Food crisis

Food is one of the major threats to humanity, not an absolute lack of food - we produce more than enough energy food, carbs, fats and sugars, to feed the entire world now and well into the future.

Right now our food is deficient in essential minerals but even more important is food to feed out gut-brain which regulates our appetite and hosts much of our immune system.

Across the globe people are getting fat and sick, and it is not simply because we overeat. The real reason is that our gut-brain senses these deficiencies, decides we need to store more fat and sends out signals so we overeat.

Gbiota.com is our technical web site which shows how to feed our gut-brain by breeding beneficial microbes in the soil, which is used to grow plants which, if eaten fresh, before the microbes die, will feed out gut brain.

But it is no good having the technology if it is not widely adopted.

Gbiota.club is the social media site where people, concerned about the food crisis, can exchange information and practical experiences and create the needed social movement to create change.

 

 

Why we need to act

Everybody has an intelligent control system that regulates our bodies.

It is a combination of our head and gut brains. We cannot change our head brain, we can train it and maybe change how it is expressed (Epigenetics).

But, putting it bluntly we are stuck with our head brain.

Some people can eat whatever the like and never become fat or diabetic while others will become diabetic whatever they do. Life is not fair.

But most people in the middle have a choice whether they have a foot chopped off or not.

But we can change our gut brain, simply by what what we eat.

If you are diabetic then you may end up having a limb amputated, like the other 8 million diabetics who have a limb amputated.

No one can tell you whether changing your gut brain will stop you from having a limb amputated, but it is easy to find out, just eat gut-brain food. It is easy and costs less than buying food from the supermarket but you do have to have plants growing at home so you can pick and eat while fresh and before the beneficial microbes die.

It is your choice but you need to know that there is an option available to you.

Our gut is an integral part of that control system regulating our appetite, how much and where we store fat in our bodies, and also our immune system.

Our gut has intelligence from the trillions of microbes in our gut communicating with each other, just like in a computer.

These microbes are living creatures that come from the soil.

In our modern diet, which is focused on highly processed foods, there are no living microbes.

The result is that our gut-brain does not work as it should so we have a major health epidemic of obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, and dementia, including the 8 million people a year have a limb amputated from diabetes.

The Gbiota technology was developed so almost all people, including those living in apartments, could be eating plants, grown in living soil, freshly picked and so full of beneficial microbes.

This technology could improve the lives of billions of people across the globe.

Every eight seconds someone has a limb amputated, there is a high chance we could prevent them from loosing their foot but we have to tell them how.

We need to modify our food system so everyone has access to gut-brain food – plants grown in living soil and eaten fresh before the microbes die.

That is what this web is all about.

 

 

Grow your own gut-brain food if you want a long and healthy life

Gbiota.com is a site for concerned thinkers. Concerned about our food system which right now is making us fat and sick and with the combination of climate change and degradation of our soil, threatens the food supply for every person on this earth.

In these modern times most people die from some chronic disease, overweight, diabetes, heart attack, dementia etc.

If you want a sporting chance of living a long and healthy life then you need to understand how the way your food is grown affects your health.

If you think that you can spend thirty seconds looking at some web page then buy some pill and then live a long and healthy life then I suggest you check out those mushrooms you are eating, because that is delusional.

You need to spend fifteen minutes reading how the way your food is grown affects your health then change what you eat - not that difficult but certainly not trivial either.

You can read Rethinking food and diabetes here, then either

- sign up as a grower which give you full access to this site, we don’t sell any product - we just show how to grow food

or

- sign up as a consumer and buy from a local Gbiota grower.

 

The story so far

Twenty-four years ago my arteries clogged up and I needed an emergency triple bypass. Fifteen years later my wife, Xiulan, a medical doctor became diabetic, her foot started turning black and we were told she needed to have her foot amputated.

Statistically, I should be dead, but I am not, I am fit and healthy and Xiulan still has both her feet.

What happened?

We wanted to know more and what we found was that chronic or non-infectious diseases, obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia are the most common causes of sickness and death. The statistics are horrifying with eight million people are year having a limb amputated from diabetes from what we are told (wrongly) is a irreversible disease.

Chronic diseases all have the common feature of the wrong fat in the wrong place.

The tank theory

And what are we told? Eat less exercise more. This is what I call the tank theory, there is food going into your tummy and food being used.

If you eat more than what you use the tank overflows and you store fat and end up with one of these horrible chronic diseases.

This assumes our bodies have no intelligence and just work on a simple basis of energy in and energy out.

Our bodies are much more complicated than that.

The deficit theory

It is not simply we are little piggies and eat too much food it is because we have a deficit in our diet. and we need to fix that deficit.

Our bodies, actually our gut-brain have real intelligence and can detect for deficiencies in our bodies and hit the red alarm bell sending out messages for us to eat more.

When it senses that we have all the multitude of nutrients that we need it sends out signals saying you are full stop eating.

You may have heard of drugs like Ozempic which work by reducing appetite. Our bodies naturally produce natural hunger suppressants without the side effects of drugs (or cost).

Our super-computer

Out gut-brain is like a super-computer in our gut with trillions of cells communicating with each other and making decisions.

If we have the wrong microbes in our gut it does not work as it should and tell us to stop eating - that is probably the most common cause of obesity.

The Food, drug, and supplement industries

The food industry is the worlds largest industry with estimated revenues of around $15 trillion dollars. It is extremely efficient in producing high-calorie food in vast quantities which is highly profitable but is low in essential trace minerals and even more importantly deficient in the microbes needed to power our gut-brain.

The drug and supplement industries try and overcome this deficiency which they do well in supplying trace minerals and specific chemicals.

Together these industries spend billions of dollars in very clever advertising to sell their products, but the fact remains that every year the number of people suffering from chronic diseases, stemming from the wrong fat in the wrong places, steadily increases.

What works?

