The health paradox

Colin Austin © November 2024 Published under the Creative Commons System, it can be republished without further approval, just recognition of source.

Preface

Chronic diseases, obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia cause a great deal of personal distress and cost Governments billions of dollars.

They are very difficult to cure but can be prevented relatively easily and at low cost. But that requires a change in the way our Governments, our health systems, and society operate to one with a focus on prevention rather than cure.

The underlying cause of all chronic diseases is the wrong fat in the wrong place.

So how does the fat get in the wrong place? We could give a simple answer - because more food (actually carbon) goes in than comes out.

The wrong fat in the wrong place is the underlying cause of all chronic diseases.

So why do so many people get fat now, at epidemic proportions, when fifty years ago there were only a very few fat people?

We need to store some fat, no one likes to talk about it but that is what our bums are for and is essential for both health and survival. But why do we now store fat in the wrong places, our tummies, pancreas, arteries and brain?

Why do we store fat in the wrong places?

The simplistic answer is a bit like asking how Donald Trump got elected and answering because more people voted for him. True but not the answer.

The real question is why more people voted for Trump and that is complex and will no doubt be the subject of much deep analysis.

We know how we get fat, input is greater than consumption, but what we want to know is why we eat more than we need.

A simple answer may appear to be that modern food is cheap, convenient and tasty so we just pig out.

But that is not the real answer, we have to dig deeper and put more emphasis on prevention which takes the pressure of cure.

Why do we overeat?

We should start by recognising that the epidemic of chronic disease is a new phenomenon that started only a little over fifty years ago. True there have always been fat people, genetics play a part, but predominantly the epidemic is a modern phenomenon.

How we get fat is easy to answer - if more carbon goes into our bodies than comes out we get fat. But that is not an answer, we need to know why more goes in than comes out.

We have not all turned into little piggies so saying eat less and exercise more is not the solution, we need to understand why we eat more than we need.

There are sound scientific reasons why we overeat and if we are going to fix the chronic disease epidemic we need to understand why.

Our bodies - a thermodynamic machine

I find it useful to think of our bodies as a thermodynamic machine like a car.

Every machine has some form of control system, even if it just an on/off switch but today we have some extremely sophisticated intelligent control systems as I discuss in Health - prevention first

A car needs fuel, typically a simple hydrocarbon. We need fuel for our bodies and that is typically some combination of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in the form of a sugar or fat which we burn to form carbon dioxide, which we breathe out and water which we use internally or pee out.

As burning carbon to form carbon dioxide always releases the same amount of energy it has become fashionable to talk about the conservation of energy, the calorie balance but it is the excess carbon we don’t breathe out as carbon dioxide which makes us fat and that is governed by the indisputable law of the conservation of mass.

So why do we store excess carbon (as fat)? That is when it get really interesting.

Cars and our bodies both need fuel

A car needs more than fuel, it needs a whole range of quite complex chemicals, oils for lubrication, water for cooling plus a whole range of components that wear out and need replacing from windscreen wiper blades to engine bearings, brake pads and batteries.

Typically the owner driver will take the car to a mechanic who will check the car over and replace bits that need replacing.

Our bodies are similar. We need a range of complex chemicals to survive and replace our body parts as they age and wear. We get these complex chemicals largely from the phytonutrients that plants produce, either directly by eating the plants or indirectly by eating animals that eat the plants and pass on the phytonutrients.

The car driver and our gut-brain

As the driver of the car, you are like a brain for the car telling it where to go, what route, how fast etc. and you like to be fed.

Our bodies similarly have a gut-brain which controls our bodies, deciding every aspect of our body’s operation, maybe subconsciously but it is still a decision and one of the most important decisions is what and how much we want to eat.

Our gut-brain likes to be fed too.

Three sorts of food

So we need three sorts of food - food for energy, food to replace our body parts as they age or wear and food to feed our gut-brain which controls our body.

In round figures about 80% of the food we eat is burned as fuel, 15% is used to replace our body parts and only 5% is needed to feed our gut-brain.

Historically energy fuel was in short supply while replacement and gut-brain food were abundant, so by the time we had gathered enough energy food for fuel we had an ample supply of replacement and gut-brain food.

Humanoids have been on this earth for some million years and in all that time we have been short of food for energy. Even today we are obsessed with energy food.

Then we changed the food system so there was an abundant supply of cheap energy food - fuel.

Who can blame the food industry for providing us with cheap energy food?

Our intelligent control system needs three ticks

Our intelligent control system can send out a complex variety of hormones to make us feel hungry or full, eg satisfied.

We don’t need any complex piece of scientific equipment to tell us we are satisfied - our bodies tell us we feel full and satisfied.

But despite eating large amounts of modern food we still don’t feel satisfied.

Why?

The key to solving the epidemic of chronic disease

The answer to that question is the key to solving the epidemic of chronic disease.

Before our intelligent control system sends out signals to say we are full or satisfied it must have three ticks, one tick for enough energy, another tick for replacement food and the last tick to feed the gut-brain.

When, and only when, it senses that all these needs are satisfied will it send out hormones saying enough - stop eating. The food cravings stop and we feel satisfied and stop eating.

We may have all the energy food we need but if either we don’t have enough replacement food or enough gut-brain food we will not feel satisfied.

The hormones will create food cravings, we will not feel satisfied and whatever our dietitian tells us we will eventually be overcome and eat more energy food than we need.

That is how 8 million people a year end up in the operating room having a limb amputated. Bad for them, bad for our health system - we need to fix it.

How our food system has changed

In times gone past energy food was on the critical path so by the time we had eaten enough energy food it had received ticks for both replacement and gut-brain food so it sends out the hormones to say we are full or satisfied so there was no epidemic stemming from the wrong fat in the wrong place.

In our modern food system, there is an abundance of energy food so we very easily eat enough food to get a tick for energy food but we will still not have created a tick for replacement or gut-brain food.

So our intelligent control system does not send out signals saying you are satisfied, instead, it sends out signals saying eat more.

While we are eating more food to generate a tick for replacement and gut-brain food we keep on eating which results in us eating more energy food than we need and as a result, we end up storing more fat and creating the epidemic of chronic disease.

Our bum, the natural storage for fat becomes overfull so our intelligent control system, faced with a surplus of energy food starts storing the fat anywhere it can in our tummies, thighs, arteries and brain so now we have an epidemic of chronic disease.

It is critical to understand this process to create the societal change we need to reverse the epidemic of chronic disease.

Fortunately, it is very easy and inexpensive to increase the supply of replacement and energy food and save billions of dollars in medical costs.

Getting the message out

But we have to get the message out to not just the Governments who fund the health system and the medical practitioners who run the health system but also the population at large to create the needed societal change.

The Health Paradox

This is so important to reversing the chronic disease epidemic allow me to emphasise this critical point even if I repeat myself, if we are going to fix the epidemic of chronic disease we all need to understand this simple paradox.

The paradox is, with our modern food system, loaded with energy food, that even though we have eaten enough energy food we still have not satisfied our need for replacement and gut-brain foods.

Our intelligent control system is smart and detects that we are still short of replacement and gut-brain food so it sends out signals saying you are not satisfied so eat more food. However determined we are to stick to some diet it is very hard to resist our intelligent control system sending out hormones that say you are still not full so keep on eating.

We don’t feel satisfied and keep on eating.

That is why we get fat, not just fat but fatter and fatter - we are losing the battle.

Why we need a prevention strategy

There is no suggestion that we should stop caring for people that are fat and sick but by the time they have reached that stage, it is a bit late.

If someone has reached the stage where they are on the operating table to have a limb removed from diabetes it is a bit late and anyway removing the limb will not cure diabetes.

That is why we need a health system that focuses on prevention, it won’t cost much money to run a prevention program and will save a far greater amount of money in expensive medical care later.

Our sophisticated intelligent control system

We won’t get far in making these changes unless we recognise just how sophisticated our intelligent control system is.

Engineers know a lot about intelligent control systems, just look at the sophistication that is used in power stations and rockets which can now navigate back to Earth and re-dock.

But we don’t have to look at these exotic applications, your car sitting in your driveway is an excellent example of intelligent control at work, which has remarkable similarities to our human bodies.

Short and long-term energy

It has a fuel tank for storing fuel - the equivalent of our bums for storing fuel in the form of fat. It just sits there, doing nothing until there is a call for action eg you start the car so it needs fuel to keep the engine running.

It does this by transferring a tiny amount of fuel from the tank to the fuel injection system where highly sophisticated sensors work out precisely how much fuel needs to be injected into the engine.

If you, as the driver of the car and part of the intelligent control system, want to accelerate or go up a hill the system works out how much extra fuel needs to be injected.

Our bodies work in a similar way.

We fill up our fuel tank, our bum, by eating food.

Initially the food, as sugars, goes into our bloodstream but the amount of energy we can store in our blood is minute so our intelligent control system sends out hormones to transfer this energy into our fuel tank, our bum.

When we start some activity which requires a lot of energy our intelligent control system will at first use the energy which is in our blood, but that is tiny so it sends our signals to transfer energy from our fuel tank, our bum, back into the bloodstream where it can power our muscles.

Our intelligent control system is continuously managing our energy supply, converting fast-acting sugars into fat for long-term storage and back from fats to sugars in our blood for immediate energy.

Watch it in action

You don’t have to believe me, you can watch this in action on your own body by doing what I do and just buy a continuous blood sugar monitor and watch.

This is what I see every day.

At night my blood sugar will be relatively low and stable (apart from a bit of a bump when I get up for a pee).

But as soon as the sun gets up my blood sugar will rise. I have not eaten anything but my intelligent control system has learned from experience (what engineers call self-learning) that when it starts to get daylight I will soon be getting up and need energy so it takes energy out of my long-term storage (my bum) making it readily available for short term use as sugar in my blood.

It is smart and has learned this over time using the same process of self-learning that I used in the intelligent control software I used to write.

Then I will eat my breakfast, the microbes in my gut, which is part of my intelligent control system, will digest my breakfast releasing the energy as sugars into my bloodstream.

This is sensed by my intelligent control system (and I see from my blood sugar monitor) as a blood sugar spike so my intelligent control system takes a decision that it needs to send out instructions to take this short-term energy supply - sugars in my blood and store this in my long term storage tank, my bum.

If the preferred storage vessel (my bum) is full it will find somewhere else to store the fat and wherever that is is not good news.

A highly sophisticated process

This is a highly sophisticated deliberate process which is occurring 375/24. It does not happen by chance and if we want to get on top of the epidemic of chronic disease we have to gain an understanding of how our intelligent control system works.

Sadly we only have a limited understanding of how our intelligent control system works a the code level.

However, we can get some inspiration from the intelligent control system that we have developed for our machines.

Take a trip to the local BMX track and see for yourself our intelligent self-learning control system at work.

Learning to ride a bike (or catch a ball)

I am an engineer. When I was at Uni I learned about gyroscopic couples and self-balancing systems, the basis of how a bike stays upright, and to be honest I found it difficult to get my head around.

But I had been riding bikes for years with no understanding of self-balancing gyroscopic couples - how come I could still ride a bike without falling off?

When I had kids and they wanted a bike for Christmas did I sit down with them and give them a long lecture about self-balancing gyroscopic couples?

No way! Take them out to the lawn so they won’t hurt themselves too much and let them learn by trial and error, falling off a few times but within a couple of hours they have the knack, never to be forgotten.

I have this somewhat crazy-sounding idea that as part of a nutrition course, the students should spend an afternoon watching the kids at a BMX park.

There will be the beginners who get halfway up the ramps and run out of speed and fall off and the experts who fly to the top of the ramp, flip their bike in mid-air and zoom back down the ramp - truly amazing.

That is our intelligent control system at work, you can see the kids learning about anticipatory control, learning the art of measuring the rate of change without a mention of self-balancing gyroscopic forces or differential calculus.

For the best part of a million years, we applied this expertise in self-learning to control our appetite so we did not get fat and sick.

Not being fat is singularly important if you don’t want to be that snarling beast’s dinner and need to nip up that protective tree. Evolution is a cruel, but effective system.

Maybe we have to change from being our modern high-tech-twenty-first century science specialist to an eighteen-century natural philosopher understanding how systems work as a whole.

We need to become modern-day Darwins.

Changed the rules

Now we have changed the rules by having cheap, convenient high-energy food readily available.

If we want to resolve the chronic disease epidemic we have to learn how to retrain our intelligent control system to adapt to these new conditions.

This requires a societal change.

Societal change

This is the aim of the Gbiota social benefit movement.

There are two parts to the Gbiota movement.

There is the technology of how to grow replacement and gut-brain food and that is just straightforward technology. This can be cheaper than buying food from the supermarket but does mean that people have to do it themselves or we change the design of our cities so local growers can supply genuinely fresh plants.

With the threat of climate change having cities with green spots to reprocess organic waste seems highly desirable.

The difficult bit - creating societal change

The second part is the difficult part, how do we change both our health system and our society so the focus is on prevention rather than cure?

How do we do this in the misinformation age where the internet is saturated with marketing crap?

People learn from other people that they trust. My experience as an innovator is there are three types of people,

- the pioneers, the change makers, or early adopters who see the need for change and make it happen,

- the puddings who agree logically that there is a need for change but there is always some reason to procrastinate, the busy work brigade,

- and the crusties who will never change but who eventually die.

Start with the pioneers

Pioneers can be found anywhere, they can be just highly motivated private individuals who see the need for change, they can be from within the scientific system, the Universities and research establishments and there are even pioneers within Governments.

I can’t change the world myself, but I can try and get the message out to the pioneers of the importance of understanding our intelligent control system and training it to change our eating habits so we stop stuffing ourselves with energy food.

I am continuously amazed by the modern world we live in, how mega companies put profits ahead of community benefit, the disinformation which saturates the internet and even the election of Donald Trump.

But even that shows one thing - there is dissatisfaction with the current system and the world is ready for change.

Let us make it happen. Email me colin@gbiota.com

Our Intelligent Control System

Food - we love it. But it is making us fat and sick and growing it is destroying the soils and planet on which we all depend.

What has gone wrong and what do we do about it?

Some experts say it is because we eat too much so we should eat less and exercise more. Other experts say it is our modern food with too much fat and sugar.

The truth is so simple that no one believes it.

Our bodies have evolved to have an intelligent control system which says stop eating when you are full.

We call it the gut-brain.

Our modern food system, profit before people, is simply not feeding the microbes in our gut so they send out hormones so we crave food, overeat and get fat and sick.

Solution - just feed your gut-brain.

Breed beneficial microbes in the soil under controlled conditions so the beneficial microbes out-breed the harmful microbes, grow plants in this living soil and eat the plants.

A green smoothie in the morning works wonders - the food cravings will stop and you will be fit and healthy.

The solution is so simple and inexpensive that no one believes it.

I can show you how but it needs a social movement with people feeding their gut brain and showing their friends and contacts that this works for real.

From bad news to good news

No one likes bad news. It is bad news that three out of four people will die prematurely from a chronic disease but you can still believe that you will be the lucky one in four.

But not for us, my wife, a medical doctor became diabetic, her foot started to turn black and the doctors were talking about amputation.

I am not a medical doctor, I am an engineer, I like to know how things work so I have spent many years trying to work out what is the basic cause of diabetes, and the other chronic diseases, and the first level answer is the wrong fat in the wrong place.

But that is not an answer, the second level I needed to answer was what causes us to store the wrong fat in the wrong place. The conventional answer is that we are little piggies and eat too much - the calorie balance theory.

The conventional solution is ‘eat less and exercise’ more. There may be some truth in that, we can’t ignore the basic laws of conservation of mass and energy.

