I am a natural innovator, I have been recognised as one of the top leading innovators by the Institute of Engineers, but I am pretty useless at many other things, including marketing.

Breeding beneficial microbes

I set myself the task of creating the technology of breeding beneficial microbes by recycling organic waste, but without breeding the harmful microbes.

A critical technology, but useless if not widely applied, which means bringing a new technology to market.

Technology, useless without wide adoption

I, like many people, am suspicious of the honesty of many marketing companies, but after much frustration, I found a marketing company that clearly understood ethics and the need for food that keeps people healthy.

Gbiota - a social benefit organisation

Gbiota is a social benefit organisation, our prime focus is to benefit the community by ensuring a healthy food system, but like any organisation, we need to generate money to pay the bills.

I therefore asked Mediamortar and their associate company, Explanate, to prepare a report on how we could best make this technology widely available.

In the spirit of openness, which is part of being a community benefit organisation, I have decided to make this report available to those interested in participating in the social benefit project.

You can read it here.

At the start I said I would tell you what I am asking. In this era of mis and dis information and marketing hype, people naturally distrust anything they are told, particularly if it is on their screen.

But people do believe what they hear from a trusted friend, so I am asking people to try the system and eat food produced using the Gbiota system, see for themselves that it actually works and then tell their friends.

Why are some people fat and others skinny?

Do fat people live longer than skinny people?

Does it matter anyway or should we just enjoy life?

Can we do anything about it?

colin austin I can’t answer all these questions, all I can do is give you the facts as I understand them.

We need to store some fat, that is what our bums are for, and it is healthy to store some fat in our bums.

But the wrong fat in the wrong place is the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of non-infectious diseases.

For the individual, this means a shorter life span and, probably more important, a much shorter health span.

Globally, this is the world’s biggest health cost to our health system.

I think these matters and is why I run this website. There is a lot of information here, but this is the essence.

For a long time, we were told that people got fat because they consumed more calories than they burned. This is not the reason why we get fat. It is true that to get fat we do have to consume more calories than we burn, but it is not the reason why we get fat.

We get fat because we have an intelligent control system which regulates our bodies.

If we consume more calories than we consume, then our intelligent control system is perfectly capable of disposing of the excess in our pooh.

If it decides there are deficiencies in our diet it will generate hormones which will make us crave food that will overcome that deficiency.

If it decides that there are no deficiencies, it will create other hormones that say you are full, stop eating. We can override those hormones, but that is our decision.

Modern biochemistry has advanced rapidly in the last few years, so we understand all the complex chemicals we need and, on average, how much of each we need. We have the tests to reveal any deficiencies and can readily buy supplements to correct those deficiencies

But, our intelligent control system is continuously monitoring our bodies, can detect any deficiency and learns (or more precisely, we can train it to learn) which foods will correct for that deficiency.

But our intelligent control system does this far more effectively.

But, and this is the crux of the matter, for our intelligent control system to work effectively, we need

1) The right microbes in our gut, which is an integral part of our intelligent control system. This is easily fixed by eating the right food

2) We need to regularly feed our gut microbes so the beneficial microbes prevail

3) We need to train our intelligent control system, which we do by eating the right food from the minute we are born and onwards

All simple and inexpensive. You just have to take your health into your own hands and do it.

Here we show you how.

Obvious - but wrong

We are told that if we want to live a long and healthy life and avoid the dangers of the modern epidemic of chronic disease, we should eat less and exercise more, but it does not seem to work. People who go on strict diets seem to end up fatter, while people who eat what they fancy seem to be perfectly healthy.

What is going on?

eatless exercise more The calorie balance theory says that if we eat more calories than we burn that we will get fat. It sounds so simple and obvious - how can it possibly be wrong?

It may be true of a water tank, if you put more water in than what you take out, the tank will eventually overflow, the equivalent of getting fat.

But we are much smarter than a dumb water tank. We have a highly sophisticated control system that regulates our bodies.