The only effective way of providing the essential microbes is by growing plants in living soil, full of beneficial microbes and nutrients. This is the way we used to eat so has been tested over thousands of years.

Chronic diseases have only reached epidemic proportions since we changed our food system.

Growing gut-brain food is simple, anyone can do it, even people living in an apartment and it costs less than buying food from the supermarket.

You may think that a system which costs less and reduces the risk of having a leg amputated from diabetes would be widely adopted - the benefits are so overwhelming - but that is not the case for a simple reason.

Showing people how to grow gut-brain food does not generate the billions of dollars to compete with the advertising budgets of the mega industries.

Social movement

We know how to grow gut-brain food. The question is how to get that message out to the millions of people at risk of chronic disease amidst a barrage of manipulative advertising.

This will only happen with a social movement.

People need to talk to real people who are growing their own gut-brain food so they can see for themselves that this works in the real world and is not a figment from the virtual world of the digital society.

With eight million people having a limb amputated from diabetes, with the increasing impact of climate change and degradation of our soils, this is one of the most critical issues facing the future of humanity.

I, just one eighty-four year old man, can do little to change this. Last time I looked at my bank account I did not see billions of dollars just lying there for me to run an advertising campaign.

But what I can do is provide the mechanism for people who are growing their own gut-brain food to tell their story.

The communal web

I have taken three steps so people can communicate.

I have added a plugin to gbiota.com which enables external people to make posts. I have to restrict use to protect against spammers, (the curse of the modern web), but it is free but you must sign in to post.

I have spent the last twenty-five years working on sustainable food production for health because I don’t like bingo or bowls and want to feel that in the last years of my life, I making a useful contribution to society, my grandkids and now my great grandkids.

In return, I ask you contribute by sharing your experiences with growing gut-brain food.

I have also been working on turning my second web gbiota.club into a viable website. The big advantage of this site is that it allows users to form local groups to share information and experiences.

I also have been re-activating my Facebook page Gbiota Club which has the big advantage of reaching a wider audience.

Read more at New pages at gbiota.com

Contact me at colin@gbiota.com

[user-submitted-posts]

 

Food crisis

Food is one of the major threats to humanity, not an absolute lack of food - we produce more than enough energy food, carbs, fats and sugars, to feed the entire world now and well into the future.

Right now our food is deficient in essential minerals but even more important is food to feed out gut-brain which regulates our appetite and hosts much of our immune system.

Across the globe people are getting fat and sick, and it is not simply because we overeat. The real reason is that our gut-brain senses these deficiencies, decides we need to store more fat and sends out signals so we overeat.

Gbiota.com is our technical web site which shows how to feed our gut-brain by breeding beneficial microbes in the soil, which is used to grow plants which, if eaten fresh, before the microbes die, will feed out gut brain.

But it is no good having the technology if it is not widely adopted.

Gbiota.club is the social media site where people, concerned about the food crisis, can exchange information and practical experiences and create the needed social movement to create change.

 

What Food crisis

What food crisis? For most of us there is plenty of food in the Supermarkets, at least for now.

But it is energy food, which is essential, but we need more, we need to feed our gut-brain which controls our bodies, in particular, where and how much fat we store.

This is the underlying cause of chronic or non infectious diseases overweight, diabetes, heart attacks, and dementia.

Modern food, relying on chemicals is inert, dead, lacking the essential microbes on which our bodies depend.

If we want to the increase the chance of a long and healthy life we need to feed out gut-brain and we know exactly how to do that.

But that means a change in thinking, creating a balanced Eco-system, breeding the beneficial microbes in the soil under favourable conditions so they out-compete and out-breed any harmful microbes the grow plants in this soil and eat fresh before the microbes die.

Gbiota.com is where people can go to learn how to do this.

We get fat because our gut-brain decides we need to store more fat (probably because we are not feeding our gut-brain). It sends out signals for us to eat more which enables us to get fat. The cause is the gut-brain - eating more is the enabling factor.

There are plenty of people who eat huge amounts and never get fat  - and vice versa.

We need to feed our gut-brain

However, this is a very different way of growing food which many people find scary. Fortunately, there are many people with a permaculture background who are successfully using these methods.

Gbiota.club is a social media site where people can make contact with these successful growers, learn from them and share experiences. It is a free site but it is private site to protect against the scammers and abusers that permeate the modern web.

So join the gbiota club and join or form a local group.

People with no growing experience of a garden can grow gut-brain food in containers even if they live in an apartment but they do have to learn how.

Our longer term aim is for local growers to supply these containers with growing plants that just need watering and feeding which makes it even easier.

 

Not little piggies

Deficiencies not surplus

We don’t get fat and sick because we are little piggies and stuff ourselves with chicken wings, chips and ultra-processed foods.

We get fat because we have deficiencies in our diet, this is sensed by our intelligent control system, our gut-brain, which regulates our bodies.

Sensing problems it hits that big red alarm bell sending out messages - hormones and electrical signals - saying we have an emergency, eat more food and store it wherever possible.

This has led to an epidemic of chronic diseases, obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia which all have the underlying cause of the wrong fat in the wrong places.

The conventional medical advice to reduce overweight is to go on a calorie- restricted diet which works in the short term. But it is training our gut-brain that it needs to store more fat so longer term, when the calorie-restricted diet begins to pale, ends up making us store even more fat.

Feed our gut-brain

The solution is to feed our gut-brain with gut-brain food, a combination of fibre which is simple, and the beneficial microbes which power the intelligent system in our gut.

The trillions of cells in our gut communicate with each other acting like our internal supercomputer which help regulate our bodies.

Breeding these beneficial microbes is a challenge, it is easy enough to breed microbes - they are a randy lot - the challenge is to breed the beneficial microbes without breeding the harmful microbes. This is what the Gbiota technology is all about.

Eat fresh

But it is even more difficult as microbes have a short life, a microbe hour is equivalent to a human year so we only have seventy to eighty hours to eat this gut-brain food.