But people have been trying that for decades and it does not work, chronic diseases keep on getting worse. So we need to go to level three and ask why we eat too much.

The answer to that appears simple, there are deficiencies in our modern diet, we all have an intelligent control system which regulates our bodies. It senses these deficiencies and sends out hormones so we feel hungry and eat more than we need.

This is where you have a choice.

Look at the blood sugar graph - we need to keep the line within the band, this is what engineers do all the time with their control systems, the techniques we use apply to both our machines and our bodies.

I have explained that in a number of articles as listed below. You can spend an afternoon reading these articles and then a week using the long-forgotten art of thinking to understand the control system inside your body.

Then you will have a good chance of avoiding chronic diseases. Prevention is better than cure.

These are all free in the public domain, published under the Creative Common system, you just read and think, but you will need to sign in with a genuine email. I got fed up with dubious companies using my web to sell even more dubious magic pills.

That is the cost of avoiding having your foot chopped off from diabetes or the other nasties of chronic diseases.

The solution is simple feed your gut brain.

The web is full of magic solutions with very clever marketing strategies, all you have to do is wave your credit card, money will disappear from your account but you will still be prone to chronic disease.

I was recognised by the Institute of Engineers as one of Australia’s leading innovators.

I understand how control system works and have spent decades trying to understand how the human body’s intelligent control system works.

The global mega-companies that dominate the food and drug industries benefit greatly from the current system - profits before community benefit.

I think that focusing on profits when eight million people a year have a limb amputated is just plain wrong, it is certainly not the sort of society I want to live in.

But these industries are trillion-dollar industries, they have almost unlimited budgets that spend billions of dollars per year on dubious promotion and Government lobbying to protect their financial interest.

I am just one person, an 84-year-old engineer, not a marketing guru or social activist, still fit and healthy but still just one person.

I try to help people stay fit and healthy through my research and making the results available by running this web and publishing articles, but one person can only achieve so much.

Everybody has to eat and the bulk of the world’s population of eight billion people are suffering from an intelligent control system that is not working as nature intended.

If I can create a social movement then many people across the globe can benefit from a fully functioning intelligent control system.

So why not join the movement? Start by reading the articles highlighted below and if you decide you want to make the world a better place for us humans to live then join the Gbiota movement.

There are over 300 posts and 150 videos on this site.  It may be an indepth study of food and health but it can be a bit overwhelming.

I have made ashort list of the key posts below in a suggested reading schedule.  I suggest you start having a look a these posts, at the end of each post just click on Home in the menu or main menu in the footer at the bottom of each post which will bring you back to this page and then you can look at the next post.

You can see all post at blogs

If you have question of want to chat I am available for email or video chats.

Not little piggies

We don’t get fat and sick because we have turned into little piggies.

We get fat and sick because our modern food system does not feed our gut-brain which regulates our appetite and immune system.

The solution is to feed your gut-brain.

We cannot do this for you - there is no magic pill, but we can show you how.

It is not trivial, takes a bit of effort and must be done right but other people are doing it.

It is your body, your life and your choice.

Diabetes and insulin resistance

Insulin resistance is an evolved characteristic that ensures the brain has a continuous supply of sugars.

When sugars are in short supply insulin resistance restricts the flow of sugars to the muscles so sugars are available for the brain.

Insulin resistance is an evolved characteristic for our survival. If the brain dies we die. It is the way our intelligent control system keeps us alive.

When our intelligent control system is fully functional the system works fine. When our intelligent control system is not  functional we get diabetes.

Our intelligent control system operates in our subconscious brain, we have no control or even know what it is doing but it regulates our bodies.

Temperature is a classic example of our intelligent control system at work, it makes us shiver when cold or sweat when hot, we have no control over it but it regulates our temperature to a fraction of a degree.

Our gut biome is a critical part of this intelligent control system, playing a major part in our appetite, how much and what sort of food we want to eat and also our immune system protecting us 24/7.

From the moment we are born, it is learning and adapting to the current conditions, as described in more detail later.

It works to keep us alive protecting us from both infectious and non-infectious diseases and can only be described as a marvel of the human body.

But, at times it fails and then we have serious problems.

Unfortunately, the importance of our intelligent control system is not widely recognised so we fail to feed and train it with disastrous consequences.

The modern diabetes epidemic is caused by failure to feed our gut brain so our intelligent control system no longer functions properly.

Eating a diet rich in vegetables may improve our gut-brain and intelligent control system but only if the vegetables are grown in soil containing the beneficial microbes.

This is well understood in enlightened scientific circles but unfortunately, the popular press is fixated with the calorie balance theory which is overly simplistic so we rely on magic pills or diets, which are highly profitable when the real problem is we are not caring for our intelligent control system.

Sadly we have switched from being Homo-sapiens to Homo-profitus.

Profit or Health

Our intelligent control system

I experiment. I breed microbes in the soil, grow plants in that soil and then eat them. I eat different foods and measure my blood sugar levels to see what happens.

We do not appreciate how sophisticated our bodies are.

We have an intelligent control system in our gut which regulates our appetite - what and how much we want to eat.

It works like the intelligent control software I used to write. It senses our blood sugar has an error, it looks at how rapidly it is changing and applies a correction, it looks at how well that correction worked, learns from that and creates a new correction.

I feed my gut-brain so I have an effective intelligent control system.

Piggy me

I look at my blood sugar reading and it is fine.

But then I am naughty and go to a restaurant and pig out.

I see that I get a blood sugar spike from eating naughty food but the microbes in my gut are here to look after me and protect me from my naughty habits.

They communicate with each other, just like in a computer to provide real intelligence.

They work out that something is wrong and make hormones to bring my blood sugar level down and within a couple of hours my blood sugar is back to normal.

Feed our gut-brains

All I have to do is feed my gut-brain and make sure it has the right microbes. There is nothing new about this, we evolved this way and we have been feeding our gut-brain for hundreds of thousands of years.

And then we stopped. Why?

Because our modern food system puts their profits ahead of our health.

But you and I can fix that.

Microbes breed like crazy, they make teenagers at a drunken party look like a pack of nuns.

There is no problem in breeding microbes all we have to do is to manage the conditions so the good bugs out-breed the bad bugs a process we call Eco-balance which again has been going on for millions of years.

That is what Gbiota is all about, it is a social movement that puts health before profits and shows people who want to live a long and healthy life how to feed their gut brain.

Read on - then sign up and join the movement.

The good gut bugs are here to protect us

Beneficial microbes, the good bugs, in our gut control our appetite and immune system leading to a long and healthy life.

Our modern food system is deficient in these, good bugs, so we have an epidemic of chronic non-infectious diseases - overweight, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

Three out of four people will now die, prematurely from chronic diseases.

Our health system is creaking at the joints, not enough doctors and health care professionals, ambulances ramping outside overfull wards, billions of dollars spent on avoidable care and amputations.

All because we don’t have the protection of the good gut bugs.

We know how to fix it - we just have to do it.

Our intelligent control system

People often think our bodies are dumb and we get fat and sick because we eat too much.

Our bodies are very smart and we can see this by looking at the blood sugar level throughout the day.

Imagine that you are controlling your blood sugar level and have to keep the level within limits, you have two buttons one to increase blood sugar levels and the other to reduce it.

How, as an intelligent creature, would you manage those two buttons?

At night there is not much to do so just a little push on the down button is all you need.

But then in the morning, you know there will be a need for energy so you press the up button at wake-up time and the blood sugar levels rise.

We can see that our intelligent control system does exactly this our blood sugar rises between wake-up and breakfast.

Both you and our intelligent control system know that at breakfast time there is going to be a big surge in blood sugar levels as your body gets stuck into all that toast and marmalade so you are both on standby.

As soon as you see the blood sugar levels rising both you and your body’s intelligent control system start pushing the down button to bring the blood sugar level back under control.

Message - your body is smart not some dumb machine that works on a crude calories in calories out basis.

Of course, the basic laws of conservation of mass and energy apply so we have to eat to get fat and sick but the reason why we overeat is because we have are not looking after our intelligent control system not because we are little piggies.

Blood sugar and fat are pretty much interchangeable.

Before I even wake up in the morning my intelligent control system anticipates that I will need extra energy so it draws down on my fat stores so I have energy available.

When I get around to eating breakfast there is a surplus of energy so my intelligent control system stores some of this sugar as fat.

I used to write intelligent control software which had self-learning and anticipatory functions. Our intelligent control system seems to have these capabilities built in.

This is a natural human capacity. If we wake up and see a blue sky we may go and water the garden. We have learned that blue sky means a probability of being hot and dry so we anticipate a high water use by our plants.

If there are dark clouds we may put of watering for now.

This is a natural human capability so we need to assume that this is how our intelligent control system is managing our blood sugar and fat storage.

What we can say for sure is that the calorie balance theory, which looks as our body like a water tank, with flows in and out and the water level is determined by these flows is a simplistic model which is leading us to major errors.

This is serious as three out of four people die prematurely from a chronic disease which is caused by the wrong fat in the wrong place.

How have we got ourselves into such a mess?

We know how to breed the beneficial microbes, the good bugs. Just collect organic waste, mix with soil and volcanic rock dust, add inoculants, grow plants and eat them while fresh.

How do I know this, for a start I study the work of experts in the field like Professor Tim Spencer and Bill Bulsiewicz, but then I collect organic waste and grow gut-brain food.

Then I test it on myself.

I wear a continuous blood sugar monitor. If I eat modern food my readings go through the roof, I am not diabetic but would soon be if I just ate modern foods  that are deficient in beneficial microbes.

So I eat gut-brain food adding it to my regular diet and see my reading drop down to healthy levels.

This is not rocket science - anyone can do it.

We can't do it for you but we can show you how.

So why haven’t we fixed the chronic disease problem?

Most Governments have Health and Welfare departments whose job is to prevent these chronic diseases. Why aren’t they promoting that we all eat gut-brain food full of the good bugs?

It is a simple question of profits versus health and at this moment profits for big food and big pharma are winning while Governments stand back and procrastinate with busy work.

Market power

Profits! Big food and big pharma make a lot of money from the current system, they have immense marketing power to protect their profits while there is no money to be made showing people how to collect their kitchen waste to breed the good bugs and grow the plants that will feed the good bugs in our gut.

Join us

What can you do about this? Join the Gbiota movement for social change.

The first step is to register, stand up and show you care, the more people that show they care the better able we are to get people to eat gut-brain food.

You can join for free and read the many articles on food and health, later when you are convinced that all people should be eating gut-brain food you can learn how, we do ask people to contribute but it is a pittance and you will end up saving money (and maybe your foot).

We are a social benefit organisation, but it costs money to develop technology to learn how to grow gut-brain food and we have to cover our costs. If you can’t afford to contribute we have a needy membership for $1 for those that cannot afford to pay.

Join us and change the world so people can have a long and healthy life with a sustainable food system based on recycling waste.

Want to live a long and healthy life?

DIY breed your own gut bugs? Your immediate reaction may be no thanks I am not a microbiologist.

Well, let me tell you, right now you are breeding your own gut bugs, whether you like it or not.

Microbes, I prefer to call them bugs, are everywhere, in the air, our drinks, our food and they breed like crazy doubling every twenty minutes 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128 …. trillions.

You can kill them all off with powerful disinfectants but they will be back.

You can’t stop them breeding, the only choice you have is what sort of bugs live inside you.

There are good bugs which make you fit and healthy, not-so-good bugs which make you fat and sick, and bugs that kill you.

You don’t need to be a microbiologist to tell what species of bugs are inside people.

Just go to any shopping centre and you will see people that are fit and healthy, they have the good bugs.

People with wobbly bums and tums, they have the not-so-good bugs.

If you want to see the people with the bad bugs you will have to go to the mortuary to find them.

You can’t stop bugs breeding but you can choose what sorts of bugs are breeding inside you.

If you have the conditions that benefit the good bugs they will out-breed and out-compete the not-so-good and bad bugs.

It has been going on for millions of years and we call it Eco-balance. We can use Eco-balance to select what sort of bugs live inside us.

That is what Gbiota is all about, we can’t breed the bugs for you but we can show you how to create the conditions that will favour the bugs you want, which we assume is the good bugs so you can look forward to a long and healthy life but you have to do it yourself - we show you how.

Our intelligent control system

Our bodies have an intelligent control system which regulates our bodies, particularly our appetite and immune system.

Our gut is an integral part of this control system. If we have the right blend of species in our gut we can expect a long and healthy life, if we have a poor blend of species we get fat and sick.

The blend of species in our gut is the result of a long chain, starting in the soil with the nutrients and moisture, the microbes in the soil, the creatures of the soil, the plants that are grown, how quickly the plants are eaten after harvesting and how they are processed.

We have to look at all these factors as an integrated system, which may be complex but we can easily tell if we have it right, we feel satisfied and stop craving more food.

This may seem complex but the final answer is simple, grow your own gut-brain food. Anyone can do it and look forward to a long and healthy life.

We need the microbes

We don’t eat rocks to get our nutrients, we need microbes and fungi to break down the rocks into nutrients we can digest.

Similarly with energy, we need photosynthesis from plants on land or algae in water to capture the sun’s energy.

Our lives are dependent on these micro-organisms.

But they do much more than provide a path to nutrients and energy, they can communicate with each other to provide intelligence which regulates our bodies. We see this with insects like bees and ants, birds that live in flocks, slime moulds and even human society.

We call this swarm intelligence and it is what regulates our bodies which controls our bodily functions particularly our appetite and immune system.

Microbes are essential for life. However, there are beneficial microbes that keep us fit and healthy and harmful microbes that make us fat and sick.

Over millions of years, nature has evolved a system with trillions of microbes and many thousands of species but with the right conditions so the beneficial microbes preferentially out-compete and out-breed the harmful microbes, we call this ecological balance and it is how we exist today.

Generally, microbes breed and die incredibly fast with cells dividing within twenty minutes of formation, we may see the same species over time, they are not the same microbes they are their great, great grand kids, we call this dynamic equilibrium.

There are trillions of microbes in our gut comprising many thousands of species. Initially, these microbes come from our mum but later they come from microbes that breed in the soil, move into the plants we eat and then into our gut biome.

Our health depends on the dynamic equilibrium of the microbes in the soil and in our gut biome.

Our modern food system, centred on chemical industrial agriculture and highly processed foods is lacking these beneficial microbes which has led to a global epidemic of chronic diseases, overweight, diabetes, heart attack and dementia.

To overcome this we need to preferentially breed the beneficial microbes in the soil by carefully controlling the conditions, growing plants and eating them while still fresh before the microbes die.

This is not difficult, virtually anyone can do it. We cannot do it for you but we can show you how to do it by having a Gbiota box of plants growing at your home which you pick and eat.

The two side of Gbiota

We teach how to grow plants as pre and pro-biotics. That is the easy bit, understanding and applying the science of breeding beneficial microbes in a special soil, Wickimix largely made from organic and rock dust, and using the principle of Eco balance to create the condition so the beneficial microbes out-breed the harmful microbes.

This is straightforward but must be done right so we provide technical support to our members.

I answered a question for Jenny, one of our members which turned out to be one of the most important articles on how to sustainably grow healthy food and combat the epidemic the modern epidemic of chronic diseases, over-weight, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

Normally an article like this would be restricted to members but this is such an important issue that I am making it available under the Creative Commons system which means it can be re-published without further approval, just acknowledgement of source www.gbiota,com

I have just released a major article on community health Here is the link

Here is the link to Jenny

Dangerous ideas

Have you ever thought why, when you go to the shopping centre there are so many wobbly bums and tums and people hobbling around with a foot chopped off?