It is not just one organ but a collection of our gut, which has

- microbes which communicate with each other to form intelligence,

- our subconscious head brain, which learns that a slice of cheesecake will lead to a rush of dopamine in our bodies, which makes us feel good,

- our conscious brain, which decides whether to stretch out our arms and scoff the cheesecake,

- a complex array of sensors throughout our bodies

- a communication system of hormones, manufactured by our gut brain and an electric communication system.

See, quite an upmarket system.

food cravings If it decides that we need to store fat, for example, if we have been deprived of food for any length of time, as in a war or from an extreme diet, it sends signals to our gut to manufacture hormones to make us crave food.

We get fat because our intelligent control system decides that we need to store more fat not because we are little piggies and stuff ourselves.

If we want to avoid getting fat and avoid becoming yet another statistic in the chronic disease epidemic we have to do three things.

- make sure we have a healthy gut with the right species of microbes

- train our subconscious head brain so it knows what foods work for us

- make sure we eat enough of the right sort of foods so there are no deficiencies

Although it may seem obvious that the solution to getting fat and avoiding chronic diseases is to eat less that is just wrong.

We need to eat more, but not just more sugary fatty foods but foods which will ensure that our intelligent control system recognises that we have all the nutrients that we need when it sends out signals to out gut saying “body full - send out hormones to stop eating”.

Our intelligent control system is the result of a million years of evolution and is smart. Treat it nice and it will look after you and tell you what foods to eat - so simple - so effective.

Don't look after your intelligent control system and life will be short and miserable.

Change your gut microbes

Gbiota aims to help people change their gut microbes so they can expect to lead a long and healthy life and less at risk from the modern epidemic of chronic diseases, obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

While genetics plays a small part, the microbes in our gut dominate whether we expect to live a long and healthy life or be fat and part of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases.

fat and skinny mice We have known for a long time that it is simple to change the microbes in mice - they eat each other's pooh. We can make fat mice skinny or skinny mice fat.

We can change the microbes in humans but it is more difficult. We need to eat food which both contains the beneficial microbes and the nutrients that feeds the beneficial microbes so they continue to breed in our gut.

Breeding beneficial microbes is easy, they breed like crazy starting within twenty minutes of being created, but there are two problems we need to overcome.

The first problem is that we have to breed the beneficial microbes without breeding the harmful microbes which make us sick. We do this by carefully controlling the conditions so they favour the beneficial microbes so they out-compete and out-breed the harmful microbes.

dynamic equlibriium The second problem is that while microbes breed very rapidly, they live in a state of what we call dynamic equilibrium. The microbes appear to be the same but they are the children or grandchildren of the original microbes.

They breed and die equally rapidly, so you need eat plants containing the beneficial microbes shortly after harvesting.

That means you have to grow the plants yourself and pick and eat.

I am sorry about that but that is just the way of the world.

biobox We solve both of these problems with the Gbiota bio-boxes which control the conditions to favour the beneficial microbes and make it easy for people to grow the plants themselves, even if they have no garden or growing experience.

We can’t do it for you, you have to do it yourself. It is your body and you make the choice.

What we can do is show you how to do it and supply living starter soil in which the beneficial microbes are already breeding.

Our intelligent control system

We all want to live a long and healthy life.

Our health depends on the intelligent control system that regulates our bodies, and the microbes in our gut are a critical part of this system.

But they are not us, we have a synergistic relationship with them. They keep us alive, and we keep them alive.

If we get fat, it is not simply because we eat too much. Our gut microbes, rightly or wrongly, decide that we need to store more fat and create hormones which make us crave food, so we overeat and get fat.

The wrong fat in the wrong place is the cause of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases, obesity, heart attacks, diabetes and dementia, so I suggest that you read the following story about the history of gut microbes.

No microbes - no life

For the first three billion years on Earth, there was no life and no microbes.

Just a dead rock whizzing around the sun.

No microbes - no life. Pretty simple.

Microbes appeared

Then, a billion years ago, microbes appeared, maybe from an asteroid, and life exploded.

The microbes broke down the rocks to produce soil, plants grew in the soil, then animals ate the plants, and other animals ate the animals that ate the plants.