This can only be done by growing your own gut-brain food or getting a cooperative local grower to grow for you. It simply cannot be done with the extended transport time in our modern food distribution system.

This means a change in the way our food system works, but this is perfectly manageable as gut-brain food is easy to grow, even for people living in a flat, and anyway only needs to make up about 5% of our total diet.

Paradigm shift

A far bigger challenge is creating this paradigm shift in the way we think about food from one of restricting calories to one of avoiding food deficits.

This is made even more difficult by the billions of dollars spent in manipulative, but effective advertising by the food, drug and supplement industries and the advice from our respected medical professionals of eat less and exercise more.

Motivation

I feel highly motivated to change this for the simple reason that my wife, a qualified medical doctor and surgeon is diabetic, her foot started to turn black and the medical advice was that she needed to have her foot amputated.

Had we followed our medical advice she would almost certainly have had her foot amputated but we changed her diet to include gut brain-food and she still has both her feet.

Eight million amputations per year

Eight million people (which if you get overwhelmed by the big numbers that float around our modern world is an awful lot of real people). It has become my mission in life to reduce that number.

Think about this - every eight seconds someone has a limb amputated from diabetes, think how much better the world would be if we could just make that one every minute, or even one every hour - possible but how can we make it happen?

Making it happen

We know how to grow gut-brain food. The critical factor is moisture level, the soil must be just moist enough so the beneficial microbes will breed but not too wet when the harmful microbes breed.

My professional expertise was in computational fluid flow, which involved solving complex coupled non-linear equations which I assure you is not going to become the latest craze among modern teenagers so Taylor Swift does not have to lose any sleep. But it did mean that I was selected as one of Australia’s leading innovators.

But it does mean that I understand how water moves through the soil and plants and I also understand how Ecosystems work - that is the essence of the Gbiota technology.

 

We know how - but how to apply

So technically we know how to grow gut brain-food but technology is useless unless it is applied for the benefit of the community.

So how do I get this message out to the wide world and save people from having their legs chopped off from diabetes?

Even if there was a way I could tell those eight million people who are going to have a limb amputated they are unlikely to believe me, I am an engineer, not a medical doctor.

Show not talk

Let me tell you it is a waste of time writing long technical articles full of facts.

Sad to say facts are very much out of fashion but people will believe what they see with their own eyes.

Fortunately, it is very easy to see if eating gut-brain food works, if you are diabetic you can see this with your blood sugar reading and if you are not diabetic you can feel those food cravings disappear and you lose weight.

Start small and grow fast

So what I have to do is persuade a small group of people to grow their own gut-brain food, see for themselves the benefits and, this is the key bit, show their friends and contacts so they start eating gut-brain food and then they show their friends and contacts.

You don’t have to be brilliant at mathematics to know about exponential growth 2 4 16 256 65,536 4,294,967,296 that’s the adult population of the world in 5 clicks.

Form groups

But to get this to work we need a way that people can form groups and communicate with each other - that is why I have formed the Gbiota club where people can make contact with other people in a similar situation and share information and experiences.

If interested please drop me an email at colin@gbiota.com

Eco-balance

Colin Austin © 10 April 2024 This document is published under the Creative Commons system which means that it can be copied and republished without further permissions but the author Colin Austin @ gbiota.com must be recognised.

Humans are not naturally fat

Humans have evolved to be naturally not fat - it is not good in the survival stakes. Our bodies naturally sense when we are full and our gut manufactures hormones which make us feel full and stop eating.

So-called obesity drugs, like Ozempic, are humans attempt to simulate the actions of our natural hormones.

But modern food is deficient in both certain trace minerals and more importantly the microbes that form our gut-brain.

Gbiota shows how to grow gut-brain food so we produce those hormones naturally.

The wrong fat in the wrong place is the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

Breeding microbes is easy

Breeding microbes in the soil is easy - they don’t need any help - they do it all by themselves.

The snag is there are beneficial microbes, the goodies, that will keep us fit and healthy so we can expect a long and healthy life but there are also harmful microbes, the badies, which can make us sick and even kill us.

So the challenge is how to breed the goodies without breeding the badies.

You may have noticed that you don’t get many mangrove trees growing in the desert or many cacti growing in the hot tropics - and if you try you won’t have much luck.

Living things will automatically select conditions which suit them, that is what we call Eco-balance and is the basis of the Gbiota technology.

We just have to work out the conditions that favour both the goodies and the badies will thrive in, then create the conditions that favour the goodies.

Food, Water and air

Food, water, and air are the dominant factors. In general, the beneficial microbes prefer moist, not wet, conditions with plenty of air while the harmful microbes breed in wet, or totally saturated conditions.

But making the soil moist is not that simple. Water tends to cling to soil particles and not move through the soil - one area can be nearly saturated while other areas close by are still dry.

How to achieve a more uniformly moist soil, without being too wet, is a key part of the Gbiota technology which I will talk about later, but let me first talk about a topic with a delightful name.

The cocktail effect

When thinking about Ecosystems we have to look at how the entire system works, and not just individual components of the system.

Plants, soil creatures, and microbes have a very close and complex relationship. Living plants create sugars as part of the photosynthesis process which they exude from their roots to attract and feed specific breeds of microbes and fungi.

Fungi

These microbes and fungi are far more efficient at collecting minerals from the soil. Fungi, in particular, will exude enzymes which they force into rocks so the minerals become bio-available and feed the plants.

Plants also die and there is a whole range of creatures which recycle this organic waste. Worms and ants are the most common but there are many recyclers, some visible, some microscopic which will feed on this organic matter.

Some have teeth and can bite into the organic waste, while others have gizzards to grind them up but they all have a gut, just like us, which is part of the digestion process. These are important for our gut health.

But we have to think about the system as a whole. We could waste a ton of money on mycorrhizal inoculants which simply die if there are no plants to form that symbiotic relationship.