The real answer is not because our modern food has too many fats and sugars, we have to go back a few hundred thousand years for the real answer.

A bunch of humanoids were sitting around their campfire when someone asked ‘What’s for breakfast?’

Some one said it would be a few hundred thousand years before someone invented Wheaties for breakfast so how about a Mastodon steak?

Feeling hungry they worked out a plan on how they could kill a Mastodon, it worked and humans became addicted to ideas, in this case cooperating was better than no breakfast.

We becames addicted to ideas from learning how to kill Mastodons and have a good breakfast - that's unless you happened to be a Mastodon.

If you want agreement never invite the loosers to the decision making process.

Since then we have had all sorts of good ideas, less good ideas and some terrible ideas which has led to us becoming a highly cooperative creature and the second most successful creature on the planet after cockroaches who will be the last remaining creature on Earth in a few billion years.

One of those less good ideas and in my opinion terrible ideas is that the sole role of companies is to make as much money for their shareholders and in the case of the food (and tobacco and fossil fuel) industries who cares about the collateral damage of people getting fat and sick and having their legs chopped off from diabetes.

My idea, which I am trying hard to sell, is that companies, food companies in particular should accept that they have a social responsibility and become community benefit companies.

It is pointless my saying that unless I can offer a technology that will benefit the community.

That is the Gbiota technology for growing plants.

I can’t change the world, I am just one old man so if Greta struggled to change the world on climate change then what hope do I have with food? My name is not Greta Foodberg.

But I do know how to grow food that will reduce the number of people with fat and wobbly bums and tums and with one foot missing.

That is what Gbiota is all about.

What is Gbiota?

Gbiota is the technology of breeding beneficial microbes in organic waste under controlled conditions such that they outbreed any harmful microbes using the principle of Ecobalance.

The result is a soil teaming with beneficial microbes and nutrients (Wickimix).

Plants are grown in the soil, the microbes enter the plants and then our gut which form part of the intelligent control system that regulates our bodies, particularly our appetite.

This could help reduce the modern epidemic of chronic disease, obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

It is a simple and inexpensive process, the challenge is to get widespread adoption in a world dominated by a lust for profit, disinformation and clever and effective manipulative advertising. Tobacco, fossil fuels, food - profits ahead of community benefit.

Gbiota is a community benefit organisation.  We beleive the idea that company'y sole responsibilty is for shareholder profits is a great failure of modern society.

All companies have a duty to the community and be a community benefit organisations.

Support us please by keep on reading.

There are two parts to the Gbiota movement.

The easy bit

The first is the Gbiota technology. By serendipity, luck, hard work and maybe a bit of talent I was a pioneer of Computer Aided Engineering in computational fluid flow for which I was recognised as one of Australia’s leading innovators and a world leader in fluid flow.

Gbiota technology is about creating the conditions so the good bugs outbreed the bad bugs by creating what I call Goldilocks moisture. To be honest this is straightforward engineering to someone with my background.

The difficult bit

The second is to create a better, more human-orientated and stable society.

My long-term aim is to create a new industry of local growers that supply Gbiota boxes to their local community.

These would be community benefit organisations that accept that a company is not in business purely to make money for their shareholders but has a responsibility to their community.

This comes naturally with a local business where the business owners are in regular contact with their customers.

The opposite is true for a multi-national company where the directors are under pressure to maximise returns by whatever means possible.

This does not lead to a good society with gross inequality and the losers suffering. Eight millions people a year have a limb amputated from diabetes so mega corporations have super profits.

That is not good society.

Hopefully you will support this movement, the first step is to read Rethinking food, my dynamic E-book. I decided to make a nominal charge of $Au15 ($Us10) so I can pay the people who are working on this project a fair wage.

We are not a charity, we are a community benefit organisation.

I am advised by smart people who know about internet marketing never to start a web page with bad news.

This ridiculous idea that bad things go away if you pretend they don’t exist provoked me to write ‘My Teddy’ about hiding under the bedclothes

and ‘The Great Food War’ which is hopefully a bit of a wake up call to those how think life is wonderful.

There are many more controversial articles in my E-book ‘Rethinking Food’ which is a must read if you worry about sustainable and healthy food production.

Well, I am 84 years old, fit and healthy and am horrified by the number of wobbly bums and tums, and people hobbling about with a leg amputation whenever I go to the local shopping centre.

So next time you go to the shopping centre take off your virtual reality glasses, think about what you see and ask yourself why.

I don’t mean a little why like there is too much sugary fatty food on the shelves or too much disinformation on social media, keep digging until you get to the real answer.

If you are like me, lucky enough to have a technical background and old with the time to spend hours each day reading technical papers you will see that it is not a technical problem. If you don’t have the time then you can read the articles on the web.

You will see that we have the technology to stop this epidemic of chronic infectious diseases while having a sustainable food system.

If we have the technology to fix it then why has it not been fixed?

It is a battle between profits and public benefit and profits won, for now.

But if you and your friends and your friends friends work together this can be changed.

It won’t be easy and it will take more than the attention span of a moth.

I created this web to tell the story of food that will make us healthy. It is devoid of clever marketing gimmicks and we don’t sell magic pills that don’t work, we just tell the story about the world’s food system as it is and more importantly what you can do about it.

We are in the front line in the battle of the modern web, clever manipulative marketing versus facing the world as it really is.

The first step is to understand the issues, for example, why is it that people in the blue zones live to a ripe old age, fit and healthy to the end with only a basic health system while we in so-called high technology countries with a sophisticated health system get fat and sick and die well before the age of natural death?

I have written ‘Rethinking Food’ what I call a dynamic E-Book which is a collection of articles about food and health I have written over the last thirty years.

None of the popular magic slogans ‘like eat less exercise more’ and instead gets down to the underlying causes of the modern health epidemic and yes it will take a bit of time and thinking.

If there was a simple punch line it would be that the cause is the way we grow our food so it is lacking the beneficial microbes which form the intelligent control system in our gut biome and the lack of critical trace minerals.

Don’t blame the modern food industry for what is in our food, it is what is not in our food that matters.

You then have two options, you can learn to grow plants with the beneficial microbes in Gbiota boxes yourself - not that difficult and you can do tomorrow - instructions are on this web

or you can help us in creating a new industry where local growers supply Gbiota boxes to their local community as a viable business.

We are a social benefit organisation that thinks beyond making a profit.

Community Health

Colin Austin© 2024 Published under the Creative Commons system. This article may be reproduced without further permission, just acknowledgement of source www.gbiota.com

The essence

We are in the midst of an epidemic of chronic diseases, overweight, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

It is a problem for almost everyone, three out of four people will die prematurely from a chronic disease, it is the great health challenge of our time.

We know chronic diseases are caused by the wrong fat in the wrong place but what makes us store more fat?

Just take a look around your local shopping centre and see the number of wobbly bums and tums and people with a diabetic amputation.

But why are so many people getting fat?

Changing paradigms

The current paradigm is the calorie balance theory, we eat more more calories than we consume. We get fat because we are little piggies and overeat.

This is a popular theory with the powerful food industry because it means it is not their fault, it is your fault for being a little piggy.

They are very good at manipulative promotion so the calorie imbalance theory has become the accepted paradigm and that has to change.

Partial truth

The basic laws of physics, like the conservation of mass and energy, are valid. To get fat and sick we need to consume more than we burn. This is what enables us to get fat but is not the reason.

The calorie balance theory may be convenient, popular with big food and have some elements of truth but it is only part of the story.

So what is the real reason?

Our intelligent control system

Our bodies have a built-in intelligent control system which regulates our bodies, particularly our appetite and immune system.

We have known this for 175 years but still struggle to understand exactly how it works. Just because we don’t fully understand how it works does not mean it does not exist.

There is ample observational evidence showing that it exists and works. Without our intelligent control system, we would not survive, it is essential for life.

Our gut-brain, the microbes in our gut communicating with each other, creating intelligence so are an essential part of this control system.

For hundreds of thousands of years, we fed our gut-brain so there was no epidemic of obesity or chronic or non-infectious disease - we died mainly from infectious diseases.

But our food system changed and no longer contains gut-brain food so our gut-brain senses this deficit and sends out hormones to make us crave food and overeat.

Despite all efforts to apply the calorie balance, the epidemic gets worse day by day.

Social and technical challenges

The social challenge, however difficult it is to create a paradigm shift from the calorie balance paradigm to the intelligent control paradigm.

The technical challenge is to breed the beneficial microbes without breeding the harmful microbes. This must be simple and economical enough to be done at scale so the population as a whole can live a healthy life.

Health should not be a luxury for the wealthy.

Feed your gut-brain

We know how to feed our gut brain, it is straightforward and inexpensive, but must be done right - breed the beneficial microbes in a special growing medium controlling the conditions so the beneficial microbes preferentially outbreed any harmful microbes, grow plants and eat the plants shortly after harvesting.

Changing paradigms is always a bloody business but with the vested interests, this will be a particularly bloody battle.

Here we tell the story of this bloody battle.

Preface

I would rate climate change as the biggest existential threat to humanity and food and the epidemic of chronic diseases as the second.

However, there is one fundamental difference.

With climate change we know what needs to be done, we may not like the idea of stopping burning fossil fuels and there are very powerful companies using very clever but manipulative tactics, to protect their profits, but we at least know what we should be doing.

The technology we need to apply is not disputed - the problem is the social one of how to make the change happen.

This is not the case with chronic diseases. We know that before 1940 there were people who suffered from chronic diseases but it was not an epidemic.

Since the modern food system developed after the war, it has transformed into a global epidemic. Diabetes is the fastest growing disease with 8 million people a year suffering from a limb amputation.

It is a global phenomenon with every country struggling to learn how to deal with it, and failing miserably.

No country has solved the epidemic of chronic diseases.

It is not just rich countries, poor countries have suffered far more. In these countries, when fed using their traditional agriculture, there was no major issue with chronic diseases.

However many of these countries swapped from their own food production to the far more profitable system of growing for the rich countries while importing the supposed more convenient modern processed foods which has led to some of the worst cases of chronic illnesses.

This is powerful evidence that this epidemic of chronic diseases is linked to our modern food system.

The epidemic is man-made, it will not be solved by some magic pill or wonder plants. We certainly have to look at the technology but if we are going to be successful in combating the chronic disease epidemic we have to look at the society which allowed the epidemic to evolve.

A pretty hot topic.

Introduction

The widely held view, simplistic and wrong, is that this epidemic is caused by our modern foods, full of sugars, fats and flavourings (often addictive) which has led to the view that this can be resolved by the calorie balance, eat less exercise more and the problem will be resolved.

We have been trying that formula for half a century, it has failed miserably.

If I can quote the old adage - the difference between a wise man and a fool is that they both make mistakes but the fool continues with the same approach while the wise man tries to understand why he failed, and learns from the experience to develop a new approach.

Climate change is the sister problem to the chronic disease epidemic and they have a lot in common.

We can learn a lot about how to combat chronic diseases by comparing the history of climate change and chronic diseases.

Comparing climate change and the chronic disease epidemic

Studies in both areas started around 1850.

Early climate change

With Climate change the early pioneers were Fourier in 1824, but it was in 1856 that Eunice Foote demonstrated the warming effect of the sun is greater for air with water vapour than for dry air, and the effect is even greater with carbon dioxide.

Despite her pioneering work climate change is typically associated with Svante Arrhenius in 1896.

We had to wait until 1938 for steam engineer Guy Callendar to do the grunt work of calculating the expected rise in temperature from various levels of greenhouse gases. Working with pencil, paper and slide rule he came up with pretty much the same answer as our modern-day supercomputers.

Early intelligent control

But so we keep to the same era let me switch to the history of Intelligent control.

The work on what we now call the intelligent control system is similarly dated starting with the concept of what was then called ‘the regulation of the internal environment’ was described by French physiologist Claude Bernard in 1849, and the word homeostasis was coined by Walter Bradford Cannon in 1926.

Basically, we are talking about how the body naturally self-regulates - a topic critical to combating the chronic disease epidemic.

In both cases we are not talking about some magic innovation but with a history going back the best part of 200 years.

The Social Side of Modern-day Climate Change

You may wonder why in an article on the chronic disease epidemic I am talking about climate change.

The answer is simple, we will never resolve the chronic disease epidemic purely by technology, it is man-made and the result of social issues so we have to understand these.

Climate change is further down the road than battling the epidemic so we can learn a lot by studying the climate change battles.

The climate change area got really interesting with the work of Charles Keeling in 1958 with the production of what we now call the Keeling curves which showed a steady increase in greenhouse gas levels.

In the early 60’s he presented his work to Congress to warn the world of the dangers of climate change.

It would be wrong to say that the Government took no action as the National Science Foundation withdrew its funding. If that does not make you stop in your tracks with your mouth wide open I don’t know what will.

But why would they do that?

We know that the oil industry, particularly Exxon were fully aware of the threat that climate change presented to their profits.

Their approach, learned from the Tobacco industry was to promote the idea that climate change has occurred naturally throughout history with periods of intense cold and other periods when the world was much warmer than now.

There were periods when the poles were enjoying a period with a temperate climate with forests and animals just like in modern temperate zones so there is no problem.

That’s if you don’t consider the millions of climate change refugees fleeing their homeland as it becomes uninhabitable.

Presumably, that was the week when mega-fences were on special.

Manipulative promotion

This is the classic technique used in manipulative promotion.

It is no good denying something that is supported by undeniable evidence (like the Keeling curves) instead you provide partial information which is equally valid, like the fact that climate has changed over time but never provide the full information which would reveal your hereditary as a snake oil salesman.

This gains confidence, but only providing partial information gives the impression that the idea you want to deny is either incorrect or irrelevant.

It is very effective.

Watch out, small girl approaching with cardboard placard.

But all this very clever and no doubt expensive manipulation of the Government and the public thinking was thwarted by a little school girl - Greta Thunberg.

Now let us stick to the facts, Greta did not develop solar panels or wind turbines or any new technology, she just read the information that was widely available on climate change, translated it from techno-jargon to everyday English and sat outside the Swedish parliament with a grotty cardboard sign and after a bit managed to convince a few people that this was a real threat that the Government should be doing something about.

And what did the Governments do, just what they had done before - procrastinate and do nothing.

And then more nothing - until

So what happened next? An unprecedented increase in floods, drought, fires and storms that were completely out of the normal so no normal intelligent thinking person could ignore just leaving a few die-hard deniers.

In my life as an innovator, I have had to fight many battles and I used to divide people up into activists - people who would go out on a limb and actually do something, puddings - people who would agree with everything you said but never do anything and crusties - who would just deny anything on principle - the good news is they die off, eventually.

These climate disasters led to protests, with Greta, not so much as the organiser but the symbol that the climate change movement could centre around.

But climate change cannot be averted by demonstrations or even a few dedicated people putting solar panels and batteries on their houses.

It can only be averted by Government action. It is only Governments that can achieve the massive transformation of our society from one based on fossil fuels to one based on renewable resources.

But what those protests did was to show to the Governments that Climate change was not just the interest of a few dedicated climate activists (who could safely be ignored or locked up) but was a serious issue for much of the population.

So the Governments quickly worked out that unless they responded they would be voted out of office and the procrastination evaporated.

What has this to do with the epidemic of chronic disease?

No one disputes that chronic diseases start with the wrong fat in the wrong place.

The question is what is causing this increase in fat?

It is very convenient to say that it is because we eat too much and don’t exercise enough so the solution is to eat less and exercise more. The law of the calorie balance.

