Learning experience

Homeostasis

Many of my readers know that I am a bit OCDish about how our food system is compromising community health.

The medical facts are simple, everyone has an inbuilt control system which regulates our bodies (homeostasis).

This is our gut brain - a combination of our gut and head brains.

A healthy gut brain is the core to living a long and healthy life while a poor gut brain is the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of overweight, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

Our gut brain really matters.

Our modern food system is simply not feeding our gut brain. We need to incorporating into our diet plants grown in living soil, picked and eaten while still fresh.

Learning how to grow plants that feed our gut brain has been the focus of my obsession for many years and the technology is now solid - we know how to grow gut brain food.

But technology is not enough - it must be available to all people who want access.

Google adds campaign

I therefore decided to run a Google adds campaign focusing on gut brain food.

The results can only be described as spectacular with over 4,000 view per day on my web site.

But, and it is a big but, people were just not signing up to learn how to grow their own gut brain food.

Fortunately some people did email me so I was able to get a reasonable picture of what was going on.

Without doubt we can be certain there is a lot of people out there who really understand the importance of their gut brain.

However we live in an era of manipulation of the truth, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. The story is that all you have to do is to take some magic pill.

The web is saturated with manipulative advertising for magic pills, beautiful pieces of marketing relying on alternative facts.

Facts that get in the way

Mice are cute little creatures who are happy to eat each others pooh. Many other animals such as elephants, eat their pooh as well to develop their gut.

One of the classic experiments was feeding the pooh of a fat mouse to a skinny mouse and vice versa. It is just one of the facts of life that you can make a fat mouse skinny and a skinny mouse fat by simply feeding it the appropriate pooh from another fat or skinny mouse.

Humans are more selective in what we eat and if we really need, for genuine medical reasons, to change our gut biota then we go through a carefully monitored process called faecal transplant or in plain language having someone else's pooh poked up your bum.

The real facts have not prevented a major, and highly profitable industry developing, based on the idea that you can change your gut biota simply by taking some magic pill.

Inconvenient facts

It is a highly inconvenient fact that the life cycle of the microbes that make up our gut biota is very different to our life cycle (an hour for a microbe is equivalent to a human year).

Within twenty minutes of a cell forming it is dividing (breeding) - beat that you randy teenagers.

It is certainly an inconvenient fact that the end of life for out microbes occurs within three days.

Soil should be teaming with beneficial microbes that will enter the plants and then our gut.

But, and this is the key, we must eat that plant withing three days (at the most) of picking that plants.

This is the absolute essence of the Gbiota box system where people can have a box of plants growing at home in soil teaming with microbes and pick and eat while genuinely fresh.

This is not an alternative fact - it is the way the world actually works.

What have I learned?

I have learned that there are a few people who are quite prepared to go to all the trouble of creating living soil, what is generally referred to as regenerative growing, and grow their own plants and eat while genuinely fresh.

I know these people, I chat to them on email almost everyday, there are people like this all over the world but they are only a fraction of the eight billion people on this earth who need a healthy gut brain.

I thought that if I worked really hard to make creating Gbiota beds and boxes as simple as possible that I could convert many people to becoming Gbiota users.

And sadly I was wrong. Everybody gets things wrong but there is the old saying that the difference between a wise man and a fool it that while they both make mistakes the wise man learns from his mistakes.

The new plan

It is obvious that there are many people who understand the importance of their gut biota however many of these are looking for an easy solution specifically a magic pill.

Many of these are already suspicious of magic pills and could readily be persuaded that growing gut brain food at home is a better solution.

However this must be made easy, easier than can be achieved by improvements in documentation and training for the current Gbiota system.

What is needed is a global network of regenerative growers who can act as local support centres.

Our number one priority must be to establish this network, which could vary from home growers who have expertise in regenerative growing to commercial regenerative growers.

It would certainly help in attracting these growers if we can demonstrate an effective promotion to attract customers to their businesses.

Structures already in place

Structures are already in place.

Gbiota club is a private social media site where consumers and growers can meet up and chat without having their personal data captured.

Pickandeat.shop is a multi vendor web site where growers can display their services and products and set up regular supply of fresh Gbiota boxes.

