Overview

Overview

Summary

How life works

The two great synergies

Life starts with energy which come from the sun. There is lots of it, in one hour enough energy falls on the earth to power humans for the whole year.

This energy is picked up by the plants which takes carbon from the atmosphere and hydrogen from water to make energy fuel - carbohydrates. There is plenty of carbon in the air and plenty of water in the oceans, it just needs the sun to make rain which tends to be too much or too little.

Plant exude sugarsPlants exude sugars from their roots to attract and feed microbiology, this collects water, minerals and complex chemicals from the soil and feed to the plants. This is one of the two great synergies in the world.

Some of this microbiology enters the plants so when we eat plants - or animals that eat plants - we get energy fuel, minerals and complex chemicals and microbiology.

This second great synergy is between creature, great and small, and the microbiology in the soil and in their guts. We need this microbiology to digest our food and replace our body parts.

We need sugars to power our bodies but we need just the right amount. If there is too little sugar there is not enough energy to power our bodies, if there is too much then the sugars will cause our body part to at first turn black, rot and then die. This is the curse of diabetes which years ago was very rare but is now common as we stop feeding our guts.

Fortunately our bodies are very clever at controlling our sugar levels. It does this by sending our signals and hormones, but these don’t just appear. The trillions of cells in or guts communicate with each other and our head brain to form a brain which takes the decisions to release the signals and hormones which control our body.

How we have moved from our evolutionary base

But these trillions of cells need to be fed and replaced. They have a short life, measured in days, they breed rapidly inside us - if they are fed the right food - and we are continuously eating food which contains their food and replacement micro-biology.

We don’t need a lot, nowhere near the amount of food we need for energy but is totally critical for our health.

That is why we need to eat gut food - Gbiota food.

sugary fatty foodsIn our evolutionary era we had plenty of gut food which came from nutrient rich biologically active soil, we had all we needed so we did not evolve to crave gut food. However energy food was in short supply there is not much energy food in the wild - so we evolved to crave energy food.

But the food for modern humans has changed - our modern food system has the technology of  producing the energy food we crave in large amounts but there is little incentive to produce the gut food - which we only need in small quantities - but it absolutely essential for our health.

Our bodes are smart enough to sense this lack and so send out signals for us to eat more - and we end up overeating on energy food rather than gut food.

Profits and social responsibility in the modern food industry

This is the great contradiction of modern food - too much of the wrong sort of food and not enough of the food we really need.

The food industry is the worlds largest industry and invested heavily in technology to improve production - with great success. In the last eighty years energy food production has increase by 4.5 while the population has increased by just over 3.

It has also produced the type of food that people have evolved to crave - sugary fatty foods. No one could criticise an industry which increases production to give people what they want.

In a capitalist society it the accepted norm that companies are in business to maximise profits for their shareholders and the market will resolve any issues. Again no one can criticise an industry for following the accepted norm.

It would be fair criticism that the industry has engaged in a marketing campaign to convince the buying public that their food is healthy, meaning complete, when it only supplies part of our dietary needs. This is simply deception.

This would not be important if the product was not life critical, say like computer games, but food is different - we all need to eat and the modern food industry has created an epidemic of chronic diseases. This need correction.

The Gbiota movement

The Gbiota movements prime focus must be to develop the technology and understanding of healthy eating but this only leads to results if the community is educated about food and there is the opportunity to buy food from growers who believe that companies have a responsibility to the community as well as making profits.

That is why the immediate aim of the Gbiota movement is to recruit people who appreciate that this is a cause and not just a profit opportunity and are prepared to act to make the world a better and healthier place. Interested contact me

Don’t worry about the earth - worry about us

 earth and sunOur earth has been spinning around the sun for some 4 billion years and we can expect it to be still spinning around the sun in another 4 billion years or more.

But will there still be people on it? A lot depends on whether we can feed the billions of people who inhabit the earth now and in the future.

bush fireWe may think of some cataclysmic failure from fire or flood from global warming, but it may be totally unspectacular.

Our health is totally dependent on the microbiota in our guts which in turn is dependent on the microbiota in the soil.