This is a very convenient partial truth for the food industry and any procrastinating Government. It takes the responsibility away from them and puts it onto the public who, with a wave of some witches wand, have suddenly turned into little piggies.

It is not my fault

Partial truths are the key tool of those wishing to manipulate the real truth for their benefit and are certainly a bonanza for the food industry - it is not our fault that you get fat and sick and maybe have a leg chopped off from diabetes it is all your fault because you eat too much and don’t exercise enough.

It sounds so reasonable and logical and it is not untrue, it is a partial truth which can be just as harmful as a miss-truth.

We have known for the best part of two hundred years that our bodies have an intelligent control system which regulates our bodies, particularly our appetite or what and how much food we feel we need to eat.

Control systems

Regrettably, we do not know it works, at least at the code level, but we have ample experimental evidence to give us a pretty clear picture of the way it works.

I am an engineer, and engineers make machines and every machine has some form of control system, even if it is just an on/off switch.

My first job was working for a company that made control systems for power stations, later in life I wrote software to manage irrigation systems, which I refer to as self-learning software.

This is not that different to our internal control system which decides how much food we need.

The plants are growing and they need different amounts of water at the various stages of growth, just like humans need different amounts of food as they grow and age.

The conditions are continuously changing, sometimes it is hot and dry and other days it rains, just as some days people go for long walks or are stuck in an office with maybe a lot of stress so each day we need different amounts of different types of food, sometimes energy food and other times comfort food.

In an intelligent irrigation system, we can monitor these conditions, and learn how to apply the right amount of water. We may not know the code in our bodily intelligent control system but we can observe and with an understanding of how intelligent control systems work have a pretty good idea of how our intelligent control system works.

What we see is that if our bodies sense a deficiency in our diet it will respond by sending our hormones to make us feel hungry so we may end up overeating.

If we are on a diet we may manually override these hunger desires, but that is difficult to do for any length of time.

The most common deficiency in modern food is lack of the beneficial microbes that power our gut, but we can also sense deficiencies in trace minerals.

The food industry would much prefer you to think that you are fat and sick because you are a little piggy rather than the real truth that modern food is commonly deficient in both beneficial microbes and trace minerals and that is the true cause of the chronic disease epidemic.

But it is not always the food industry’s fault, as anyone who has spent a hot sweaty day in the garden and craves something salty to eat. This is our intelligent control system doing its job of regulating our food supply to meet current conditions.

Only fools keep on repeating their mistakes

For the best part of fifty years, we have followed the calorie balance approach and every year the epidemic of chronic diseases has increased. Yet we say that it is because people are not trying hard enough and they need to eat even less and exercise even more.

It has the logic of the farmer who was trying to train his donkey to eat less and got it down to one bean a day when the donkey died.

Instead, we need to focus on ensuring our intelligent control system is working properly, which means feeding it gut-brain food and then training it so it learns what type and how much food we need.

Health and the New Capitalist System

We have come a long way since the days of Adams Smith and his perfect market philosophy.

We now live in a new era of mega-corporations with Neo-monopolistic powers that control not just products but also the flow of information. They operate on the principle of profit first, certainly profits before people.

Naturally, the general population look to their Governments to protect them from any potential abuse of power but this is becoming less effective.

Governments themselves are not immune to pressure from these mega organisations which have the power to influence Governments directly by a level of access to Government not available to the general voter but in this age of disinformation, they have the power to influence voter behaviour.

This unwillingness of Governments to exercise control over this market power has led to a widespread disenchantment with the political system and the rise of so-called populist Governments even in countries which have enjoyed a stable moderate Government such as the Scandinavian countries and dare I say Australia which despite its apparent conflicts has been a comparatively well run and stable country.

But despite this Australia is still among the leaders in the epidemic of chronic disease.

So what can we do about it?

Learning from Greta

We can learn from Greta.

The world’s leading scientist were warning their Governments of the dangers of climate change, and they just procrastinated and did nothing.

The fossil fuels companies had a very simple argument, climate change is natural, it has changed many times before from hot to cold. A simple statement of fact with the implication that there was no problem with climate change and we could go on burning fossil fuels (and making profits for the fossil fuel companies).

The Governments were happily under the influence of the fossil fuel companies.

Then along came Greta Thunberg and still nothing happened until the effects of climate change were undeniable (except to the crusties).

Then Greta gave a speech, to my mind one of great speeches of all times. It was not a particularly sophisticated speech, but one only an emotional young girl could give.

Not the sort of speech that Charles Keeling (or I for that matter) could give but what she said changed the world forever.

What she said was ‘You have stolen my future with your Blah, Blah, Blah’.

No sophistication really just one word Blah repeated three times.

No long words like procrastination just Blah, Blah Blah.

I very much doubt if Charles Keeling had ever heard of Greta before but together they changed the world.

Charles Keeling, and all his associates, with all their sophistication and respect as scientists failed to change the course of history unaided.

Greta was not a scientist, did not develop any new technologies or insights into existing technology and would have done nothing without the expertise of these dedicated scientists.

But she took the sophistication of these scientists and made it clear to the world that it was time to stop procrastinating with just three words Blah, Blah Blah.

From Climate Change to the chronic disease epidemic

Combating the chronic disease epidemic is analogous. I am not without standing in the world of technology. I was a pioneer of Computer-Aided Engineering, I solved complex coupled non-linear equations to solve difficult flow problems and was recognised by the Australia Institute of Engineers as one of Australia leading innovators and recognised as a wold expert in fluid flow.

I (and a few other respected scientists) have been saying for decades that the root cause of the epidemic of chronic disease stems from the failure of our internal intelligent control system because we are not feeding our gut brain.

I have spent years experimenting with ways of growing food to preferentially breed the beneficial microbes to create a technology which can be economically applied at scale.

But like the partial truth, which benefits the fossil fuel industry, that climate has always changed there is a similar partial truth, which benefits and is profitable for the food industry, that calorie imbalance is the cause of the chronic disease epidemic.

People are just little piggies and eat to much - we are not to blame.

But sad to say I am not Greta, I recognise that I talk about osmotic pressure, hydrophobic and hydrophilic soil and the peculiar inter molecular forces of water which makes life possible and that sort of talk can be incredibly boring.

But I do know that somewhere out there is Greta Foodberg. She may be a mum with two babies on the other side of the world and worried about their future and she will tell the world in her own language like it is.

I am not Greta Foodberg so can only guess what she might say it may be ‘You have stolen my health with your Fib, Fib, Fib’.

I just hope that when she says these words that people will respond and demand an action plan. So that is what I have prepared.

Action plan

As you may have guessed solving the chronic disease epidemic is going to take a bit of thought.

It is in two bits the easy bit and the hard bit.

The easy bit is developing the technology, I did that in comfortably under eighty-four years and I now I know the answer I could do it all again in an afternoon.

But as I have said the chronic disease epidemic is man-made and a result of the way society works, how do we change society so it works for the benefit of the community and not just a few greedy people - got you there ChatGPT - you haven’t a clue either.

But humans are sometimes smarter than even ChatGPT and the solution is doable - a nice word meaning you will end up old and drained, a bit like me, but you do win eventually.

Thomas Edison had a nice formula for innovation, work out what you want to do, read everything you can find to read on the topic, throw all the books away and start from scratch.

What do we want to do?

We want to feed our gut-brain.

We can do that by breeding beneficial microbes under preferential conditions (so the good bugs out-breed the bad bugs) in soil made from organic waste minerals and a few starter bugs, (Wickimix) grow plants in this soil so the good-bugs and nutrients go into the plants, then eat the plants before the good bugs die.

Technically straightforward.

The catch is that last phrase ‘before the good bugs die’. Breeding the good bugs is easy, they are a randy lot and are breeding within twenty minutes, putting teenagers at a drunken party to shame.

But they do die equally quickly and the best way of doing that is having the plants growing in boxes at home.

There are people, keen gardeners with a bit of time who are more than happy to do the entire process themselves but if we are going to feed the eight billion people on earth with gut-brain food we need more than a few gardening enthusiasts.

We need to create a new industry of local growers producing Gbiota boxes with plants already growing and ready to pick and eat.

Logistics

There are a few logistical issues here. In a big city, we need to have areas for what are essentially urban farms, they need not be big, just a normal house block size but that needs approval from the local council.

Then we need a collection system for the organic waste which is an integral part of the process and that means clean waste not just the kitchen bin with all last night’s beer bottles and plastic pizza boxes.

This is all good, recycling waste leads to a sustainable food system and local food ensures a resilient food system should nasty things happen.

Just to make a quick point, we are not aiming to replace the entire food system just supplement the existing food system with gut-brain food.

Making it happen

If all we had to do was to feed gut-brain food to the couple of hundred people in upper Woopwoop life would be easy. But there are eight billion people who need to be eating gut-brain food.

How do we do that? Create allies.

Combating the chronic disease epidemic is a major operation and no one organisation can be successful.

The key allies we need are

The Government

Governments are the only organisations with the power to make the change.

They also have the most to benefit. The health costs of chronic diseases are massive running into billions of dollars and worse they are clogging the health system.

Governments have many roles to play but the most important is educating the public that the underlying cause chronic disease epidemic is that our intelligent controls system is not working as it should. We should stop worrying about calorie balance and focus on feeding our gut-brain.

Health and Wellbeing

The majority of people now live in an urban environment.

If the design of our towns and cities were left to for-profit private enterprise we would see a continuation of the trend to high-rise apartments and smaller blocks with larger houses - this makes the most profit in the short term.

But a concrete jungle with no open spaces does not make for better living. We rely on our Governments to ensure that our cities are livable with green spaces where people can relax, kids can play, and generally have access to the infrastructure which makes for a better life.

This is the cost of living in a democracy, citizens need to be active in promoting what sort of life they want and not leave it to what is the most convenient.

Governments have many specialist departments with their areas of expertise and it may seem initially that the planning department should be the centre of attention. I would suggest that the Health and Wellbeing Department should be the focus of public attention.

Look at our modern food with food produced in mega-farms, possibly thousands of kilometres away from where it is consumed, shipped to factories for processing then further shipped to warehouses then supermarkets.

This structure is a prime cause of the modern chronic disease epidemic.

Now think about a better structure from the viewpoints of both health and quality of life.

We would set aside areas within the city for micro-urban farms so some food would be fresh.

We would collect organic waste and process this locally within the city boundaries in Gbiota beds where decomposition is underground so there are no smells.

But better still we would use these beds as recreational areas, with either plants or lawns.

Many people with environmental leaning criticise lawns as wasteful but this is not valid.

Lawns act as solar panels capturing the sun’s energy while at the same time capturing carbon from the atmosphere.

But they do much more, they also are giant evaporative coolers helping to reduce urban temperatures, often using grey water.

But they can also be used to produce Wickimix, the soil that is needed to grow gut-brain food.

Having a multi-use area for recreation is a good use of valuable space. Somewhere for the kids to play, people to have a picnic or just generally enjoy being part of nature as well as being part of the process of growing gut-brain food.

These are normally managed by the Parks department who may not see they have a critical role in the production of healthy food, recycling food waste to create a more resilient food system, controlling city temperatures, and capturing greenhouses gasses.

Multi-functional operation is not generally a strength of government departments who tend to be specialists but it may well be that the Departments of Health and Wellbeing may provide that coordinating service.

But as we have seen from the history of Climate change this needs social pressure from the community.

Research centres

Research centres, particularly the Universities are important as governments will turn to their specialist expertise for advice but also there are multiple facets to this project so we need access to a range of expertises.

Dietitians and doctors

Most doctors are not trained in diet and refer patients to a professional dietitian, but they need to be aware of the technology to make the referals.

Dietitians are key but many have been indoctrinated with calorie doctrine so they will need not just information but re-education to adopt different ideas.

Experience has taught us that paradigm shift are most difficult with people expert in the old paradigm.

Growers

Growers will become the core of the project, producing Wickimix (the special soi), processing waste organics and manufacture of Gbiota boxes which will be recycled regularly.

Growers are local so naturally are community benefit organisations.

The Consumers

Our modern society has adopted the view that food is something you throw into the shopping trolley and if you get sick just take a pill.

This is a paradigm that needs to be changed with the new paradigm that health starts in the soil.

Educating the public about the basic cause of the modern chronic disease epidemic is the critical part of the project and is something that can really only be done by the Governments, by direct promotion but also ensuring it is built into our education system.

For Jenny and anyone else wanting a healthy and sustainable food system

I received this email from Jenny, one of the Gbiota members. I am very happy for such emails as they tell me that the documentation is not clear which gives me a chance to make it clearer.

I hope this helps Jenny and a few (million) other people.

Jenny’s question about soil-blood gets to the core of the Gbiota system.

Jenny’s question

Hello Colin

I've enjoyed your new articles, particularly the one relating to tower growing.

Also the in-depth details about soil-blood and how often to water/flood the boxes.

One question though: what do you do with the 'soil-blood' for the week between watering? Does it retain its high microbial quality and expected health benefits, sitting in a bucket waiting for next Thursday until you use it again? I get the feeling it would deteriorate rapidly, being kept in an anaerobic environment.

I am planning to get started making a Gbiota bed because my current compost heap is seriously dry and can't retain/hold water for 24hrs. Hence everything is very slow to compost and useless for growing food.

Thanks again for the new articles.

Jenny

My not-so-short answer

Hi Jenny,

Many thanks for your message which is telling me that I have not done a good enough job of explaining the Gbiota technology and aims.

I write a lot but sometimes the core of the message is lost in a mass of words, let me have another go.

The needle in the haystack

There is an immense amount of solid scientific research on how food affects health, again the core message is easily lost in the volume. But the core is simple.

Our gut matters

The biota in our gut is critical to health, it does much more than digest food.

The microbes in the gut communicate with each other, like in a computer so our gut forms part of the intelligent control system which regulates our bodies, particularly appetite.

It manufactures a range of chemicals which are essential for the body to operate and lack of these chemicals leads to chronic infectious diseases.

Also, much of our immune system is located in our gut, as we learned with Covid. People eating a healthy diet still caught Covid but were much less likely to die than people eating a poor diet or under stress.

We know from studies of the gut biome that the biota comes from the food we eat (or the food that mum ate) and that these microbes originate in the soil.

Modern highly processed foods - no bugs

Modern highly processed food may be hygienic but is devoid of beneficial microbes. Traditional food is full of microbes, some beneficial some dangerous leading to sickness and death.

Traditionally these microbes breed in organic waste in the soil.

Under some conditions, beneficial microbes breed preferentially and all is fine.

In other conditions, the toxic microbes breed preferentially leading to infectious diseases of varying severity.

Preferential breeding

Learning how to preferentially breed beneficial microbes in organic waste is one of the critical challenges facing our species.

But there is another side to the story.

Sustainable food

Recycling organic waste is sustainable, while modern chemical agriculture, based on the exploitation of natural resources is not.

There are eight billion people on the earth, they consume thousands of tonnes of food each year. The current system is unsustainable, we have no option but to learn how to grow food sustainably.

We need to create a new industry of growing plants that act as pre and pro-biotics by breeding beneficial microbes in organic waste, both healthy and sustainable.

This will be community driven - join us in the Gbiota movement.

Not all food

Let me be clear here, we do not need to replace the entire food industry - that is just ridiculous.

Most of the food we eat is burned off as energy and our modern food does that very well.

Rather we need to create a new industry supplying gut-brain food which is only a fraction of the total food we eat.

But it needs to be local as microbes have a short life. This will start with a few entrepreneurial home growers setting up their own Gbiota boxes but later local commercial growers supplying their local community.

Gbiota - not just a technology - a social movement

I need to make this message clear to my fellow humans. This is why I put so much emphasis that Gbiota is a social movement, we have to change the way society works. That is more important than profits.