Microbes breed incredibly fast, and the children of microbes are not identical to their parents, so soon there were hundreds of thousands of different species of microbes.

We still have only a limited understanding of this multitude of microbes, but we do know, for sure, that there are beneficial microbes - the good bugs, which lead to a healthy life and harmful microbes - the bad bugs, which make us sick.

Humans arrive

Humanoid creatures evolved some million years ago. There were very few of them, so they lived in isolated communities, so the harmful microbes which make us sick, or kill us, were not too much of a problem.

Agriculture

Then we developed agriculture, which gave us a secure source of food, so we developed cities with people living in close proximity.

These created good conditions for the harmful microbes to breed, so disease and plagues were a major issue.

Modern technology

But humans are inventive creatures, pioneers like Janssen and Leeuwenhoek developed the compound microscope, leading to Louis Pasteur's understanding of microbes and how they can make us sick.

This understanding led to a wave of technology to reduce infectious diseases being developed. Some were clearly beneficial. Who can debate the benefits of clean drinking water, louse-free bedding, sewage systems, antibiotics, etc.

But as happens so often with technology, the benefits are immediately obvious, but the negatives appear later. I very much doubt that when Stevenson took that ride on the first commercial train, the rocket, he was too much concerned about climate change.

Similarly, our modern food system with its highly productive use of synthetic fertilisers and convenient, highly processed leading to supermarkets full of tasty food loaded with energy may seem a wonder.

The unexpected result is a degradation of the microbial distribution in our guts.

Microbes matter

Microbes play a critical role.

They breed in the soil and break down the rocks to make the nutrients bio-available for the plants that we eat.

Some microbes enter our gut, where they continue to breed. They communicate with each other to create real intelligence, our gut-brain, which regulates our appetite.

Working with our head brain, they learn which foods are beneficial and supply critical nutrients.

If we are deficient in these nutrients, the gut-brain will create hormones so we crave the food that supplies those nutrients and if we are satisfied, it will create hormones so we feel full and satisfied and stop eating.

In ages past, we had no idea about microbes. By random chance, some of the food we ate would contain the nutrients and beneficial microbes, but harmful microbes bred profusely so most people died before reaching their natural life span.

But we learned about the harmful microbes and changed the conditions, improved the way we grew our food, better hygiene with sewage and clean water systems and increased our life span.

But we had not only killed off the harmful microbes but had killed off the beneficial microbes which regulate our bodies. We lowered our gut’s ability to regulate our bodies.

Our intelligent control system recognised the deficiencies and sent out hormones for us to eat more. We accumulate excess fat and as the wrong fat in the wrong place is the underlying cause of chronic or non-infectious diseases, we created the modern epidemic of chronic diseases.

We now need to enter a third stage where we learn to control the conditions so the beneficial microbes out-compete and out-breed the harmful microbes.

This is what Gbiota does, we show people how to control the conditions in both the soil and in the food we eat so the beneficial microbes triumph.

Learning how to do this has been a long and expensive road. But we are a community benefit company, our aim is to benefit the community, not to make unjustified profits at the expense of the community.

Neither are we a charity so we need to cover our costs. Much of the information we supply is free for anyone with an interest to study how food works in our bodies, but we do charge for the more detailed information on how to control the conditions.

If interested you can read about Community benefit companies in the article ‘Changing the system’.

"Next

"Register

The Gbiota Mission

by Colin Austin | Jun 22, 2025 | Technology

The Essence of Gbiota

Breed beneficial microbes in living soil. Grow plants in that soil and eat them fresh so the microbes reach your gut alive. Because microbes have short lifespans, freshness matters—hence growing at home.

Create a Social Movement

Most people care about community wellbeing. When individuals breed their own microbes and feel better, real-world results spread faster than hype. Organised, honest communication is essential.

Why Grow Microbes?