Or we could simply plant some sunflowers which form a very strong relationship with mycorrhizal fungi it just takes a few fungi to be in the soil and they will rapidly breed up with the help of the Sunflowers - all for free.

 

Companion plants

Plants also have symbiotic relationships with other species. Anyone who has tried to grow broccoli will know that the flies, and their maggots love broccoli. It is pretty much a losing battle.

I don’t use toxic chemicals as I do not want to kill off the microbes I am trying to breed so I have an ongoing battle with netting to keep the flies off my plants.

If I have a whole box devoted to broccoli this can be a losing battle, so I often use a seed mix with maybe twenty or so varieties of seeds.

Some will be resistant to flies so at the very worst I will end up with some crop, but even better some plants when attacked by flies produce chemicals to fend off the flies and in the process will provide some protection for my broccoli.

Water and soil blood

People who write about how water moves through the soil (and that includes me) will use the word water.

But that is not correct. If we are interested in how food is produced we must think about what happens on the surface of the soil particles - this is where the action starts.

Generally, water is attracted to the soil particle surface although there are some soils which are hydrophobic, meaning they repel water.

These are often soils under gum trees. In the weird logic of EcoSystems, gum trees survive fires by having leaves full of oil which deprive the air of oxygen so there may be a monster fire but the trees themselves survive.

How many humans would have thought of the idea that to protect trees from fires fill the leaves with oil - not many I think. One up to nature.

But in normal soils, the chemical, physical, and biological action is on the surface of the soil particles.

Certainly, water is attracted to the soil particle surface but it is not simply water, it is a complex combination of water, chemical and microbiology.

This is transferred through the soil to feed the plants, in the same way that blood circulates around our bodies distributing food and complex chemicals to all parts of our bodies.

I call this soil blood so when I am talking about water moving through the soil I am talking about how soil blood moves through the soil.

I have written an article on how water moves through the soil which you can read here

Water stays put

But the key point is that water (actually soil blood) does not readily move through the soil but will cling, by surface tension, to the soil particles and will only move when wet with water in the larger cavities, less bound to the soil, and so can readily move.

Even with drip tape, which is supposed to be the wonder solution to irrigation, the soil has to reach saturation (actually over field capacity) to move.

To breed our beneficial microbes we need the soil to be uniformly moist. We could work out the precise amount of water we need to make the soil moist and apply just the right amount but we will end up with some soil too wet while the rest is too dry.

It is not distributed uniformly throughout the soil

I use the word soil, but really it is soil loaded with a very high level of organic waste that we are using to breed the beneficial microbes. If we leave this soil-waste mix saturated for any length of time we will breed the harmful microbes.

This is the problem we have to solve. At least we know what not to do.

What not to do!!!!!

We must not keep on topping up the soil with water, that will just mean that some areas are continuously too wet while other areas are too dry. Nobody wins.

What to do!!!!

Seeding

If you are seeding the entire box then don’t flood the whole box. Different seeds have different requirements, some must be saturated before they germinate others germinate with just a bit of moisture so just apply to suit the variety.

Very little water is used when seeding so be careful not to flood as this will leave stagnant water in the base of the box, which is where you would normally put the organic waste (until the worms do their thing).

I prefer to have some plants growing so typically will have some water-hungry plants like spinach growing in the corner of the boxes.

Regular watering

When the plants have developed a root and leaf structure there will be a transpirational load on the system eg it will be using water so we can start using the proper Wicking or Gbiota irrigation protocols.

Most people have a habit of going out to their garden and if looks a bit dry then apply a bit of water. This is not the way to operate a Wicking or Gbiota box.

These need to operate in a different way. Instead of applying different amounts of water with a fixed irrigation schedule, we let the box semi-dry out and then apply a fixed amount of water.

This is why I recommend having a vertical filler pipe so you can see the water level, when there is no liquid water it is time to irrigate.

Typically we will apply about 15% of the soil volume. 20litres is a good size for a Gbiota box as then they can be lifted and moved about so we need to apply 3 litres of water.

With great foresight, the dairy industry anticipated a demand for three litre bottles and introduced them to keep all the Gbiota growers happy. (Actually, that’s me just being silly but it would be a miserable world without a bit of fun.)

Step 1 If you have not already drained the box turn the swivel tube down and catch and soil blood in the bottle.

Step 2 Turn the swivel pipe upwards and pour the water into the box. If you have been operating for a while the water caught in the milk bottle will be genuine soil blood with a deep brown colour. This is full of nutrients and a wide selection of living creatures.

I like to start by pouring some of the water over the plants so the leaves absorb some of the nutrients and biota.

The rest I will pour into the compost tube.

Step 3 Check the water level, if it has not reached the top of the swivel tube (which should be about 1/3 of the height of the box) add more water.

Step 4 Wait until the water has all been used up. If it has not been used after a week then twist the swivel tube down and drain the box and start over again.

Labile compost

Organic matter that has not been properly composted is called labile (young) compost and may be full of growth inhibitors and is certainly not good for growing plants.

Hot composting is the standard solution, but requires careful control of the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio and ensuring that quality of the organic material. I will try and pre-compost my organic waste if I can but it does not breed the microbes that our guts need.

The Gbiota method is to cold compost by burying and allowing the creatures of the soil to process the organic waste in their guts which will breed the right type of microbes.

The organic waste is buried, covered with mature soil and planted so the plants exude nutrients to feed the microbes.

This is easy to do in Gbiota beds and can be done by putting a lid on the box, flipping over, filling the base with organic waste then flipping the soil on the lid back onto the box.

Just pretend you are making pancakes.

 

 

Compost tubes

Perhaps a more practical way is to use compost tubes, this is great if you have boxes on the patio which are too heavy to flip.

Make up a box full of nutrients (eg chicken manure, rock dust and dolomite).

Make a compost tube (any tube about 100mm in diameter) by cutting at about 45% on one end and flat at the other.