We are systematically destroying our soil microbiota and we have no idea how this will affect the ability of the human species to survive.

gut brain connectionWeakened immune systems are making us more susceptible to epidemics like Covid - that could just be a warning shot across our bows.

Maybe we should take soil and gut biology a bit more seriously - as though our lives actually depend on these minute critters.

megacity But I don’t want this to be a story of doom and gloom. Humans are the dominant creature on earth because we are smart, innovative and cooperative.

But we are also empathetic. I have four grand children - right now too young to have children themselves but that will come in the next decade or so, may be too late for me to see my great grand children.

digital ageBut I want my great grand children to have the right sort of food to eat and I want them to live in a society where they can be free of the wars, conflict and socials tensions I have had to put up with in my life.

We may live in the digital age and expect immediate answers to our problems but that is not the way the world works. We have to understand the problems then work away at the solutions.

The Gbiota technology, like all science and technology, is based on established building blocks. Here is the basic science on which Gbiota beds are based

gut brainThe first is the role of our guts. We understand that our guts

- form part of an intelligent control system which determines our appetite (e.g how much we eat,)

- manufactures some of the essential complex chemicals needed to replace our body parts

- is home to much of our immune system.

soil biologyThe second is that our gut biology or Gbiota is determined by the soil biology in which the food we eat is grown. At birth we received a major burst of biology from our mums and then from breast feeding but after that our gut biology is determined by what we eat.

Plant will absorb energy from the sun which they use to make specific sugars which they exude from their roots to attract and feed specific microbes to the local rhizosphere or root zone. Later these will enter the plant and hence our guts.

spinnach leafA spinach leaf may contain some eight hundred different species of micro biology. Other plants will supply a different range of species so by eating a varied diet we can build a very complex gut biology.

Eating healthy food is more effective - and much cheaper - than taking pills to make some company very rich.

hunter gatherersThirdly in our evolutionary period as hunter gatherers there was a natural abundance of both biology and minerals in the soil which led to a healthy gut micro-biome. In this period there were less than a million people on earth so there was no issue - if an area became depleted we just move on to a fresh area. We continued this until recently with the great expansion in the US.

modern agFourthly in the last sixty years or so we have adopted chemical industrial agriculture. This has been amazingly effective in the production of food as fuel made up from carbon and hydrogen. While population has increase by a factor of 3 fuel food has increased by a factor of 4.5 so there is an apparent abundance of food with our supermarkets brimming full of convenient and tasty food.

supermarketHowever the lack of the soil biology which created healthy gut biology has led to an epidemic of chronic diseases stemming from overeating because our bodies are not satisfied - such as diabetes, heart attacks, dementia etc.

There is no suggestion that this has caused the current Covid epidemic but it has certainly enabled the virus to spread and cause so much problem throughout the world.

intensive careAll this is well understood by conventional science and provides the basis for the Gbiota technology. There are numerous papers on these subject some of which are linked here in references.

The purpose of the Gbiota technology is to regenerate our soils at a fast enough rate so our current population of 8 billion people (and growing) can have access to healthy soil and gut biology and trace minerals now we have reached the limit of our available land.

It is much more than a better way of growing a few cabbages it is facing the problem of how our great grandchildren are going to enjoy a healthy life on this planet.

But it is not sufficient to just develop the technology - we have to plan how this can be implemented in a way that benefits the community as a whole and not just monopolist corporations. A network of micro farms supplying the local community seems the most practical approach.

This web is structured rather like a book with this being the preface. The next post is like the introduction giving an index of how the Gbiota technology actually works. This then links to more specialist post going into greater detail.

Forward anthropocene

Backward index

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Gut Biology Sources

Gut Biology Sources

https://hormonesbalance.com/articles/why-does-organic-farming-leave-us-depleted/?

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/giloy-benefits

https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.15252/embr.202051069

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6780873/

https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/soil-stomach-plant/

(PDF) Does Soil Contribute to the Human Gut Microbiome?