Any space traveller passing by and watching the 7 O’clock news is hardly likely to be handing out gold stars for our harmonious society.

Unks and unkunks

No this is not gibberish in some weird language but an issue at the core of health.

I know I go on a bit about the ‘profits before people’ actions in the food industry but there is another, even bigger issue.

An Unk is something you don’t know but at least you know you don’t know it and can develop strategies to mitigate, bad but not that bad.

An Unkunk is something you are unaware of - so are unprotected from the danger ahead.

The history of food is riddled with unkunks and it is a big issue.

Let us look at lessons we can learn from the history of food.

Hunter-gatherers

For hundreds of thousands of years, we were hunter-gatherers and totally at the mercy of the climate. While our food was generally health a few bad years would leave us starving.

Research shows that modern day hunter gatherers, who diet contains some plants plant grown in living soil full of nutrients have a far healthy gut biome.

They do not suffer the modern epidemic of chronic diseases. We need to feed our gut -brain, we know how - it is just a question of doing it.

Farmers

When we saw the possibility of growing plants ourselves, particularly seed plants like wheat, corn and rice which could be stored we jumped at the opportunity - and why not?

Who could have foreseen that the reliable food supply would lead to a massive increase in population leading to cities which allowed infectious diseases to spread, our actions had led to the creation of terrible plagues.

We also had no idea that repetitive harvesting would exhaust the soil leading to the complete collapse of some civilisations.

Good intentions gone wrong - caught out by an Unkunk.

Had we been aware of the dangers of plagues and soil degradation we would probably have still gone ahead and adopted farming, with all its benefits but taken steps to avoid the plagues and soil degradation.

Hygiene

Then we learned how important hygiene was so we built water and sewage systems, invented the modern bed and adopted regular washing.

Fantastic success - but it led to yet another population explosion which put great pressure on available food supplies.

How can you argue that improved hygiene is wrong - that would be plain stupid - but had we been aware of the population explosion which would result we may have taken steps to manage it better.

The green revolution

Then came Norman Borlaug, and the green revolution and we increased food production, all with the best of intentions but which led to yet another population explosion.

However, with our modern technology, we were able to produce enough food to feed the entire world. That is true we just failed to learn how to distribute food equitably - a social, not a technical problem.

Had we been aware that this could lead to swarms of starving refugees we may have taken steps to manage the gross inequalities - who knows - would short-term greed still have triumphed?

The gut-brain

But again there was an unexpected trap, our highly efficient food system largely based on chemicals for fertiliser and crop protection meant that our food was inert so our gut biome, which is an important part of the intelligent control system which regulates our bodies was no longer fully functional.

No one is blaming Norman Borlaug and his contemporaries, they worked diligently to feed the world’s ever-increasing population but were caught by an Unkunk and so now we are left with the problem of creating a supplementary food system to feed the gut-brain.

Unkunks and the modern gut biome

At least we have learned about the importance of the gut biome and its impact on health. It is very much the science of the decade. But we are still looking at it from the viewpoint of biochemistry.

We know full well we can make fat people skinny and skinny people fat by changing the gut biome, we know what species of gut biota make us fat and which species make us skinny.

But we have no idea of the mechanism, the how, we just have observational experiments.

Our understanding of the intelligent control system which regulates our bodies is still in its infancy (meaning we haven’t the faintest idea of the code that makes it work) and even more dangerous we have yet to recognise its importance.

We don’t do nothing, with 8 million people a year suffering a diabetic amputation that is not an option. We recognise and learn to manage our ignorance.

Calorie balance

Pick up virtually any book on diet or weight loss and you will be presented with the idea that we get fat because we consume more calories than we burn.

Now read carefully, I am not saying that the fundamental laws of the conservation of energy and the conservation of mass are wrong. I was indoctrinated with these ideas at University and they have stuck.

But calorie imbalance, eating more than we burn, is not the cause of the modern epidemics of obesity, diabetes, heart attack and dementia.

I accept the expert’s opinion that these are caused by the wrong fat in the wrong place. No augment from me here.

So why do we get fat and sick?

Calorie imbalance is not the cause. It is how, or what I like to call the enabling factor.

The why, the real reason why we get fat and sick is because our intelligent control system, of which the gut-brain is an integral part, has decided that we need to store more fat.

Yet the standard response to storing excess fat is to talk about the calorie imbalance. We are the victim of an Unkunk.

We should have known better, over seventy years ago, after the end of WW2 we learned that people who had been deprived of food in the war became overweight when food was available.

Our intelligent control system had been trained that is needed to store fat, it was a question of survival. When food became available it deliberately created a calorie imbalance by our gut-brain sending our hormones so we were obsessed with eating as much food as we could lay our hands (or maybe teeth) on.

Read the warning label

So, dear Jenny, read the warning label. I and no one else really knows how our intelligent control system works, but we can observe it in action.

What I am trying to do here is to take it out of the Unkunk section and bring it into the Unk section.

There is an old saying, science is the art of managing knowledge - engineering is the art of managing ignorance.

I am an engineer, I was brought up on how to manage ignorance. We build bridges and weird machines and so they don’t fall to bits we use what we like to call safety factors. These are not safety factors at all, they are ignorance factors.

So when you read on please understand that there are no absolute truths here.

The overall aim is to learn how to grow plants which are both pre- and pro-biotics. We need to be able to do this at scale by creating what is in effect a new industry, we are not going to solve the epidemic of chronic diseases by lab-scale breeding of a limited selection of microbial species.

Growing plants as natural pre and pro biotics is a process which has been tested (unknowingly) for millions of years so reducing the risk of Unkunks.

Soil-blood is a key part of this new technology. Learning how to manage soil-blood is at the core of resolving the epidemic of chronic disease. But it is not without risk.

As a pioneer of the soil-blood revolution I have used my body as a piece of lab equipment to see how far I can go before I sense a problem and I can honestly say the worst effect I have experienced is an occasional increase in the consumption of toilet paper.

If you want to increase your level of safety factor then do so. I have tried to indicate how and now it is your decision.

Principles no rule of thumb

It is not possible to give a set of instructions, like a cooking recipe, as climate, season and plants (and people) vary so much so what I try and do is give a set of principles which the grower can apply whether in Finland or Bundaberg.

The basic principles behind the Gbiota system are simple. We want to breed beneficial microbes in the soil. These will enter the plants that we eat and from there into our gut, a process that has been going on for a few million years but we decided to abort with our modern, ultra hygienic, food system.

Part of the reason we stopped is that if the conditions are not right harmful microbes, which make us sick or will kill us will breed.

But the real reason is it is much more profitable to grow plants using chemicals than go to the trouble of recycling organic matter.

We use a simple process of Eco-balance where we create the conditions that favour the beneficial microbes so they out-breed and out-compete the harmful microbes - a process that has been going on for many millions of years so the Patents have well and truly expired.  It is well tested.

Both good and bad Microbes need food so that is not a differentiator, the key differentiator is air and moisture.

How water moves through the soil may appear to be simple but is actually complex and for those interested I wrote an article water which may help understand the Gbiota process but there are two key things to understand about water.

Goldilocks water

If the soil is too dry nothing happens, the plants don’t grow and the bugs won’t breed.

If it is too wet most plants won’t grow well, yes watercress and seaweed may be healthy, but life is about variety.

So what we want is Goldilocks water, not too wet, not too dry, just right.

Sounds simple but it is not.

Weird water

Water is weird but very friendly stuff, it loves itself so water molecules are attracted to other water molecules which gives it tensile strength, which is a bit weird for a liquid, but it is also a bit like a teenager, it loves some things and hates others - what we call hydrophobic and hydrophilic.

The other weird thing about water is it does not like being invaded by other stuff so if there is a strong solution then any nearby water will rush in to dilute the strong solution, what we call osmosis.

These two together are how plants work, osmosis means that water will enter the root system as long as the solution in the plant’s roots is stronger than the solution in the soil.

If it is not, the water will be sucked out of the plants and they will die. Something I have demonstrated many times in my experiments.

Once the water has entered the root system, evaporation from the leaves will pull water up to great heights by the tensile strength of water that has entered the root system by osmosis.

Water does not spread uniformly

You may agree with the Goldilocks water approach, not too dry, not too wet just right and think it is so simple - just water a little bit.

But that is not the way soil and water works.

If you are lucky and have hydrophilic (water-loving soil) the water will cling to the first bit of soil it finds. But generally (almost always) soil has different particle and pore sizes.

The surface tension forces are much larger in a small pore than in a big pore (it has more surface area) so the water will move from large pores to small pores and then stop.

When you apply water from above, however you do it - drip tape, sprinkler, hose, flood or a good old fashioned bucket you are applying liquid water that will initially fill all the pores, big and small where you applied the water, so they are all filled with liquid water.

The soil is saturated with no air spaces.

The importance of pore size

But all soils have a range of pore sizes and if the soil is hydrophilic, (water-loving), the forces attracting the water in the small pores are higher than in the large pores so water will move from the large pores to the small pores until there is a balance and flow will stop.

This is wicking.

The moisture level at the end of wicking is normally called field capacity but is really an equilibrium state which is a better term.

This moisture level is independent of how much water is applied. If you apply more water it will just go deeper into the soil.

I will say this again, and put up with the abusive emails it will generate. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, you cannot vary the moisture level in the soil by how much water you apply from above.

The moisture levels at the end of irrigation will always be the same, it will start saturated and then drop down to field or equilibrium value.

Applying more water will mean it will penetrate deeper into the soil.

What we can do

If we change either the nature of the soil, so it is more or less hydrophilic, or change the pore size we will change the equilibrium level.

This is what we are trying to do with Wickmix, create a soil that is hydrophilic, water-loving but with a large pore size - a giant sponge.

Not make sense? Think of it this way.

Clay is generally nutrient-rich but has a very small pore size so will hold a lot of water and very little air and so will be anaerobic which is great for breeding bad bugs.

Sand has a large pore size so contains a lot of air - which is good but will hold very little water and nutrients. Great for growing Cacti but not so good for broccoli.

Wickimix

With Wickimix, which we make from organic waste, rock dust and a bit of soil (preferably with a small particle size like in clay to give a large surface area) there are plenty of nutrients.

But to get (and maintain) a large pore size we need a little help from the creatures of the soil, particularly the worms.

But let us not forget the beetles, larvae, nematodes and all those creepy-crawlies found in good soil.

They are happy to eat all the nutrients we provide but to pay the rent they make lots of holes and passages in the soil so we have soil full of air.

Flood and flush

The other part of Gbiota technology is flood and flush. Instead of applying the water from above, which reduces the air content and seals the surface, we apply the water, at least most of the water, from below and let wicking action take it up to near the surface so the plant roots can grow in Goldilocks moisture.

Let me talk you through the process.

We have a pipe going down into the soil. We could just use a small tube, and that is what I started with many years ago.

But as I was brought up to squeeze the most out of everything so I now use a large tube which I can fill with organic waste, so I call it a compost tube.

For those keen gardeners who understand that labile or fresh compost can be full of growth inhibitors, I should point out that this is separate from the soil in which I am growing plants.

For those of you who have read my article on how water moves through the soil, you will understand that to get bulk water movement you need to use the principle of hydraulic or pressure flow which inevitably means the soil will be saturated.

This pressure flow (I say pressure but it is only a few mm of head but still pressure) will force the water to flow over the base of the bed and being saturated some water will wick up towards the root zone and towards the surface.

Just what we want.

But after we have saturated the base of the bed we are left with all this saturated soil which is ideal for breeding all those nasty bad bugs.

In the Gbiota boxes, we have a swivel pipe while in the Gbiota beds a leaky dam so we can drain the water (or soil-blood).

This is the neat bit, as the water drains out it will suck air back into the soil, we are making the soil breathe. This is a core Gbiota technology.

You can hear the air being sucked back into the soil and for the benefit of any adolescent boys reading this, they may like to call this a reverse fart.

What to do with the left-overs

People who know me understand that I was a toddler in WW2 and was brought up not to waste anything.

I could not leave half a slice of toast without being told that I must eat it as there were starving children in Africa. When I asked very politely about the logistics of getting my half a slice of toast to the kids in Africa I was rewarded with less than polite thump to the ear.

How times have changed. But there is still a need for more change.

The idea that ‘greed is good’ has to go. It is absurd to have a society where billionaires are taking joy trips to space so they can see for themselves if the world is round or flat, executives of food companies fly around in private jets when people are having their legs chopped off from diabetes or living under railway bridges.

Things need to change - join the wonderful world of the Gbiota movement.

But back to leftovers.

Soil blood

What drains out from the swivel tube or leaky dam is not just water, it is full of nutrients and weird creatures. I look at them under my microscope and they make the monsters from Aliens look tame.

I call this soil-blood because it fulfils the same function as blood in us, transporting nutrients, air, weird creatures and microbes throughout the soil and into the plants and finally us.

This is just too valuable to waste.

But how best to use it?

The obvious way is to pour it back down the compost tube, but when?

As Jenny asks, will this go putrid if it is left for a week in the collection bottle?

In Bundaberg in summer almost certainly yes, but here is how to find out.

Safe or not?

I admit that I pour some soil-blood onto the plant leaves as this is another way the plants can absorb the beneficial microbes that we need.

I have some concerns about recommending this publicly so I leave it to people to decide for themselves. All I can say is I have been doing it for years without harm.

I have no desire to get sick from some weird disease so just before harvest I will stop using soil blood on the foliage and rinse the foliage with clean water instead.

Surface wetting

Another issue is that wicking works great in transferring water from wet areas to drier areas but there can be a problem in re-wetting the soil if it dries out completely.

To avoid this I will periodically wet the soil surface and often use soil blood for that.

Germination

However, the big problem with this subsurface irrigation is germination, the top surface is dry so seeds do not germinate without love and care.

I have tried many ways, including totally saturating the soil before seeding and applying the covering layer. That only needs to be done once but I find that saturating the soil and the following patting down tend to compact the soil when what we want is a very open soil with a large pore size.

I have now gone back to the old-fashioned way and just seed and cover with the top layer then gently apply water to just keep that top layer moist enough for germination.

A bit more work than ‘saturate and leave’ method but more reliable.

Radishes

Radishes must be the easiest plant to grow so it is with shame that I admit that they do not grow that well in normal Gbiota boxes.

They, and other root crops like beets, grow profusely with an immense display of foliage but the roots fail to swell as hoped for.

I think the problem is that the nutrient-rich soil and frequent use of soil-blood means there is just too much nutrient available for what is a tough plant that has evolved to flourish in tough conditions.

I now grow radishes and other root crops in their own box. I don’t use the soil-blood at all in these boxes instead using it in other boxes and use fresh water both in the compost tube and for surface wetting.

Designing the human body

I haven’t answered Jenny’s question about how long the soil blood can be left.

If you have ever looked in a mirror you may have noticed a lumpy thing sticking out from just above your mouth and wondered why it is there and not somewhere else more convenient.

It is called a nose but why put it there?

It has not evolved as a convenient thing to hold our glasses.

Let’s talk about the design of the human body. I am an engineer and the best design is always the simplest that will do the job.

We need to take in air and food so the simplest design would be to have a hole in the chest for taking in air and another hole to our belly just below - for shoveling in food.

Why go to all this bother of pipes and valves so air goes to the lungs and food to our stomach and why put the nose immediately above the mouth? It seems overly complex.

Evolution keeps on trying out different designs and keeps on increasing sophistication until it finds the simplest that works.