Find a suitable lid like a yoghurt container.

Just dig a hole and insert the compost tube into the hole.

As you generate kitchen waste just fill the tube and add some of the nutrient mix and worms if there is none in the box and unless you have a particular affection for flies seal with the yoghurt container (or whatever).

Keep on doing this until the level in the compost tube is at soil level, pull out the tube while pushing the compost mix into the soil.

Dig another hole somewhere else, and use the soil to cover the old hole and seed.

This is a simple way of getting the labile compost to the base of the box while having plants growing on top.

Irrigating

If the swivel tube is up twist down and allow to drain. (I normally have the swivel tube in the downward drain position after I have irrigated).

When you are irrigating first give the foliage a flush, pour any excess soil blood into the compost tube and if there is excess into the filler tube.

Add additional water (if needed) so liquid reaches the top of the swivel tube.

Allow a period (at least an hour but not more than a day) for the soil blood to wick throughout the bed.

Twist the swivel tube to allow the box to drain catching the soil blood (which should be dark brown) into your recycled milk bottle (or whatever).

In my subtropical climate of Bundaberg, I do this once a week.

There is more than enough liquid to last at least a week in my hot dry climate but I still make this a weekly routine when I am at home because I like to flush, but there is more than enough water to last longer so if I am on a trip I don’t worry.

Flood drain and recycle

Flooding expels the stale air and draining suck is fresh air into the soil.

The cycling ensures the soil blood is never stagnant.

These are the two basic rules of the Gbiota system.

 

Food, Health and wealth for all

Colin Austin ©25 March 2024 This document is published under the Creative Commons system which means that it can be copied and republished without further permissions but the author Colin Austin @ gbiota.com must be recognised.

Summary

I present a plan that will lead to a better life so we and our grandkids can live a happier and healthier life - the plan is about future food which affects us both physically and physiologically.

Right now we are facing a health crisis, both physical and psychological, from deficiencies in our food system. In the future we face an even greater crisis from climate change, degradation of our soils, and exploitation of nutrients.

This article outlines my plan for a food system that is both healthy and sustainable.

Modern societies across the globe are suffering from an epidemic of chronic diseases and social tension from being hangry (angry from hunger). The underlying cause is we are not feeding our gut brain which regulates our appetite and how much and where we store fat.

We know how to grow gut-but plants must be grown at home so plants can be harvested and eaten before the beneficial microbes die.

To make this widely available we need to set up a system where local growers produce boxes with plants growing and ready for harvesting. These could be ordered online and delivered on a swap-over basis.

This will not just happen by itself, we need a social movement to inform people about the importance of gut-brain food which has sufficient momentum to create the new industry of sustainably growing gut-brain food.

Here is the plan.

The creative creature

Humans are incredibly inventive creatures. With our modern technology, we should all be happy, healthy, and wealthy - but we are not.

We are terrible at applying this great technology for the benefit of all.

Modern technology gives us the potential to produce food and goods at an incredible rate. If we were to apply that technology for the uniform benefit of all we would only need to work for two or three days a week and the rest of the time could be spent in any way we choose, taking the kids to the beach, bush walking, dancing and music of whatever takes our fancy.

We did try that once in the sixties with the hippie movement but that was really for the children of the rich and we did not have the productivity that we have now.

So where are we now?

Take a walk around any shopping centre. Look at the people, many are overweight, not just the older people even some young kids are fat.

Look at the shops, supermarkets full of energy food then the other shops selling pills and health foods. Both the food and pharmaceutical industries spend billions of dollars in advertising to get us to buy their products supposedly to keep us healthy but we keep on getting fatter and sicker - what is going on?

There is something missing in our food so we feel hungry and overeat so we end up fat and sick.

Hangry

But food does not just affect our physical state it affects our mental state. There is a well document effect called hangry - when we don’t feel satisfied we quickly get angry.

Look at the state of the world and how it has changed. There was a time when most people lived in relatively peaceful and stable democracies or at least beneficial autocracies.

Now more people live in aggressive autocracies than peaceful democracies. People flee these countries creating the great social challenge of our time - refugees escaping the aggressive autocracies or simply because they are hungry from not having enough food.

This puts great strain on traditionally stable democracies.

Does being hangry play a role? Will climate change and the destruction of our topsoil aggravate this social instability?

It is unlikely to lead to the extinction of the human species see survival but it will certainly create the greatest threat to our social cohesion, see time to act and rethinking food and diabetes and the many other articles at New Posts

Understanding how food affects us both physically and physiologically is critical for the future quality of life.

 

The thermodynamic machine

There is nothing wrong with energy food, it is what is missing in our food that matters.

Think of our bodies as a thermodynamic machine like a car. We fill it with fuel which it turns into energy just like our bodies do with energy food.

But however expensive and powerful the car it will just sit there not moving until a driver comes along and tells it to start up, go forward or backwards, faster or slower, and turn left or right.

The car needs a driver to tell it what to do.

We need a gut-brain to regulate our bodies as much as a car needs a driver.

Our intelligent control system

We need a driver, we are not a jellyfish just going with the flow, we have an intelligent control system sending out instructions to tell our bodies what to do.

Some instructions are fully conscious, we decide whether to go to the footy or the beach, we do not consciously decide our heart and breathing rate, our temperature, or whether to store a load of fat in our bums (which is what bums are for) or elsewhere.

This intelligent control system is a combination of our head brain and our gut brain.

It is what is missing that matters

Our gut brain, working with our head brain, forms forms our intelligent control system which regulates our bodies. It regulates all aspects of our bodies, from heart and breathing rates, temperature, our immune system, and most relevant our appetite and where and how much fat we store in our bodies.

The wrong fat in the wrong place is the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, and dementia.

This is a huge problem, in some countries two-thirds of adults are overweight, eight million people a year have a limb amputated from diabetes, heart attacks are the most common cause of death.