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/06/healthy-soil-microbes-healthy-people/276710/

https://tastingthefuture.com/2019/11/07/unearthing-the-science-between-soil-and-gut-health/

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/meet-psychobiome-gut-bacteria-may-alter-how-you-think-feel-and-act

https://www.agriculture.com/crops/soil-health/soil-health-means-better-human-health

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/06/healthy-soil-microbes-healthy-people/276710/

https://www.agriculture.com/crops/soil-health/soil-health-means-better-human-health

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335340302_Does_Soil_Contribute_to_the_Human_Gut_Microbiome

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335340302_Does_Soil_Contribute_to_the_Human_Gut_Microbiome

https://f1000research.com/articles/7-1588

https://www.ecofarmingdaily.com/build-soil/soil-fertility-biodiversity-and-the-gut-microbiome/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/uncovering-how-microbes-in-the-soil-influence-our-health-and-our-food/2019/09/27/81634f54-a4ba-11e9-bd56-eac6bb02d01d_story.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7403703/

Heritable Gut Microbiome Study

https://backyardvitality.com/fastest-growing-foods-get-self-reliant-now/?

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/most-searched-products/home-decor-and-garden/garden-and-outdoors/air-purifying-indoor-plants-upgrade-and-refresh-your-space-with-greenery/articleshow/84142358.cms


https://foodrevolution.org/blog/b-vitamins-benefits/

https://theecologist.org/2009/sep/10/how-set-your-own-local-food-co-op

https://www.organicbuyersclub.org/

https://www.naturalfarmerspantry.com.au/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw0K-HBhDDARIsAFJ6UGhCldpZgR1OKaWB2OciQKZ2Jq410GwK6sDWmUpdWmF0lWH8Cvf7v5kaApcnEALw_wcB

http://www.coopdirectory.org/bp003.htm

Average Waist Size For Women and Men

https://www.liveforless.com.au/introduction-food-co-ops/

9 tips for starting a local food co-op

 

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Gut Biology Sources

What food does

Three functions of food

energy foodWe are all familiar with the conventional way of classifying food -

carbohydrates, sugars, fats, proteins etc but let us look at what they do.

There is food we need for energy - this can be virtually any sort of food carbs, sugar, fats, protein.

As long as it contains carbon and hydrogen our bodies will simply burn it for energy - releasing carbon dioxide and water - just like in a steam engine.

Then there is food we need to replace our body parts as they wear or age.

This needs to contain a broad range of complex chemicals which our bodies can often make in our guts as long as the essential minerals are present. If our bodies cannot manufacture them we have to incorporate them into our diets (for example B12).

fibre foodFinely there is our intelligent control system (Homeostasis). Our bodies are not just a bunch of organs doing their own thing, there is an intelligent control system made up of trillions of cells which receive information from sensors throughout the body, process them by working just like a computer with code, taking decision then sending our signals, either electric or hormonal to adjust how the body is working.

Unfortunately we have no idea how this code actually works - but we know that it does.

fat personWe don’t get fat simply because we eat too much - rather our intelligent control system decides we need to store more fat, (again we can only guess why) so it send out signals for us to eat more - then we get fat.

It is a great shame we don’t know how this code actually works because it is totally critical to our health.

Much of this control system is made up from the trillions of cells in our guts and they need to be fed gut brain food.

The cells in our guts are short lived - continuously breeding, dyeing and being replaced. While we only need a small amount of gut food and the beneficial biology - this is a critical part of our diet.

Why we should feed our gut brain

gut brain connectionOur gut has trillions of cells made up from thousands of species.

But this is much more than trillions of dumb cells to form our gut brain - these cells communicate with each other and our head brain to form an intelligent control system.

This manages our bodies controlling appetite, replacing aging body part and hosting our immune sytem.

This is what the gut biota (Gbiota) project is all about.

This web site shows how growers can set up and manage their own Gbiota beds to grow gut brain food, (Gbiota food), and ecourages people to form local buying coops so if they don't want to grow their own Gbiota food they can buy,  at an affordable price, from regenerative farmers.

If you may be interested in setting up your own buying group please contact me here

Our gut brain does three very important jobs,

– it control our appetite so we have enough energy but don’t overeat

– it manufactures the complex chemicals we need to replace our body parts as they age

– they host much of our immune system and so help protect us from pandemics

Our guts are really important for our health. Our gut biology has evolved over millions of years and originates from the soil.