Plants capture energy from sunlight and carbon from the air to make sugars. They exude some of those sugars through their roots to feed soil microbes that, in turn, help unlock minerals for the plant. Water drawn up by roots also carries microbes into plant tissues. When we eat fresh plants, those microbes reach our gut and help us digest food—yet they do far more: they coordinate like a crowd-intelligence, influencing appetite, fat storage, immune function, and even mood. This has been the basic pattern of life for millions of years. Modern agriculture and ultra-processed diets disrupted that microbial balance. The result is fewer beneficial microbes and a rise in chronic diseases. The good news: we can fix this.

The Gut Brain at Work

Even with deep biochemical knowledge—calories, minerals, vitamins—healthspan is falling. Why do some people overeat foods like pizza and cheesecake while others don’t, and why do some heavy eaters stay healthy? Think control theory: our bodies run on feedback systems. Trillions of gut microbes communicate to form real intelligence—like a supercomputer we can’t directly program—vital for long, healthy lives. In avoiding infectious disease, we also weakened our natural gut communities. Hunter-gatherer microbiomes remain richer and more diverse than those fed by ultra-processed diets.

From Soil to Gut

Gut microbes originate in living soil. If we manage soil conditions, we can preferentially breed beneficial species so they out-compete harmful ones. Step one is food: plants exude sugars that feed specific microbes, so a mix of plant species supports a broad spectrum.

Triangle showing water, air, nutrients around microbes

Step two is environment: balance water and air. Too dry and plants don’t grow; too wet and you select the wrong microbes. The Gbiota flood-and-flush method draws fresh air into soil and makes this easy for home growers.

The Challenge

Our food system shifted toward chemical inputs and ultra-processed products that are microbially inert. Options for changing the gut biome include:

Faecal transplants: effective but high-risk, donor-dependent.
Probiotic pills: limited species and poor survival to colonise the gut.
Eating plants from living soil: effective when microbes are present and the food is eaten fresh.

The largest barrier is the sheer marketing power of food and drug industries.

Internet Marketing (Done Right)

After decades refining the growing technology, the next step is a capable partner to coordinate a major, ethical online campaign—because a working system deserves scale.

The Message (In Brief)

Gut microbes influence appetite, fat storage, immunity and psychological state.
Lack of the right microbes underlies today’s chronic-disease epidemic.
People trust evidence from real users more than promotional hype.
Gbiota’s approach is low-risk and well suited to supervised community trials.

Because microbes live roughly a day, think “dynamic equilibrium.” Some probiotics survive if kept cold, but the practical answer is to breed your own—it’s better and cheaper.

Ready to start? Read the practical guide: How to breed gut microbes yourself and join the newsletter for updates.

What Does the Gbiota Technology Do?

With simple training, anyone can cultivate beneficial microbes in special soil within containers, grow greens, and eat them fresh. Those microbes talk to each other, shaping hormone signals that regulate appetite and where—and what kind of—fat is stored. Fatty, sugary foods may enable overeating, but the deeper cause is the body’s regulation deciding to store fat. Fixing the regulatory signals by restoring microbe diversity is the strategy—simple, inexpensive, and community-scale.

Plants, Ecosystems, and Us

Plants Thrive in Balanced Ecosystems

In nature, microbes recycle minerals and organic matter so nutrients become bio-available. Mixed plantings feed a broader spectrum of beneficial microbes and soil creatures like worms and larvae.

Microbes and Humans Are Synergistic

Soil microbes enter plants, then us. Beyond phytonutrients, the microbial “intelligence” is a bigger health lever—regulating appetite and fat distribution.

A Billion Years of Evolution

Eco-balance emerged over vast timescales. Keep it, and our species prospers; ignore it, and we court collapse.

Important vs Critical

Plant-based eating is important. The critical piece is how we grow those plants—respecting ecosystem principles honed by evolution.

Action Plan

Breed the right microbes in soil and eat plants fresh to supply your gut.
Shift thinking step-by-step; start with concise resources, then act.
Subscribe to the newsletter for evolving guidance.
Read: Extinction or Survive and Thrive.
When ready, begin breeding your own microbes: Practical how-to.

« Older Entries

Next Entries »