It did try a simpler version, and it did work, we call it a jellyfish, but I ask you, how many jellyfishes have won a Nobel prize? I can count them on the number of fingers growing out of my ears.

Neat design

This current design may seem overly complicated but it works.

Anything you put near your mouth is immediately inspected by your nose.

Any suspicious sign (smell) it hits that red button which is the alarm bell for your subconscious brain and in a fraction of a second (your subconscious brain works much faster than your conscious brain) it has sent out a OMG STOP signal so your arm screeches to a halt before that pongy thing enters your mouth, so possibly saving your life.

What I do

Now as I know nothing about growing food in Finland I can’t tell you what the safe time to leave soil-blood is but you can try what I do.

Gbiota is my job in life, I have over fifty experimental boxes trialing different techniques and plants so I am not too bothered about time.

I have come to an arrangement with my body that I use it as part of the experimental process and as part of the deal, I guarantee it a reserve stockpile of toilet paper, which fortunately is only needed occasionally.

I have trialed different schedules and plants.

I have found there is no problem with using the flood and flush system every day. It guarantees there is no stagnant soil-blood but it makes for a lot of extra work.

This may be unnecessary as I do not recommend flood and flushing every day but useful to know if problems occur (such as when you have been on holiday and on your return are greeted with a bit of a pong.

So Jenny the rule is simple, a big sniff - if pongy irrigate more frequently.

Gbiota beds - developed from Wicking Beds

Gbiota beds were developed from Wicking beds which have the big advantage that they can store a lot of water so you can go for a long time without irrigation.

But the whole point of Gbiota beds is to breed beneficial microbes - not save work and that means a bit more effort.

How often

I typically irrigate twice a week but if I have any suspicion that the soil mix is getting a bit overripe, (using my nose), I will run a flood and flush cycle.

I like everyone, go away for several days or even a couple of weeks and then I will revert to a Wicking Beds and leave the swivel tube in the up position.

It is not ideal but keeps the plants alive. But when I return I may give a few daily flushes to clean the system.

If I have any suspicions (eg a bit of pong) I am too mean to discard this suspect soil-blood so I just empty the container onto my lawn and later capture the nutrients in the grass cutting which are part of my Gbiota bed process.

I understand that it is easy to kill plants with too high a level of nutrients by reverse osmosis. This is easily detected ahead of time by excess green growth.

(How many times have I got all excited over an experiment with fantastic growth but come back one morning to find everything dead.)

This rarely happens but if it does I just use the soil blood on other boxes and just use water in the suspect box.

Different plants exude different sugars to attract different species of microbes so normally I use a wide spectrum of plants in one box. This is very practical using some slow and fast-growing plants which increases the time span that the box is producing.

(Link to 'What to grow')

So I still like to spread the soil blood among the boxes to introduce as wide a range of microbes as possible.

As I have mentioned some species, like the root crops, seem sensitive to over-nutrition so I may stop using the soil blood and use water.

I am sorry to my readers in Finland that I can not offer them any specific advice, but I am sure that in winter they will be growing indoors with plant lamps and they will soon find a schedule which works fine without getting a pongy mess.

Final word

So Jenny there is a very long answer to a very simple question. Keep the question coming they help make the total system better and don’t forget that this is a social benefit movement as well as growing a few veggies so help spread the word.

It is not a bad feeling that you have saved someone from having a foot chopped off from diabetes.

Applying technology

With all our modern technology and automated production capacity, we should only need to work a couple of days a week to have everything we need and live a healthy life right to the end of our natural life.

But we are not so what went wrong? There is nothing wrong with the technology - we just don’t know how to apply it for the benefit of the community.

That is where I come in. I am 84 years old, fit and healthy, and spend my time reading a range of scientific papers and conducting speculative research to find better ways of growing food - the sort of experiments that no self-respecting funding agencies would support so I pay for myself.

Most of my experiments fail, that is what is meant by speculative, I just hide them so no one sees but occasionally one works or at least leads to a new way of thinking. That is the prize.

It is a formula that has worked well for me and has led to me being recognised as one of Australia’s leading innovators.

The aim is simple, to find a way to feed the eight million(and growing) people on Earth sustainably so they live a long and healthy life.

I do this for my great-grandkids and I am happy for the rest of the world to come along for the ride.

I try to integrate all this expertise into a simple system, which I call the Gbiota system because the focus is on breeding a healthy gut biota. This could help all people live a long and healthy life, maybe your great-grandkids.

I invite you to join me in this journey, just sign up to join the Gbiota movement, it is free, or better still join as a paying member, set up your own Gbiota beds and demonstrate that this is a technology that really works. We live in a world of disinformation so no one believes anything so show them for real that this works.

Follow me, there are no guarantees, I have no idea what is waiting around the corner but following me will increase your chances.

There are hundreds of articles on this web that I have written over the years and it is confusing (it confuses me and I wrote them) so I have invented what I call a Hip-hop Ebook which is really just a collection of posts on a particular theme.

My first Ebook is called ‘Serious thinking about food’ which lists a suggested reading sequence, but you have no need to follow that, just Hip-hop about as you please, but at least you have a list of the relevant articles.  (It is on the menu as E-book).

I made this diagram to illustrate a concept, it is based on real data, as far as it is available.

As you can see there are two lines, the red one for infectious diseases, which we know a lot about and are right, and the green one for non-infectious diseases which we think we know a lot about but sadly are wrong.

What I have done is looked at global data and which vary throughout the world so I have picked out the region where the epidemic is most severe and looked for information on the percentage of people who were affected, eg seriously ill or died.

I go back a million years when humanoid creatures first appeared on Earth. I have no actual data, and the batteries on my time machine are flat, but I can look at modern members of the ape family to take a guess - not very scientific but until the batteries are charged the best I can do.

Some two hundred thousand years ago the first humans appeared as hunter-gatherers. There are still modern day hunter-gatherers we can study and we know they are intelligent and take care of their health by eating a broad spectrum of healthy food and not contaminating the soil with sewage so were a pretty healthy bunch.

Ten thousand years ago we started to grow much of our food from agriculture, largely growing grains which provided us with a lot of energy food but was low in the essential trace minerals and vitamins needed to replace our body parts as they wear and age.

But we still collected wild herbs so at first it was not too bad but there was a gradual decline in health with the combination of increased population density and poor sanitation led to a steady decline in health and ever-increasing cases of infectious diseases.

This reached a peak with the black death in 1347 which wiped out 50% of the population in seriously affected areas and even higher is some cases.

After that, we gradually improved sanitation and medical science but there were still serious outbreaks of cholera and flu. The worst case (not shown as it was highly localised) was the construction of the Panama Canal where up to 80% of the imported labourers died.

We all know about the modern epidemics but with modern medical science and hygiene, they are not as damaging as previous epidemics.

But all those years suffering from these horrendous infections have given us an instilled fear which has led to even worse consequences - non-infectious diseases.

Non-infectious diseases

The main non-infectious diseases are obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

Let me put this in perspective, these non-infectious diseases are a far bigger cause of ill health and death than any infectious disease. The biggest killer is heart attacks but diabetes is the fastest growing. The half a billion people with diabetes dwarfs the 7 million people who have died from Covid. Every year 8 million people have a limb amputated from diabetes.

They are largely man-made (yes meaning that man’s failure to properly understand the issues has resulted in the best part of 8 million people having a limb amputated).

What we need is a system where we can breed the beneficial microbes without breeding the harmful ones. To feed the 8 billion people on earth it must be able to operate at scale and at a low cost.

That is why the Gbiota technology was developed and is described in detail on the web. It works very well, no one is claiming it is trivial but it can certainly be used by anyone, even if they live in a flat as long as they are prepared to put the effort into reading the directions.

You can read all the articles about food and health for free but you do need to sign up and click the notify me of new posts button.

When you have reached the point that you want to start using the technology you need to sign up as a full member which will give you access to the growing section and also receive on line support online and by video conference.

Note this is an abridged version of a longer article which you can read here

Technology for the community

If you are not confused about modern society then you must be smoking something pretty strong. I certainly am confused.

We have such amazing technologies which can produce goods and food at an unprecedented scale so we should all be enjoying a long, healthy, happy and stress-free life but a click on the evening news shows what a mess we are in.

I am not some arrogant prick, but I have been recognised as one of Australia’s leading innovators, probably because I am obsessive and perseverant.

Technology should work for the benefit of the community

But I do hold this belief that technology should work for the benefit of the community and it is not. It may be making a handful of people rich beyond imagination but are the benefits of this technology flowing through to the community - I think not.

Is it good that we develop technology so military people can sit in armchair comfort to kill women and children with remote-controlled drones?

I was a pioneer of CAE Computer Aided Engineering but now work on sustainable and healthy food production.

Again I see the same conflict. Now some 75-80% of people die before their natural life span from our food system which kills the beneficial microbes which are essential for health and life.

Eco-balance

We know how to grow food that is full of beneficial microbes. Come to my garden where I grow my food. It is full of worms and creatures of the soil and I am 84 years old and fit and healthy.

The technology I use is to create the conditions where the beneficial microbes out-breed and out-compete the harmful microbes.

That is the technology of Eco-balance I am promoting on this web. I want to see this widely used across the food system and to do that I have to convince many people of the benefits. This does take more time than the typical three-word acronym.

The aim is to create a social movement of people who believe that technology should work for the benefit of the community - why not join us?

Sorting out the information

I have created hundreds of articles and videos which I admit can be overwhelming so I am converting these into what I call a hip-hop book. I am arranging the articles into a reading sequence but each article is stand alone so if you are not interested in that one you can hop onto the next.

And if you get lost you can always email me.

A few tips on using a hip-hop E-book

Reading a hip-hop E-book is a bit different to reading a normal book.

It is dynamic which means that new posts are being added and old ones removed as new information comes to hand and old information becomes obsolete.

Each post is a stand alone post so you can hip-hop around as suits your fancy, however, I do recommend that you read the first half dozen posts in sequence as that will give you a good overview of what Gbiota food is all about.

 Just follow the links as suits you

gbiota.com/2024/08/23/serious-think-about-food/  (home to E-book you are already here)

gbiota.com/2024/09/16/the-plan-2/  (the plan to change our food system, open to all)

gbiota.com/2024/09/13/riddle/  (preface open to all)

gbiota.com/2024/09/13/invite/    (you will need to sign up to access these posts)

gbiota.com/2024/09/11/adoption/

gbiota.com/2024/09/03/disease/

gbiota.com/2024/08/31/recycle/

gbiota.com/technology/
gbiota.com/2024/08/21/think-smarter/
gbiota.com/torch-bearer/

gbiota.com/2024/08/20/food-paradigm-shift/

gbiota.com/2024/08/13/thrive-and-survive-2/

gbiota.com/2024/08/01/smart-young-girl/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/07/25/soil-blood/  (full members only)

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/07/23/breeding-wickimix/ (full members only)

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/07/15/enhancing-gut-health/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/07/01/gbiota-overview/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/06/29/our-intelligent-control-system/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/06/14/the-great-food-war/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/06/05/feed-your-gut-brain-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/04/17/food-crisis/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/04/13/why-we-get-fat/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/04/12/not-little-piggies/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/03/25/food-health-and-wealth-for-all/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/03/14/survival-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/13/the-best-pro-biotic-ever/ (members only)

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/27/try-it-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/27/true-brain/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/27/help-me-help-you/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/26/fire-water-and-technology/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/25/fat-and-sick/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/20/health-starts-in-the-soil-4/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/06/what-science-tells-us/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/11/27/gbiota-movement-4/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/11/15/survival/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/11/11/invisible-extinction/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/09/08/future-of-food/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/08/21/good-men/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/08/17/homeostasis/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/08/17/gbiota-food-for-health/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/07/13/missinformation/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/06/08/fat-wrong/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/06/05/food-waste/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/01/05/health-starts-in-the-soil-3/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/11/14/health-span/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/24/crazy-world/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/17/no-dumb-donkeys/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/05/how-gbiota-beds-work/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/04/water/ (members only)

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/03/food-and-the-gut-biome/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/08/22/health-starts-in-the-soil-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2021/11/08/action-plan-for-gut-health/

https://www.gbiota.com/2021/10/03/ecobalance/

https://www.gbiota.com/2021/08/03/anthropocene/

https://www.gbiota.com/2021/07/02/principles-of-gbiota-beds/ (members only)

https://www.gbiota.com/2021/06/02/making-soil/ (members only)

https://www.gbiota.com/2021/04/13/making-soil-101/ (members only)

https://www.gbiota.com/2020/10/30/the-essence/ (members only)

https://www.gbiota.com/2020/09/04/dis-enabling/

https://www.gbiota.com/2020/08/04/intelligent-control-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2020/07/28/sugar-blockers/

https://www.gbiota.com/2020/07/12/history-of-food/

https://www.gbiota.com/2020/04/21/making-soil-work/ (members only)

https://www.gbiota.com/2020/02/27/paradigm/

Look after our intelligent control system

I want to sell you a concept. It is free you don’t have to pay me anything but you do have to think seriously about it for five minutes and getting anyone to devote five minutes to thinking is a challenge in these modern times.

There are a number of steps to this thinking, the first one is the difference between conscious and subconscious thinking.

Round 1 the cat test

Let’s start with the cat test.

Our eyes are like a camera so the images are upside down but our subconscious brain flips them so we see them right way up. It also combines the images from both eyes into one image and, this is the smart bit, tells us how far things are away and it does all this in a twentieth of a second.

Try to do this using your conscious brain.

Look at this upside-down picture and tell me is the cat brown or black?

Using your conscious brain on the upside-down picture it could take you a couple of minutes to pick out the cat and tell me the colour. I know it will take you two minutes until you work out that I am just a silly old man who likes to play games and there is no cat.

Subconscious and conscious brains

Our subconscious brain is incredibly fast and efficient in doing what it can do.

Impressed? No, well give me another go.

You are walking up a flight of steps, carrying a cup of coffee and trying to console your best friend on your mobile phone.

Your friend is a bit upset (to put it mildly) her son has just failed his final exams, got drunk borrowed your car and smashed it up and is in hospital with a broken leg.

She needed that car to drive to the Airport to take a flight to make a presentation on why her company should win a contract to build the new Olympic stadium and she is already worried that her husband may be cheating on her with the nubile daughter next door who has just developed a pair of incredibly impressive breasts.

In other words, modern life as normal.

But all this time while you are consoling your friend, not spilling your coffee your foot lands perfectly on every step without you even thinking about it.

If you are still not impressed with how effective your subconscious is I give up.

Our subconscious brain and food

Let us now look at food and our subconscious brain as something that happens, maybe in different ways, across every culture on the planet.

We all have to eat and that will usually start with a savoury meal of carbs and protein. Nothing special about this, but now, depending on your culture you may have a piece of fruit, cake, a rice pudding, some chocolate or even in some cultures a glass of port or other sweet liqueurs.

Why? Because you need a lot of rapid energy to help digest that savoury meal and so your subconscious decides that you need this rapid energy so it sends out hormones so you want whatever it is you like that is sweet and full of instant energy.

OK hopefully I have won round one and convinced you that your subconscious is pretty smart but now we go into round 2 which is much more difficult, trying to explain how our subconscious manages to be so smart.

Round 2 why is our subconscious so smart?

Your subconscious has to learn to control many things in your body, temperature, heart-beat, oxygen, immune system, the list goes on and on but what I am interested in is how it controls our food intake, what and how much we eat. Notice the what, it controls what we want to eat as well as how much.

How does it do this? Like the way we learn everything - trial and feedback.

It starts with the very first suck on Mum’s breast. One good suck (and babies suck everything, it is part of their survival kit they are born with.) Feedback, positive or negative, is noted and recorded in babies brain for future reference.