Soil biology

soil biologySoil is formed by microbiology breaking down rocks and is continuously circulated as plant grow, die and decompose back into soil. This totally depends on micro-biology and the soil creatures particularly the worms. The natural process of making soil is slow and in the last fifty years has been replaced by chemical industrial farming which has increased productivity but dramatically lacks this essential biology which leads to healthy soil and healthy guts and bodies..

Many of the chemicals used are claimed not to harm us but they certainly harm the soil biology.

Trace minerals

These early soils were rich in a wide range of minerals which both we and the plants need for health. But plants are much simpler than us so there are many minerals which we need but plants either do not need or only need in very small amount.

Chemical industrial agriculture replaces the minerals such as N, P, K which the plants need for growth but there is no economic pressure on farmers to replace the trace minerals like chromium, iron, zinc, selenium, iodine which are essential for our health.

 

 

Modern industrial farming

modern agModern industrial farming may be productive but has meant that our intelligent control system senses that we are lacking key biology and minerals so creates food cravings which has led to a major health epidemic of chronic diseases, obesity, diabetes dementia

See changing our food system here

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How we evolved with food

hunter gatherers During our evolution we were generally short of energy food - the fats and sugars - so we have an in built desire to search and eat energy food. On the other hand there was an abundance of beneficial biology and minerals in the soil so we had this bias to crave energy food rather than gut food.

help

appetite for profitThe modern food industry aim is to make profit and the way to do that is to supply energy food in large quantities produced at minimum cost.

It does this very well but the minerals and biology to replace our body parts and power our control system are not well supplied.

Our food system is out of balance so we need to change the balance towards providing food for our gut brain and to provide the essential minerals to replace our body parts.

We can’t necessarily blame the food industry - working in the current economic philosophy based on profit without social responsibility - for supplying the sort of food we crave.

But the results have been a disaster for our health with a global epidemic of chronic disease related to overeating.

 

 

We overeat because our intelligent control system senses we are short of critical minerals and biology, so it sends out hunger signals so we eat more energy food than we need just to try and get the essential minerals and biology we need.

We need to change our food system and we need to do this in a sustainable way by recycling waste organic material

Forward index

Backward food-and-innovation

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Principles of Gbiota beds

Principles of Gbiota beds

The principle of Gbiota beds

Gbiota bedThe aim of the Gbiota system is to give us a healthy gut by growing plants which act as natural pre and pro-biotics.

If we eat a modern diet we will have sugar loving bugs in our guts which makes us crave sugary foods - but it is easy to change the type of biology we have in our guts simply by changing our diet.

 

Beneficial biology is bred in organic waste in beds in which the moisture level is carefully controlled.

The diagram illustrates the basic principle of the Gbiota system.

When the bed is first made the bottom half is filled with waste organic material, typically food waste while the top half (which forms the rhizosphere) is filled with soil. Water is pumped from a sump into the water inlet where it filters through a mix of labile (young) compost, manure and minerals essentially forming a nutrient rich compost tea.

A leaky soil dam temporarily prevents this nutrient rich compost tea from quickly draining from the bed so it spreads over the base to the height of the leaky dam. When the water supply switches off the tea drains out of the base of the bed and back into the sump while sucking fresh air into the soil.

Aims of the Gbiota project

gut braina I believe all people in this rich affluent world should have access to healthy food at an affordable price.

Specifically my innovation relates to gut health.

The food we eat feeds, or should feed, the trillions of cells in our guts which do much more than help us digest our food. Each cell communicates with its neighbours to form an intelligent system which controls much of our body - there really is a gut brain.

 It controls our appetite so we eat enough but don’t overeat. Poor gut health is a factor in the global obesity epidemic. It manufactures many of the complex chemicals needed to replace our body parts as they age. And particularly in this age of Covid, houses our immune system.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that our modern system caused Covid but it certainly enabled it to become an epidemic - there is a big difference between causing and enabling but the results may be very similar.

 desertificationMy innovation is a way of growing plants so they act as a pre and pro-biotic so we have a healthy gut. Now let me be clear - up till about eighty years ago this happened naturally without anyone thinking about it.