Contact me

Interested - chat directly with me at colin@gbiota.com

 

Become a Gbiota supplier

Limitations in our current food system

The modern chemical industrial food system is highly productive producing large quantities of standardised energy food at economic prices.

But the food is inert lacking the essential microbes to feed our gut brain so our control system, which regulates our bodies, does not work as it should.

The Gbiota aim is not to replace the existing food system but to supplement by growing gut brain food to feed out gut brain - our control system.

It is just a fact of life that there are beneficial microbes that power our gut brain but there are also harmful microbes that make us sick or even kill us.

Chemicals can kill microbes but they kill both good and bad microbes.

Key features of the Gbiota technology - ecological balance

A key feature of the Gbiota technology is to create the conditions - moisture, air, and nutrients - so the beneficial microbes simply out breed the harmful microbes, a process of Ecological balance.

It is again a fact of life that microbes breed incredibly fast but they also die at an equally fast rate.

Microbes, even in plants grown under the best possible conditions, but harvested and sold conventionally, will have died well before they are consumed - even though the plants still look perfectly healthy.

There is a fundamental difference between living and not gone rotten.

Provide living plants in Gbiota boxes rather than harvested plants

A further key feature of the Gbiota system is that plants can be grown at home in Gbiota boxes full of living soil so they can be harvested and eaten straight away - pick and eat.

There are home growers who can manage the whole process of making boxes, breeding the beneficial microbes in organic waste to create living soil, and finally growing and harvesting the plants but this only represents a small proportion of the population and everybody has a gut-brain that needs feeding.

To make the full benefits of the technology available to as many people as possible we need Gbiota suppliers to become an essential part of the food supply chain.

 

 

Gbiota services

A Gbiota supplier can provide a range of services from simply making the Gbiota boxes to a complete service of making the boxes, right through to delivering and swapping boxes with a selection of growing plants so their customer has an ongoing supply of fresh boxes.

Gbiota suppliers are independent businesses and it is up to them what services they decide to offer but we certainly encourage Gbiota suppliers to offer a full spectrum of services.

This is creating a new element of local specialist growers in the food supply chain.

Becoming a Gbiota supplier

Creating Gbiota soil is a critical part of the Gbiota process. Under natural conditions, it can take centuries to create soil. In the Gbiota process, the time is reduced to months rather than years.

Dirt into soil

It is turning dirt into soil.

It may start with clay, which is a pretty horrible material unless you are into making pots.

When it is dry it is hard like concrete and when it becomes wet it turns into a yukky glue which defies management.

But the Gbiota process can turn clay, or other soil into a beautiful growing medium with a good porous structure full of beneficial microbes, and bio-available nutrients.

This is done using a variety of techniques.

Organic waste is added which provides food for the microbes.

Both microbes and humans need minerals so rock dust is added. Rock dust is insoluble and not readily available but the microbes, particularly the fungi will break the minerals down and make them bio-available.

But microbes don’t just live in the soil, they also live in the guts of larger creatures, like worms, beetles and soldier flies. These larger creatures play a significant role in turning dirt into soil.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is the role of plants in turning dirt into soil.

This needs energy and the plants provide this from photosynthesis capturing the energy of the sun which is contained in both the plant material itself but also in the sugars that plants exude from their roots to feed selected species of microbes.

Turning dirt into soil means the management of a complex ecosystem.

We know how to do this, that is what the Gbiota technology is all about, but it is far from trivial and is best done in raised beds with careful management of the nutrients, air, and water to create the beneficial Eco-system.

 

Humans and Jelly fish

Most people can tell the difference between a jellyfish and a fellow human being (I would worry about their sex life if they can’t). A jellyfish is like a bag full of squishy stuff while a human body is rigid with a structure.

But they are not really that different. We have a heart which is pumping blood all around our bodies.

It takes up oxygen from our lungs and distributes it over our entire body. It takes up nutrients from our gut and distributes this to muscles all over our body.

It picks up hormones from various organs and distributes these to our brains, making us feel tired or hungry or whatever.