Our gut brain decides

We need fat, it is essential for life so we need to store it somewhere in our bodies.

I guess many people who would like to be able to consciously decide where and how much fat is stored. Move a bit from this area and put it over there and we don’t need this bit of fat at all.

But that is not the way our bodies have evolved, instead, we have a totally automatic system with the gut-brain in control. This worked perfectly well when we were eating gut-brain food which we have done naturally since the very beginning of humanity.

We may think we can manage how much fat we store by going on a highly restrictive diet but all we are doing is teaching our gut-brain that it needs to store more fat for future bad times.

So as soon as we stop our diet our gut-brain piles on the fat.

Would it not be better to feed our gut-brain so it works properly?

Just feed our gut-brain

With all our modern technology we should expect a long and healthy life - but we are not getting it simply because we are not feeding our gut-brain.

The bulk of the food we eat is just used for energy. At this moment our current food system can supply all the energy food we need but is not supplying gut brain food.

We need to supplement our current diet with gut-brain food.

We know how

The tragedy is that we know exactly how to grow food to feed our gut-brain, grow plants in soil full of breeding microbes feeding on organic waste. (See gbiota.com).

It is cheaper than buying plants from the supermarket, the limitation is that the plants must be grown at home so they can be picked and eaten fresh before the beneficial microbes die.

Technology is not the problem, the challenge is how to get the message out to the wider population.

Future vision

It is easy to imagine a system with local growers producing Gbiota boxes, with living plants ready to be harvested, being ordered and delivered on line. Very practical and economic - but how do we make that happen?

 

We've stopped believing

Conventional internet marketing is not the solution, I know I have tried. It is simply swamped by the mass of promotions for magic pills which are claimed to resolve all problems - but don’t.

I talk to leaders in Internet Marketing, it is just full of fuzz, special offers, buy two get one free, quizzes - just a box full of manipulative tricks. May be great for selling Tee shirts but no use for changing the food system.

People understand this and have stopped believing what they see on the web - sad but true.

Taking pills does not fix a deficiency in the food. We have to fix our diet and eat gut-brain food.

Leading research scientists are well aware of the importance of gut health but it takes time for this knowledge to permeate to the front line doctors who are chronically stressed for time.

So how do we change the food industry? It won’t be done by manipulative advertising, it needs a social change.

Looking for a model

We can learn a lot from looking at the history of the climate change movement.

Scientist, Governments, and the fossil fuel industry have known that greenhouse gases cause climate change for well over a hundred and twenty years.

The fossil fuel industry, who have great influence on the Governments, tried to confuse the issue by putting climate change into the not-proven category - and it worked. Nothing happened.

It did not seem to matter how many scientific papers were published, the public was not convinced, and without public pressure, Governments continued to do nothing.

Then it all changed, Greta Thunberg - a young schoolkid, entered the scene. She did not write some seminal paper, or some super sophisticated computer program or hold an audience to the world’s leaders, but she was the catalyst for change.

So look for inspiration from the Greta Thunberg story.

If you have not heard the story she sat outside in Sweden’s freezing cold with a cardboard placard for three weeks with people just walking past.

Then a few people started to take notice, and they told their friends and before you could say ‘green house gases’ there was a social movement which pressurised Governments around the world to act.

Greta herself did not do the grunt work to create the climate movement but she did inspire her followers who made it all happen.

Neither the fossil fuel industries nor the Governments would have acted were it not for Greta’s followers creating a global movement.

Greta created a social movement - and it worked.

The food crisis

The climate crisis and the food crisis, are closely linked. The biggest threat to our food supply, long term, is from a combination of the climate crisis and the degradation of our soils.

However, the food crisis is more complex.

At this moment we are producing adequate energy food to feed the entire world but with the combination of climate change and the degradation of our soils that could rapidly change.

The ‘here and now crisis’ is we are not feeding our gut-brain. If we think of the driver-less car analogy it is like the bulk of the population having no control over where and how much fat we store in our bodies which is the cause of the current epidemic of chronic diseases.

That is scary stuff so how do we make the needed change to happen?

Learning from climate change

Neither the food industry or the Governments are going to change the food industry - even though they know it needs changing. It was public pressure from Greta’s followers that led to action - it will be public pressure that will lead to the creation of a local food supplying gut-brain food (using Gbiota boxes).

The message is clear, we have to create a social movement campaigning for a healthier food system.

The Internet advertising executives who tell me about the techniques they use, the special offers, etc say that people will not act for the public good.

They are wrong.

We are the dominant creature on this earth simply because we are naturally cooperative and will work for the public benefit.

True there are some people who operate purely for their own benefit, and although they can cause a great deal of harm, they are very much in the minority.

We just need to figure out how to create a social movement for a better food system.

Show not talk

Fortunately it is easy to tell if a diet incorporating gut-brain food is working.

You don’t have to be a microbiologist or run expensive tests.

If you don’t feed the gut-brain it sends out signals which make us crave food so we keep on eating hoping we will just happen to eat some gut-brain food.

As soon as we eat gut-brain food it is satisfied and stops sending out these food craving signals.

One of the essentials of science is to be able to measure what you are trying to study. There is no scientific measurement for food cravings although you know full well that you have a food craving.

But if you follow your gut feeling you will naturally not eat as much and this is something you can measure. You will just eat less without any fancy diet.

So what is the plan?

Let me work my way through the thought processes of developing the plan.

Scale

The first is to recognise the scale.

There are 8 billion people on this earth and they all have a gut and so need gut-brain food. We used to talk about developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries.

When I was a kid I was living in a modern society but there were still local farms supplying their community.

That has all changed. Now most people live a modern lifestyle with food produced in large and highly industrialised farms, highly processed in a factory system and distributed in global food chains run by mega-corporations.

There is a long delay from time from when food is harvested to when it is eaten. It may be labelled fresh but that is just marketing and really means it has not gone rotten. The beneficial microbes have long since died and that is why we have the modern epidemic of chronic diseases.