But then we stopped and adopted chemical industrial agriculture.

I am not against chemical industrial agriculture providing us with energy food - simple carbohydrates we burn off to provide us with energy.

In the last eighty years our production of food has increased by a factor of 4.5 while the population has increased by a factor of 3.47.

We are now producing more than enough energy food to feed the entire global population. (just with energy food.) It is true we waste a lot of food and more seriously we are degrading the available soils at an alarming rate - to the extent that we will run out of soil in some sixty years.

We may still be able to produce enough energy food but we will not survive as a species without soil to feed our gut brain, which controls our bodies.

wormsMy innovation is a simple way of recycling food and organic waste, adding manures and essential minerals and if needed inoculate the soil with biology and worms to grow food to feed our guts, natural pre and pro biotics.

The technology is simple, any competent grower, whether a commercial or home grower can implement it. In this age - obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, dementia and so many diseases are caused by our body not controlling our appetite correctly. Changing our gut biology could have major social benefits.

Gbiota beds

multi boxGbiota beds were developed by studying the way soil is formed in the natural world but dramatically accelerate the process, instead of taking decades to make healthy soil it can be created in months. It is based on taking organic waste, manures, trace minerals, worms and very careful control of the moisture level.

It is relatively simple and is already widely used by home gardeners. The technology is described in the growing section on this web and is the subject of continuous development and improvement.

Forward food-and-innovation

Backwards  spreading-the-benefits-of-gbiota-beds

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Gut Biology Sources

How to Make Soil

Health Starts in the Soil

Healthy soil grows healthy plants, and healthy plants help build healthy bodies. Soil and water are fundamental to life. Even “soilless” growing systems still depend on nutrients that originally came from soil. We have slowly but steadily degraded the world’s soils. This is not only a problem for individual health – it is a global food crisis issue. Without living soil we cannot feed a growing population. So how do we make healthy soil? That part is actually straightforward – this is what Gbiota technology is designed to do. You can see how simple it is to make a basic Gbiota bed here: Making Soil 101. The difficult part is changing our mindset: from a throw-away society to a circular society based on recycling. Soil – more precisely, the biology in soil – is the world’s great recycler. Organic waste can be turned into living soil that grows nutrient-dense food. We add trace minerals for human health and control moisture so beneficial soil life can breed. Not too wet, not too dry – “Goldilocks moisture”. It is all about breeding beneficial soil biology.

Profit or Grandkids?

Humans are the dominant species on earth: intelligent and generally cooperative. I am an innovator. I was selected as one of the top one hundred innovators by the Institute of Engineers for my pioneering work in computer-aided engineering. Yet I believe that learning how to make and regenerate soil is one of the most important challenges facing humanity. We now know how to create soil that grows healthy plants and supports human health. That is what this site is about – practical ways to make and regenerate soil. The “Growing” section explains how to build healthy soil in simple steps. Anyone can do it, and it is often cheaper to grow food in living soil than to rely on artificial fertilisers and toxic chemicals – which are expensive but profitable for manufacturers. So why are we, the most intelligent creature on the planet, still destroying soils that took billions of years to form?

Our Attitude to Soil

The biggest challenge is our attitude. Politicians tend to focus on power and economic growth. Companies focus on profits. Meanwhile, soil – which is essential for the future of life on earth – is treated as expendable. Healthy soil can also absorb large amounts of atmospheric carbon. Soil health and climate stability are tightly linked. We know how to make and regenerate soil, yet we continue to degrade it. Changing our attitude to soil is one of the greatest tasks humanity faces.

Soil – the Ultimate Recycler

Soil is the ultimate recycler – or more accurately, soil that is alive with beneficial biology. Soil life:
  • Breaks down organic waste
  • Builds structure and stores water
  • Makes minerals available to plants
  • Supports the nutrient density we need for health
Soil is essential for the future of life on earth. Learning how to make and regenerate soil is one of the key challenges of our time. That is what this website is about. I have made the challenge of “how to make soil” my obsession for many years.    

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