It is distributing the components of our immune system around our bodies ready to deal with unwelcome guests.

It is learning from all these activities what seems to work like some giant artificial intelligence machine continuously self-learning and adapting.

Like the Jellyfish, it does this by transporting squishy stuff around our bodies.

Soil blood

This is analogous to what is happening in the soil. Soil is hard and solid and nutrients are simply not available directly to the plants.

But the soil is full of fluid, water containing a load of dissolved chemicals, microbes, and other living creatures.

This is doing a similar job to our blood so I call it soil blood and is central to how Gbiota beds work.

We flood and drain the boxes so the soil is breathing, we are allowing the organic material to decompose and form part of the soil blood (compost tea) which we circulate through the boxes from top to bottom.

Maybe not as sixty times a minute like our heart but certainly several times a week.

This concept of soil blood is fundamental to the Gbiota technology and the way Gbiota beds and boxes work.

It all may sound high tech but in reality, it means collecting soil blood in a milk bottle from a swivel tube and flooding the top of the box.

Technology transfer

All this is described in the many posts on the web and certainly, we can coach any Gbiota supplier through the many posts.

But a consumer, who probably just wants to avoid having their leg chopped off from diabetes probably will not want to go through this learning process but would be delighted to have a local Gbiota supplier demonstrate how to properly care for their Gbiota boxes.

Gbiota suppliers can play a critical role in this important function of technology transfer.

 

Two groups in a win win coupling

All this is the daily life for regenerative farmers. They have decided to step aside from conventional chemical industrial agriculture and focus on regenerating their soils so they have a viable and sustainable farm into the future.

They certainly don’t so this for short term financial gains, they do it because it is the right thing to do for the future of humanity.

But their skills and knowledge in understanding soil and the trillions of creatures which inhabit the soil are of immense value to the second group.

These are the people whose gut brain is not working as it should simply because they are not feeding their gut brain with the food which will provide them with an effective control system.

They certainly would want to live a long and health life but they may well have short term pressure like having their leg chopped off from diabetes (which globally happens every eight seconds).

They would be more than happy to reward the skills of the regenerative farmer in providing gut brain food.

This is a win for the thousands of regenerative farmers and the many millions of people (actually eight billion) who need a healthy gut brain.

How to make it happen?

If you are a regenerative farmer simply join the Gbiota social movement by registering as a local grower. If you just want to find out more tick the box expression of interest (just looking) and also click on the notify me of new posts at the bottom of any post.

We write a new post most weeks so you can sit back and watch if this if for you or not.

If this is for you then when you are ready edit you account to ‘ready to go’.

If you want to buy Gbiota boxes then register as a consumer and again tick the box notify me of new posts and again if you just want to look and see then tick the box expression of interest.

Again if this is for you then when you are ready edit you account to ‘ready to go’.

Then the process of linking growers and consumers starts using our social media site Gbiota.club and our shop site pickandeat.shop aided by geolocation so you can find a grower or consumer near you.

This is a direct relationship between growers and consumers so it is up to you both to decide how you can best work together.

We just aim to get you to say hello.

 

Help wanted with digital marketing

 Gbiota's interest is how to grow gut brain food. Few people are going to Google ‘how to grow gut brain food’ and if they do they will be exposed to a plethora of adverts for pills of dubious benefit.

Our gut brain is the control system for our bodies, every machine has some form of control system, even if it is just a simple on/off switch. Our bodies have a highly sophisticated control system that regulates everything we do, our breathing, heart rate, temperature, appetite, how much and where we store fat in our bodies.

We do not understand how it works but we have a nice name for it – homeostasis.

It is really important, we can't possibly be fit and healthy if our control system is not working and that is precisely what has happened over the last half century.

There are good microbes that lead to a healthy gut and harmful microbes that can make us sick or even kill us.

We are very good at killing all microbes, we do it on a grand scale with the chemicals we use in modern agriculture.

However it is not so easy to breed beneficial microbes without breeding the harmful ones. The cornerstone of the Gbiota technology is to create the right conditions for the good microbes to simply outbreed and out-compete the harmful ones – what we call eco-balance.