We cannot go back to the traditional small local farm.

The ultimate aim

I see the ultimate aim is to have small local growers, either inside or close to our urban centres.

They will not be like the old local farms but sophisticated operations producing gut-brain food, using advanced technology which will involve recycling organic waste as a primary input.

Have no doubt there is no way we can support the current level of population unless we recycle organic waste, which is a much more sophisticated technology than the old compost bin in the backyard.

They will produce gut-brain (Gbiota) boxes with both living soil and plants which they will distribute using on-lining ordering and distribution.

People will harvest the plants and swap boxes when finished.

This will supply genuinely fresh (eg with living microbes) food and will probably be more more economic than our current food system.

But that won’t happen overnight, so we have to start from where we are now.

Where we are now

We have a small, but enthusiastic, number of Gbiota growers. I chat with them on a regular one-to-one basis but they are not (as yet) talking amongst themselves as a group.

There is widespread understanding of the importance of gut health to overall health in the general community. But there is widespread promotion that you can fix your gut biome by simply taking a pill or eating some wonder plan. That is not consistent with real-world observations,.

Kale was promoted as such a wonder plant, which it is, but not if it is grown in sterile soil relying on synthetic fertilisers and spends days from harvest to eating.

Such wonder foods will not have much impact on the gut biome - but may be better than eating a packet of chips.

Most people have stopped believing all the marketing hype on the Internet so there needs to be a better and more believable information channel.

Gbiota.club

We already have people who are growing and eating Gbiota food.

The first step is to give the existing Gbiota users a way they can communicate with each other to form an integrated team.

I am asking them to sign up to join the gbiota.club website and start putting up posts (called activity) with a little chat and photos of what they are doing.

Gbiota.club is a private website. When I first set up gbiota.club it was a bit of a mess as it was inundated with scammers and dubious operations trying to sell pills on my site.

I was very discouraged and let the site stagnate but now I can see it could be the solution.

It will remain a free site but people will have to sign in to access. If I get scammers, abusers or operations trying to sell pills I can (and will) simply remove them.

How could be internet, one of the modern world’s greatest innovations deteriorate so rapidly?

But genuine users can send out invites to their friends and contacts to join.

It may be slow going at first but once it gets under way it should build up steam.

Gbiota boxes made easy

People need a way that they can experience firsthand the benefits of eating gut-brain food.

The post Gbiota boxes made easy shows how people, even if they are living in an apartment, can grow their own gut brain food.

This will not lead to mass adoption but all innovations start with a group of entrepreneurial pioneers who do the trailblazing.

Our biggest obstacle may be the disenchantment with the internet as a reliable source of information but our biggest advantage is that it is easy and inexpensive to people to experience eating gut-brain food first hand.

 

 

 

.

Why we need to act

The modern epidemic

People across the globe are suffering an epidemic of chronic diseases, obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, and dementia. It is the biggest health threat facing humanity (See Survival).

The underlying reason for this epidemic of chronic diseases is the wrong fat in the wrong place.

Why we get the wrong fat in the wrong place

Everybody has an intelligent control system that regulates our bodies.

It is a combination of our head and gut brains.

We cannot change our head brain, but we can train it and maybe change how it is expressed (Epigenetics) essentially we are stuck with it.

But we can change our gut brain, simply by what what we eat.

Our intelligent control system

Our gut is an integral part of the control system regulating our appetite, how much and where we store fat in our bodies, and also our immune system.

Our gut has intelligence from the trillions of microbes in our gut communicating with each other, just like in a computer.

These microbes, are living creatures which come from the soil.

In our modern diet, which is focused on highly processed foods, there are no living microbes.

The result is that our gut brain does not work as it should.

Feed our gut brain

The Gbiota technology was developed so almost all people, including those living in apartments, could be eating plants, grown in living soil, freshly picked and so full of beneficial microbes.

This technology would improve the lives of billions of people across the globe.

Every eight seconds someone has a limb amputated, we could prevent them losing their foot but we have to tell them how. That is what this web is all about.

Modern food

People say our modern diet of ultra-processed foods makes us overeat so we get fat and sick - but it is not that simple.

It is not what is in our food but what is not in our food.

Our intelligent control system - our gut-brain regulates our bodies.

If we feed it gut-brain food it works well and we have a good chance of a long and healthy life. If we don’t feed it gut-brain food it goes into panic mode and sends out instructions to store fat.

It creates food cravings to make us overeat. Overeating is not the cause of getting fat and sick, it is the enabling factor - the cause is because we are not feeding our gut-brain.

Feed our gut brain

The solution is to feed our gut-brain. We know how to do that, it is simple and inexpensive, the gbiota.com website shows how. Gbiota does not receive any external funding, it is a community benefit organisation so gbiota.com is a subscription site - but $40 a year is pretty good value to prevent having your foot amputated from diabetes.

Does it work?

That is difficult because it is not black and white. Our gut-brain is made up of the combinations of the brains in our head and gut.

The trillions of cells in our gut communicate with each other so our gut has real intelligence.

Some people, on one extreme, have a head brain which makes them totally resistant to becoming fat and sick, they can eat whatever they like and they will always be fit and healthy while at the other extreme, some people will become fat and sick and may have a limb amputated from diabetes however careful they are.

Life is not fair.

Most people have a choice

But the vast majority of people have a choice whether they become fat and sick or fit and healthy by eating gut-brain food.

Fortunately it is very easy to tell if eating gut-brain food will work for a particular person, just try it and see if the food cravings disappear.

Fake advertising

But the real problem is persuading people to eat gut brain food. This is difficult with the barrage of false information and manipulative advertising which has invaded our world.

People have simply stopped believing in the electronic barrage.

But they still believe people they trust. If people start eating gut food and the food cravings disappear they can tell their friends and contacts. It is much easier to make changes as part of a group, sharing information and experiences and even food.