Next time it feels hungry it goes to look up the record, cries to make a lot of noise, a breast appears from nowhere, it sucks away and feels good.

Mission accomplished.

This is the intelligent control system working away in our subconscious.

Baby learns that it needs to eat a lot of protein so it grows very fast.

That’s third isle down on the left in the red and blue packet with a picture of a baby on it. Sorry just joking but it certainly is learning what sort of food it wants.

Actually, that is not quite right, our subconscious intelligent control system learns what we need then sends out hormones so we want to eat that.

There are many hormones that can send out complex messages, it is much more than a full or empty gauge.

This learning goes on throughout life, babies love food that is both sweet and full of nutrients so they can grow as fast as possible and may end up a bit chubby.

In adolescence, they eat huge quantities of food and are typically skinny, or at least used to be until modern foods came along.

In middle age, we don’t need so much food but it takes us some time to learn that so we get a bit of a bum or tum.

By the time we are old, our bodies have learned we don’t need so much food and end up being skinny again.

The point is that this is a lifelong learning experience.

The computer in our tum

I used to write engineering software and we called this a predictor-corrector scheme, make the best guess you can, screw up, hide your screwup so no one sees, and then make a better guess. We also call it adaptive or self-learning but it is the same process screw up, look at the results of the screw up and have another, hopefully, better go.

That is just the way the world works.

People often go on short-term restrictive diets, that are a waste of time and often make things worse, they need to focus on retraining their control system so they want to eat what they need.

It makes life much more pleasant. Remember the old P. G. Wodehouse saying, ‘Giving up wine, women and song does not make you live longer, it just makes it seem longer.’

Recap

So far, this is the easy bit, we are about to go into the difficult bit so lets have a recap of the key points.

All our bodies have a built-in control system which regulates what and how much we want to eat. It is learning from that first suck until we die. While bio-chemistry has gives an in depth understanding of what our bodies need - when it comes to applying this knowledge the most effective way is to focus on training our sub-conscious control system so it tells us what and how much to eat.

Round 3 - The difficult bit with smart bugs

Now comes the difficult bit, hopefully, you have accepted that our subconscious control system is really smart - now I have to convince you that there are really smart bugs which are critical to this subconscious control system.

Have you ever dropped some cake crumbs on the ground and have been too lazy to pick them up? Well, I often feel lazy and am happy to watch the ants come along and remove the crumbs - it is really quite fascinating to watch on a hot sunny afternoon.

Australia in general and my backyard specifically, is ant heaven.

But are they smart? Let me ask you - how many ants have won Nobel prizes? The answer is zero.

An individual ant is not the smartest creature on the globe. They just bobble about in a totally random way with no plan or strategy, none of this dividing an area up into rectangles and sweep searching like the SES do - no just bobble about at random.

But when they find that cake crumb I am too lazy to pick up they leap into intelligent action. One ant will tell another ant, in ant language, which I do not speak. Hey, there are cake crumbs over there and this is the route I used to get there.

Soon there will be thousands of ants busily moving the cake crumbs taking this totally wasteful bobbley route that the first ant took. In no time all the crumbs have been transported back to their home so it works, for them.

Swarm Intelligence

We call this swarm intelligence and before we get feeling superior to the ants I have to say that the biggest uses of swarm intelligence are us humans.

We just love dressing up in Taylor Swift style and going to her concerts by the thousands. We dress that way for a good reason - we can fit in without having to think.

This really works as we don’t have time to solve every problem from scratch.

EUIC

What shall I wear today? The same old T-shirt and shorts I left on the floor last night because I was too lazy to put them away. You may think it is being lazy I call it EUIC as I want to appear trendy with the latest acronym. It is short for Effective Use of Intellectual Capacity.

And it keeps us alive. In and on us are trillions of cells, particularly in our gut. Now you won’t see a particular microbe queuing up to be awarded her PhD but together, with the power of swarm intelligence they do an incredible job in powering our intelligent control system and we would soon be dead without them.

So we need to learn to look after them.

The villain

Every good fairy story needs a beautiful heroine, a brave hero and an evil villain. Sorry, fairy stories came from the era before sexual equality but we now have made up for that with Kyoshi the all-conquering female avatar.

Let us hope that Kamala is Kyoshi in disguise, that will make the world a better place.

It is just a fact of life that there are harmful microbes, or what I call bad bugs as it is quicker to type.

Humans are very good at killing things, even our fellow humans - there is no other creature that kills members of its own species on such a grand scale, not a record we should be proud of.

We are very good at killing microbes, we do it intentionally with things like Covid which is good but we also do it unintentionally by killing beneficial microbes in our food system which is at the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases.

So how do we kill the bad bugs without killing the good bugs?

A pretty simple but very important question but with a very simple answer.

Ants and worms

Ants and worms are both ace recyclers.

My garden is full of worms and other beneficial creepy crawlies but rarely do I see any ants in my garden while on my patio I never see any worms but it is inundated with ants.

So why the difference?

On my patio I drop crumbs and tell myself (and my wife) I am studying swarm behaviour even though I know that I am just too lazy to pick them up. It is nice and dry so the ants are more than happy but the worms don’t pop in to say Hi!

In my garden, I am using the Gbiota flood and flush system so it is maintained at the Goldilocks moisture level which is the key to the Gbiota system. The worms love it but the ants do not.

The only difference is the conditions. You don’t have to be a wizkid in microbiology - just know how to control the conditions - the food and moisture levels.

Simply by controlling the conditions the beneficial microbes breed happily away out-competing and out-breeding the harmful microbes.

That is what Gbiota is all about

Create the conditions in the soil to breed beneficial microbes without the harmful ones.

The microbes go into the plants and then into our gut to form so our gut biome is filled with beneficial biota which then forms part of our intelligent control system which sends out hormones which make us want to eat the food that we need.

But we are aiming to create a shift in the food paradigm so people think about food in a different as is described in the various articles.

But the food industry is very skilful in using flavourings to make their food taste good. But the flavour industry uses synthetic flavours which are deliberately targeted to be addictive - they are in business to make money.

It is not possible to compete against that with a week-old cabbage so we focus on food which is eaten shortly after picking when the natural flavours are at a peak and

As a final ps, we do cheat a bit. A week old cabbage is really pretty boring so we grow a variety of plants including herbs, like basil, thyme, oregano, thyme etc which brings a wider variety of microbial species into the system and just makes the food so much more attractive to eat.

Note - I am trying a new way of dynamic posts so one post covers a total topic.  Instead of writing new posts I will update and print in red the new sections

Food crisis?

Every day far more energy than we need falls as sunlight. Plants convert this energy into carbohydrates by breaking down the water and extracting carbon dioxide from the air. As long as we have water, there will be an excess of energy food.

But in our inert, triple plastic food system, we are short of food for our intelligent control system - our gut brain. This deficiency is the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of non-infectious diseases.

The prime aim of this web is to create a social movement to create a fundamental change in our food system. Please join or email me. But in the short term, you can learn how to grow your own gut-brain food.

Preface

We have, at the most, fifty years to change our food system from one based on exploiting our natural resources to one based on recycling.

We may go to the Supermarket and see the shelves stacked with food from around the world, we are producing and shipping at least two billions tons of food every year. It is difficult to believe that there could be a problem.

But we can’t wait for forty nine years and then make the switch from exploitation to recycling.

We are already experiencing the effects of a failing food system. It lacks critical nutrients and biota to feed our gut-brain. Our intelligent control system senses this deficiency and sends out hormones making us hungry so we overeat.

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

It is a here and now problem and we need to act.

Our Governments will play a critical role but in a democratic society, they are controlled by public opinion.

The first aim of this web is to inform the public of the dangers of doing nothing and explain how we need to change so they can influence our Governments.

The second aim is to explain the changes we have to make. We have the technology right now but we have to apply it.

I have been writing about this for years and if I am realistic there are so many articles that it is confusing so I am trying a new tack for the information age - a dynamic web which I will change regularly to give a condensed version.

I have called this Thrive and Survive but I will keep archived versions of all my articles available for those who want to go deeper.

We live in the virtual world of fake food

It is making us fat and sick and killing us

Our food system is on the brink of collapse

Soon millions of starving refugees will be

crossing boundaries causing chaos

It does not have to be that way

Join me in the world of real food

Live a long and healthy life

Thrive and survive

Let me show you how

Thrive and survive (Summary)

At the start, the earth was just a dead inert rock. Then the microbiota appeared, we don’t know from where, but they broke down the rocks making the nutrients in the rocks bio-available creating soil. Plants grew capturing energy from the sun, then animals and life on earth exploded.

Humanoid creatures appeared but they were small and puny. They developed a gut, full of trillions of biota which communicated with each other to provide intelligence, just like a modern computer, which regulated what and how much they wanted to eat and also taught their immune system.

They learned to manage fire and cook which led to massive brains and they started to invent things - spears, bows and arrows, followed by agriculture which led to city states.

Living close together and with poor hygiene many died from infectious diseases but they used their big brains to develop sewage and clean water systems and medicines and the population size exploded.

To feed this increase in population they refined their agriculture using chemicals to fertilise the soil and toxic chemicals to protect their plants from weeds and pests. It was highly in successful producing plenty of food.

But there were fewer microbes to make the nutrients in the soil bio-available and power the intelligent control system which regulated their bodies so people overate and got fat and sick creating a new modern epidemic of non-infectious diseases - obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

The infectious diseases had been swapped for non-infectious diseases.

But worse this system relied on mining and the exploitation of the earth’s natural resources with the threat of global famines, mass starvation and the collapse of their comfortable civilisation.

But ever inventive humans realised they needed a new technology and learned to breed beneficial microbes which out competed and out bred the harmful microbes something they had learned by studying nature and they called Eco-balance. Just manage the condition so the beneficial microbes win.

And they learned to do this using organic waste so the nutrients came from recycling rather than exploitation.

This is what we call the Gbiota technology

But people had to accept this new technology which meant a paradigm shift in how they thought about food.

But they had also invented what is probably the greatest innovation of all times - the Internet - where people can access information from across the world.

But sadly the internet had become saturated with misinformation so people were sceptical about what they read on the internet. So they said it is no good just telling people we have to show people that this works for real so we must ask innovative people who care about the future of their species to set up Gbiota boxes and beds and show people that this works.

And that is why we invite you to join the Gbiota social movement and help change the world for the better, we call it Thrive and Survive.

Life on earth

Gbiota is a technology for growing healthy food sustainably.

It is based on the principle of Eco-balance.

The first living creatures on earth were microbes. They broke down rocks to produce soil with bio-available nutrients which allowed plants, then animals, including us humans, to evolve. We are totally dependent on microbes.

But there are also harmful microbes which make us sick or kill us. We have developed an array of chemicals, many toxic, to provide nutrients for our plants and to protect them and us from these harmful microbes, but these have also killed off the beneficial microbes which are essential for life.

Eco-balance is the technology of creating the conditions that suit the beneficial microbes so they out-compete and out-breed the harmful microbes.

We know how to do this, it is a simple technology which is readily applied.

Technology should work for the benefit of the community but that is not the way it currently works.  Technology benefits a very small minority of people making them obscenely wealthy.

If humanity is to survive the food crisis we need a few entrepreneurial thinking people to take the initiative and demonstrate to the world that this is the way humanity will thrive and prosper.

Words aren't enough

I have written hundreds of articles about sustainable and healthy food production, some are my attempts to treat a serious subject with humour others technical which may only be appreciated by someone with the right background.

But words won’t avoid the food crisis, that takes action.

So all I ask is for you to set up your own Gbiota beds or boxes, start incorporating plants with essential minerals and beneficial microbes into your diet and if you find that if you feel satisfied so no longer want to keep on eating just tell a friend or two.

That way will avoid the looming food disaster which won't be solved by big business or government but by people dedicated to making the world a better place.

This will also save you money, this is not a solution just for the rich, to work it must be available to everyone.

Gbiota - the essence

Gbiota may appear to be about growing plants, and it is true we do grow plants but that is just a means to an end.

We all have an intelligent control system which regulates our bodies, its main purpose is to regulate what and how much food we eat, decide how much food we need to eat for energy and to replace our body parts as they age and wear, but it also controls our immune system.

This is a combination of our head and gut brains. Our guts have trillions of cells which communicate with each other just like in a computer. It starts learning about food from the first suck on mum’s breasts and continues throughout our lives.

For our intelligent control system to work we need the right sort of microbes in our gut and we have to feed them.

If we do not feed them we may overeat and get fat and sick. The underlying cause of the modern epidemic of non-infectious disease is that we are not feeding our gut-brain as our modern food system is lacking the critical minerals we need and is sterile lacking the fresh microbes.

Gbiota breeds the beneficial microbes in the soil which enter the plants that we eat. But we need to control the conditions carefully, if it is to dry the microbes and the plants will not grow, if it is to wet harmful microbes will breed and we will get sick. We need to have just the right moisture level - Goldilocks moisture.

With this Goldilocks moisture the microbes will breed and break down the minerals we add to the soil to feed them and us the essential minerals and create the right conditions in our gut for the beneficial microbes to breed and our intelligent control system to work properly.

Thrive and survive

Growing food - my thing

Everyone has their thing. My thing is in how to grow food sustainably that will enhance health.

It all started in WW2 when I was a toddler and was used as child labour to grow food.

My job was to dunk pots into a brew of chicken manure, flood and drain - that is the basis of modern-day flood and flush.

There are two aspects to this, short-term and long-term.

In the short term modern food is deficient in critical microbiology and minerals. Our bodies have an intelligence, sense this deficiency and sends out hormones to make us hungry so we overeat.

Fat in the wrong place is the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of non-infectious diseases, overweight, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

This is going to be resolved by changing the food growing system rather than a medical approach which may relieve the systems but does not address the underlying cause.

In the longer term, we are facing food challenges from climate change and degradation of our soils. It is based on the exploitation of natural resources rather than recycling and we only have fifty years left of key minerals such as phosphorous.

We have to change from a system based on exploitation to one based on recycling. If we don’t make that change the comfortable civilisation which we currently enjoy will be under severe stress from hungry and angry people moving within and across national borders.

I have spent the last thirty years developing technological solutions to these twin issues.

The real threat - marketing bullshit

It is my job to try and solve these two problems. It is not easy but it can be done.

The real problem is differentiating between the real world and propaganda (or marketing).

I am a dull boring engineer, I solve problems. You may like to read my article Smart Young Lady.

I know how we can substantially reduce the eight million amputations a year that diabetics suffer.

This is going to be resolved by changing the food growing system rather than a medical approach which may relieve the symptoms but does not address and resolve the underlying cause.

The longer-term problem of a collapse of our food system from climate change and degradation of our soils is more challenging but still soluble.

As a dull boring engineer, I can look at the amount of energy falling on the earth each day. It dwarfs all the energy used by mankind. Fortunately most of that energy is reflects back out to space for the benefit of some little green men in some faraway galaxy or we would all be burned to a cinder.

That energy can be used by plants that extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, break the bonds in water to form energy-rich carbohydrates we use as energy food.

OK, we need other foods to replace our body parts as they age and wear but that is soluble by recycling.

Dull boring articles

As a dull boring engineer, I write long dull boring articles on how we can solve these problems and naturally I want to tell the world about these solutions.

But I like everyone have a range of capabilities and marketing is not one of those, as a marketer I am a pretty good engineer.

So I do the sensible thing and seek the advice of marketing experts thinking naively that in this information age of the internet that this will be simple.

But the marketing experts advising me cringe in horror at my ignorance and do their best to inform this dull boring engineer.