Our food system has failed to feed our gut brain resulting in an epidemic of overweight, diabetes, heart attacks, dementia, and a shortened health span.

We have the technology to solve this so we are really under a great deal of pressure to get this technology to the millions of people who have a compromised gut brain.

The internet is so saturated with adverts for dubious pills we cannot rely on natural growth, we have to grin and bear it and pay for advertising so everyone who needs to know about a healthy gut-brain is aware that they can do something about it.

Money is not such a big deal, when people understand they can avoid having their leg chopped off from diabetes they will be happy to contribute to the costs.

But equally, it is pointless running a scattergun approach to marketing, it has to be niche marketing to a select group who actually want a healthy gut–target marketing.

There are three groups we need to target.

Home growers at risk of diabetes.

These will generally be older people 50+ who are already gardeners and can easily adapt to growing gut-brain food.

Parents of childbearing daughters

Our gut brain is largely formed in the first three years of life and we get it from our mums, during birth, and from breastfeeding. I have a specific post on this the best pro biotic ever which I hope you will read.

Local growers

Many people want a healthy gut-brain but do not want to go to the bother of growing the plants themselves.

It is just a fact of life that the beneficial microbes have a limited life, they die after about three days from harvesting. Even if you buy the best plants from an organic grower they will not help that much if you just buy plants.

But if you buy a Gbiota box with plants already growing you can pick and eat so you have genuinely fresh plants and after a month or so you just swap for a new Gbiota box.

We need to set up a network of Gbiota growers across the planet.

Target marketing

I am an engineer, I am more than happy playing around with pumps to get the conditions right to breed the beneficial microbes and I have no problems mixing up organic waste and chicken manure to breed the microbes

BUT

I am not really into target marketing so I am creating this post to see if any of my current user base has skills in Targeting Marketing which will help the project along.

If so I look forward to hearing from you colin@gbiota.com

Gbiota Hello

We need to feed our gut brain which is the intelligent control system for our bodies.

Our modern chemical industrial agriculture and highly processed foods simply does not feed our intelligent control system so we need to modify our food system.

People react in different ways.

Some people see this as their mission to change the world for the better for their grand kids.

Other people are not bothered about going on a mission and just want to have good food for themselves and their families and are prepared to go to the trouble of growing some of their food.

Others think this is all too much work but still want to buy healthy food.

Your all welcome

Let me tell you that you are all welcome to join the Gbiota movement. Even if you just start eating healthy food and feel better in yourself and your friends see this - then this is the best promotion we can have for the cause.

Being healthy should be fun - not an ordeal

But let me tell you that this does not have to be some ordeal.

There are diet enthusiast who will lead you to believe that just one meal of chicken and chips followed by a good hunk of cheese cake will mean you are sacrificing you life and will back this up with a list of long chemicals names to convince you that your life is somehow doomed.

Out bodies are not that wimpy.

Most of the food we just burn off for energy - its just fuel.

You can have a steam engine which can run on coal, gas, wood or even old furniture and it works fine. Our bodies are like that - give us food and most (about 80%) is just burned off as fuel.

But our bodies are also very clever and they use our food to replace our body parts as they age and wear. This does required a variety of minerals and nutrients, some with very long and impressive chemical names but are just part of a regular diet (may be 15%).

Our gut brain is super smart

But our gut brain is our intelligent control system which regulates our bodies, deciding how much and where we should store fat.

It is smart, sensing what we eat and its affect on out bodies and learning, like artificial intelligence how that affects our bodies. Once learned it gives us a strong preference for certain types of food.

This is totally critical for our bodies, not feeding our gut brain makes as much sense as having a drunk at the wheel of a Lamborghini.

This may only make up 5% of our food intake but is totally critical for our health.

Chicken wings, chips and cheese cake still on the menu - but

So you can still eat chicken wings and chips and a hunky slice of cheese cake and still live a long and healthy life.

It is just that your gut brain will tell you that you have had enough chicken wings, chips and cheese cake so you just call a halt naturally.

Welcome

So whatever your scene - join the Gbiota movement, change the world, grow your own healthy food or find someone who will grow it for you - and welcome.

Colin

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