That is what the gbiota.club website is all about - a place where people can exchange information and real-world experiences.

Members registered on gbiota.club also receive the Newsletter to keep them updated on the latest technological advances.

And gbiota.club is free, no one is monitoring your behaviour so they can sell you something. It is a private social media site with standards of behaviour - no advertising and no abuse.

Join the movement to avoid the food crisis

Our food system is moving into a crisis from a combination of climate change and destruction of our top soils.

If you want to help that by joining the Gbiota social movement then start by registering at gbiota.club. If you are already using the Gbiota system then register at gbiota.club and share your experiences with other people who may benefit from you experiences.

Just post in ‘activity’. If you have any problems then just email me at colin@gbiota.com

 

 

Colin Austin © 14 March2024 This document is published under the Creative Commons system which means that it can be copied and republished without further permissions but the author Colin Austin @ gbiota.com must be recognised.

Gbiota boxes - made easy

Why?

Developing a simple Gbiota box for people living in apartments has been the focus of my development work - Why?

The world is very different to when I was born. Back then infectious diseases were the biggest health issue. We were obsessed with germs, they had to be eliminated at all costs and adopting a chemical approach, swapping manure with chemical fertilisers, toxic sprays and antibiotics we have been successful in killing them.

What we failed to appreciate at that time that we were also killing of the beneficial microbes in our gut which form part of our in intelligent control system which has resulted in non-infectious or chronic diseased being the biggest health problem across the globe.

The first technical challenge was how to control the harmful germs without harming the beneficial microbes.

Nature has taught us the principle of Eco-balance, simply create the right conditions so the good microbes out compete and out breed the harmful ones. That is the essence of the Gbiota technology.

For people with a garden and some growing skills this is easy and is already widely adopted but the epidemic of chronic disease affects everyone, particularly the majority of people living in cities, probably in an apartment.

In the future I can see a system where people living in an apartment can just order on line a Gbiota box, with plants already growing and have them delivered to the door and requiring little effort other than watering.

But we are not there yet, these local growers need to see a demand so I need to develop a user base of city dwellers. Once there is a user base with these early adopters, there will be a clear demand for growers.

So here is the simplest way of making a Gbiota box which is perfectly practical for anyone with a bit of pioneering spirit, or not wanting to have a foot amputated from diabetes.

Selecting a box

There is nothing magical about the box, I know there are many Wicking boxes on the market, often at high prices, but what matters is the soil not the box - almost any box will work fine.

The main considerations are depth and size.

About the minimum depth for a box is 200mm and I doubt if many people will be growing a giant red gum in a flat so I see no point in making it deeper than 300mm. Most of my boxes are just 250mm and even then I don’t fill right to the top.

There is a lot of nutrient in the Wickimix (the soil in the Gbiota box) so there is no need for a massive root system.

Many people make large Wicking Beds (and Gbiota beds are just a version of Wicking boxes) but the reality of life is that the box is a closed system and the soil will deteriorate with time . This is much easier done with a small box than a large box (see gbiota 101).

My preference is for a 30 litre box and leave an air gap of about 50mm from the top which I can lift with a level 1 grunt, but it depends how strong you are.

There is nothing special about the box but it needs to be UV resistant and reasonably tough. You can buy a suitable box and fittings from from any hardware store.

Drill a hole as low as possible in the centre of the box

Clean the hole to make a good seal.

Insert the grommet

Apply a little ‘oral lubricant’ to the fitting

Note there is a small and large ridge, the small ridge goes into the rubber grommet

A little wriggle and a big push and she is in.

 

Fit the swivel tube assembly, make sure the swivel is rotating from the plastic pipe and not the grommet.

 

Cut a length of slotted ag pipe so it fits neatly into the base of the box.

Drill a large hole for the vertical filler pipe.

I used to just bend the pipe but this way you can see the water level in the box, this is important for irrigation scheduling.

 

 

We are going to have two filler pipes, one for water the other compost. I tried all ways of handling waste that could be used in a flat but the flies beat me so I went back to the old compost tube system.

I put a layer of organic waste in the base, grass clippings are great, but use whatever you can lay your hands on.

Now I load the nutrient mix, this a combination of manure, rock dust and trace minerals.

 

 

Next job is to add Wickimix which is the growing medium where the plants will put down their roots. Wickimix is made by microbes converting dirt into living soil.

My aim is to encourage local growers to produce Wickimix for sale but in the mean time people can initially fill their boxes with commercial potting mix which will be converted into Wickimix by the microbes. More details in the articles on soils and inoculants.

The box is then seeded in the normal way but as the soil is full of nutrients seeding can be more dense than normal.

Initially I top water so the seeds germinate but later most of the water will be applied from below.

 

 

The key to the Gbiota system is controlling the moisture level. If it is left full of water for any length of time harmful microbes will breed.

The swivel tube is used to drain the box. We call the liquid that drains out ‘soil blood’ as it does the same job as blood does for us, circulate nutrients and oxygen around our bodies.

If you look at soil blood under a microscope you see it is full of microscopic creatures.

As the soil blood drains out it suck fresh air into the soil but to ensure there is no stagnant water the box is left for a period after draining.

Organic waste is loaded into the compost tube and capped with Wickimix (or soil) and if needed worms then flooded with soil blood which pushes the nutrients into the base of the box.

Soil blood be applied to the plants as nutrients and microbes will be absorbed by the leaves.

We apply a fixed volume of soil blood at every irrigation typically 15% of the soil volume. We use a highly sophisticated device for this called on old milk bottle.

We are into recycling.

We control the amount of water input by varying the irrigation times. If I am at home I will drain shortly after irrigating but if I need to go away I can leave the draining until I return which increases the time between irritations.

Controlling the moisture and nutrients levels is the core of the Gbiota system, there are many articles on this website on this topic and I am always writing fresh articles.

You can always contact me at colin@gbiota.com