Many people are complaining about the cost of food. They may not realise that the cost of producing food is only a small proportion of the cost we pay in the Supermarket, often as low as 20%. The rest of the cost in other other activities - particularly marketing and packaging.

They need to do that so we buy food which is intrinsically unhealthy.

What a wonderful world we live in.

The virtual world

They explain there is now two worlds, the virtual world which is fun and happy with nubile young people frolicking in waterfalls and just enjoying their virtual existence and the real world which is where all the horrible things happen.

They tell me that if I want to use the Internet to solve the problems of the world I must adopt the rules of the virtual world and not talk about bad things like people having their legs amputated from diabetes or masses of hungry, starving, angry people flooding across borders.

In the virtual world people just want to hear about happy things and no one will want to hear about bad things and if I persist I will probably find my access blocked.

A bit of a worry

For me, this is a bit of a worry. I watch the news and see people killing each other all over the world and ask myself why. I understand full well that humans are the dominant creature on earth for two reasons - we are intelligent and naturally cooperative.

In my younger days, I used to drive out to some remote regions, if you got bogged and you were lucky enough that someone came along there is no way they would leave your there and would pull you out of the bog.

We are naturally a cooperative creature, it is built into us (or at least most of us).

So why is there so much violence in the world? For thousands of years, aggressive leaders have whipped up anger in their tribes to attack and kill humans in other tribes (and steal their women).

I write many articles on this like My Teddy and The Great Food War

But the advent of the Internet and the virtual world has changed the scale, so what do we do about it?

I am not being insensitive when I say stop worrying about those eight million people a year who have a leg amputated or those many millions of starving people who will be flooding across the borders.

There will always be some dull boring engineer who will find technical solutions.

The real threat is not seeing the difference between the virtual and real world.

Finding the solutions

So how do we solve these real-world problems?

We have to change from a system based on exploitation to one based on recycling. If we don’t make that change the comfortable civilisation which we currently enjoy will be under severe stress from hungry and angry people moving within and across national borders.

I have spent the last thirty years developing technological solutions to these twin issues.

That is what dull boring engineers do - find solutions to real-world problems.

Experimenting with growing food sustainably

I have been experimenting for over thirty years to find better ways of sustainably growing plants to improve health. The result is the Gbiota technology.

There is a lot of research on what are the best foods for health and also a lot of research on the best way to grow plants for maximum production but how to grow plants for health is a neglected area yet the quality of our food is very dependent on the soil it is grown in and what is known as the horticultural protocol.

Microbes and fungi play an important role, they process minerals in the soil to make them bio-available to the plants and enhance our gut health when we eat the plants.

The latest research shows just how important gut health is for our overall health not just physically but our mental health and feeling of well being.

But it is one thing to develop the technology, it is even more of a challenge to persuade people to change their eating routines. This is even more difficult in this information age which is saturated with manipulative advertising focused on profit rather than community health.

I was a pioneer in Computer Aided Engineering developing technologies which changed the industry for which I was recognised by the Institute of Engineers as one of the country’s leading innovators.

The company I created became the leading exporter of technical software from Australia and was a world leader in its particular area.

But this did teach me about the process of getting new technologies accepted.

It is simply no good running major marketing campaigns, particularly in this modern era of disinformation, people just don’t believe what they read online.

The key to the adoption of any new technology is to find the social entrepreneurial people, who see the critical importance of a secure and sustainable food system, and are prepared to try the technology themselves to show it works.

These will be the sort of people who won’t be taken in by the marketing bullshit but will try it and test if it works for them.

If it works they will tell others and then the technology will gain acceptance.

Fortunately, it is obvious that it is working as people feel satisfied and are no longer craving food.

How to get new solutions accepted

But this did teach me about the process of getting new technologies accepted.

It is simply no good running major marketing campaigns, particularly in this modern era of disinformation, people just don’t believe what they read on-line.

The key to the adoption of any new technology is to find the entrepreneurial people who are are prepared to try the technology.

These will be the sort of people who wont be taken in by the marketing bullshit but will try it and test if it works for themselves.

If it works they will tell others and then the technology will gain acceptance.

Fortunately it is obvious that it is working as people feel satisfied and are no longer craving food.

My current aim is to attract the interest of these entrepreneurs to form a team to take this technology to the eight billion people on this planet.

Ask yourself these questions.

Which is more important - the profits of a handful of Neo-monopolist mega corporations or community health?

Are you prepared to spend a bit of time learning about flood and flush (the key technology behind the Gbiota system), make your own Gbiota bed or box, eat fresh Gbiota food for a month and if you see real benefits tell your friends?

If so just have a good read then drop me an email.

If this is you please contact me at colin@gbiota.com

Making the change

It is easy to get emotional about mega food companies making profits by supplying food that leads to us having our legs chopped off with diabetes and Governments that take no action, is all that true? I am a dull boring engineer and what matters is the end result. So what are the facts?

We live on a little ball spinning around our sun. Every now and again a meteorite comes from outer space but the mass is minute compared with the mass of the earth so we can say it is negligible and the minerals on the earth are fixed.

We cannot say the same thing about energy. Every day the sun delivers a huge amount of energy. It is not well understood how much energy comes from the sun but it is huge in comparison with the amount of energy used in all ways by humans and totally dwarfs the energy that powers our bodies.

Fortunately, most of that energy is reflected back into outer space or else we would all be fried to a cinder.

When the earth was formed some four billion years ago it was just dead rocks but after a billion years or so microbes which appeared from somewhere started to break down the rocks or form soil in which plants started to grow.

These plants collected a huge amount of energy from the sun which was made more soil and plants and then animals - an explosion of life which eventually led to humanoid creatures about a million years ago.

We ate plants but then we discovered how to use fire and cook which made nutrients more digestible and we changed dramatically - our guts shrank and we developed huge brains and started to invent things. At first spears, then bows and arrows, then fibre for clothes and fishing lines.

We were pretty puny creatures in comparison with some of the other creatures that roamed the earth and to survive we had to form tribes for protection.

Tribes had leaders which we were happy to follow, it was a simple question of life or death. This tribal characteristic still forms part of our nature which is why we seem to be so aggressive to members of other tribes killing them was seen to be a virtue.

Then we developed agriculture which led to the formation of city states, people lived in relatively close proximity and became very prone to diseases which kept the population numbers low. Three out of five babies would die before the age of five and another in their teens. But if you reached the age of thirty then you could expect to live a lot longer and die of old age.

Food was an issue but there was plenty of land and despite deaths from famines we managed to struggle through despite the high death rate.

Then we used our big brains, we improved both medicine and hygiene so we stopped dying from infectious diseases at such an alarming rate and the population exploded.

This is not something out of the history book it has happened in little more than my lifetime where the population has tripled.

All those extra mouths had to be filled so we got our big brains out of the cupboard to develop better ways of growing food and we were spectacularly successful in increasing our food production far faster than the increase in population.

We were extraordinarily successful in harvesting the energy that fell from the sun producing energy food to provide us with energy.

Let us not be rude to the nutrition scientists but it really does not matter what food we use as fuel, it is just fuel and the bulk of the food, about 80% we just burn off as fuel.

But like many good things there was nasty side effects. The problem was not what was in the food, it was all good energy food but what was missing from the food, specifically the beneficial microbes which power our gut brain and the minerals and phytonutrients which are needed to feed both us and the microbes.

Our intelligent control system, which regulates our bodies, particularly our appetite, (but also our immune system) detected these deficiencies and so sent our hormones so we felt hungry and overate leading to an epidemic of chronic non-infectious diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

We had swapped infectious diseases for non-infectious disease.

That is what motivated me to develop the Gbiota technology, and the solution turned out to be very simple. Simply create the conditions that favour the beneficial microbes so they out compete and out breed the harmful microbes.

This breeding is done in organic waste which solves another problem, it is replacing the extractions of the minerals which we are exhausting by recycling waste.

This is the way we will thrive and survive.

We do not have to replace our existing food system which generates some five billion tonnes of food each year just supplement it with living Gbiota food.

It is simple, and inexpensive so any one can do it.

But we live in an era where the internet is saturated with fake information. The solution to that is for people who understand this to set up their own Gbiota beds at home, show it works which is easy - just see if the food cravings are reduced - then tell other people.

This is what the Gbiota social movement is all about.

The big threat

If you asked me what is the biggest threat facing humanity what would you expect me to say?

If you knew that one of my earliest memories was Mum digging up the lawn to grow food in WW2 and since then, for some 84 years I have been studying how to grow healthy food sustainably you would expect me to say sustainable food production.

And you would be dead wrong. We know how to grow enough food to feed the entire population of the world so we can thrive and survive, now and well into the future.

That is not the problem, the real problem is what is probably the greatest technical innovation of our generation - the Internet. Well not the internet itself, it still amazes me that most people can now access the world’s information.

The problem is the way the Internet has become so saturated with dubious information and manipulative marketing that people now believe you can solve any problem, however complex and challenging, like feeding ten billion people with food that will keep them healthy, with a thirty second scan.

Well, the world does not work that way, we can provide the world with food that will keep them fit and healthy but not with a thirty second scan and a cute slogan. Read my story of the smart young girl.

All I can do is provide the information, people, that’s you and me, decide what we put in our mouths, not big business or Governments.

Three action steps

We need to change from exploitation to recycling. Recycling is not a new concept - it has been the way the world has worked for the last few billion years. The patents have well and truly expired.

We tend to think of recycling as microbes composting and that works but it is not the way that most natural system works.

Microbes certainly recycle but there is a bigger army of recyclers, worms in the wet conditions, ants in the dry and a whole range of beetles and also birds.

That pigeon clearing up under your trendy city cafe table is doing a great job of recycling, even if does poop on your shoe.

This wide array of creatures may do some of the crunching but much of the final processing is done in their gut biome, which often resembles ours. This is particularly valuable as their poop enters the soil, then the plants and finally reinforces our gut biota, which is what Gbiota is all about.

But how do we make use of this to save our world from collapsing.

There are three steps we can take.

Grow food at home in Gbiota boxes.

The first is easy, just persuade people to start growing some of their food at home in Gbiota boxes. This is cheaper and much healthier than buying from the supermarket - we just have to get the message out.

This is what I have been researching for many years now.

Manure

Next, we can persuade our farmers to reprocess out waste, particularly both animal and human manure.

But we need to develop a bit of technology hear as we don’t want to just spread this on the surface. We are fighting a continues battle between the good bugs and the bad bugs, so not this way shown.

We need to develop some machinery with an auger and slurry tank so the manure is buried deep in the soil where the beneficial microbes can process it safely. Not difficult for any farm machinery manufacturer.

This should not be such a challenge as it is cheaper than the ever increasing cost of fertiliser.

Urban farms

If we are going to have a nation of people with a healthy gut biota we need to change our city planning to allow for local growing of some plants. This way people have have plants which are harvested and eaten without delay, which is the greatest weakness of our modern food system.

Fresh means living - not gone rotten. An important difference.

This worked spectacularly well in Cuba during the sanctions where they developed an effective system of urban agriculture when under political stress.

We have a different stress now from chronic diseases - we just have to recognise the harm of our modern food system.

My plea

So my plea to these entrepreneurial types is simple. Don’t believe all the marketing bullshit or even what I tell you.

Set up some Gbiota boxes, start incorporating some Gbiota grown food into your diet and just monitor how you feel. Nothing complex, no special tests just ask yourself the simple question “Do I feel satisfied and am no longer craving food?”

You can do some scientific test if you like by measuring how much weight you have lost or how often you go to the toilet (sorry but your use of toilet paper will increase - just buy yourself a bidet).

And if the answer is yes then just tell other people. This is the way we will avoid all those amputations from diabetes and those hoards of starving people crossing borders in search of food.

Woke green activist

You may get called a woke green activist. People try and insult me all the time with that phrase, I take it as a compliment and feel good that I am a woke green activist and so should you. You are making the world a much better place for you and your great-grandchildren.

Not a bad feeling.

There is them that do and them that follow - if you are a doer join me - do it for yourself or do it for your grandkids

We are a social movement to change our food system so we thrive and survive.  Why not drop me an email and tell me about your interest in food and health first.

Gbiota technology controls the Eco system in the soil to breed beneficial microbes that enhance our gut biota to improve health  - We show you how.

  Join the Gbiota movement here for free (Expires 31st March 2024)

It is well known that our gut biota plays a major roles in our health. Many researchers, such as Tim Spector, Professor at Imperial College, London explains this in his book Food for Life.

Microbes breed and die incredibly fast. Within twenty minutes a new microbe will start to breed but will die after maybe seventy hours. The population continues but the individual microbes die.

You can have a faecal transplant and that works but is a sophisticated medical procedure with limitations.

But I cannot send you out a packed of beneficial microbes which you can buy on the internet and expect them to be still alive when they arrive - that’s life.

But I can teach you how you can create the conditions where beneficial microbes can breed so successfully that they out breed and out compete the harmful microbes which are always present. This is simple, practical and inexpensive.

Admittedly this requires more effort than swallowing a pill but is based on a system which has been proven to work - until we changed our food system.

Our super computer

The trillions of cells in our gut biome communicate with each other to form a super computer which regulates our bodies.

This behaves in the way that Artificial Intelligence operates, monitoring every piece of food we eat and seeing its effect on our bodies then deciding what and how much we want to eat.

Our gut brain is highly sophisticated.

There are thousands of different species in our gut brain, which originate in the soil and are transferred to our gut when we eat plants grown in that soil.

The soil, the microbes in the soil, the plants and our gut form an interconnected Eco system which changes according to the conditions.

The Gbiota technology controls these conditions to give us the Eco system which we know from observations of the real world lead to us having the healthiest gut and life style.

Fortunately this is a very easy technology to apply, home gardeners can change the microbes in their soil, even people living in apartments can create soil for growing plants in pots.

The main inputs are recycled organic waste, rock dust and inoculants making it a very inexpensive process - cheaper than buying food from the supermarket.

How many technologies lead to a longer health span and lower costs?

My role, in the Gbiota movement is to teach members how to enhance their soil by controlling the conditions.

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%).

Only a small part (may be 5%) of our food intake needs to be specifically to feed our gut brain - but it is vital for our health.

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.

Currently you can join for free and read all the articles on how to grow gut brain food, but you need to sign up with a valid email address and click the box on any post saying notify me of new posts.  We publish a new post about once a week, but we do not email members, you have to go to this web to see them.

We are not in the business of selling stuff, (although  we help other people supply gut brain food) our role is to teach people how to grow gut brain food and if you want to learn you need to join the Gbiota movement.

Colin

Grow gut brain food

A few hundred thousand year ago a puny creature that barely survived took a world changing decision - to use an existing technology, fire to cook food. This gave it the energy to grow a huge brain which led to intelligence and cooperation so this creature became the dominant creature on the planet - us.

What we ate changed us as a species.

Two brains

Actually we developed two brains, one in our head the other in our gut. They may be separate but they work together so we can call it our gut brain.

The brain in our gut is made up of trillions of cells which communicate with each other, just like super computer providing an intelligent control system which naturally regulates our bodies.

Smarter than AI

Our gut brain is really smart making modern artificial intelligence look like a dumbo

Throughout our life it is monitoring what we eat and what our body needs.

Is continuously manages our appetite so we eat what is healthy for us totally naturally.

If we are short of say B12, very common in modern society, and we eat some brewers yeast flakes, which is full of B12 then over time we will learn to really like yeast flakes.

For our gut brain to work properly we have to feed it gut brain food. It needs fibre, which comes from plants so existing microbes can flourish and breed and a fresh supply of microbes, preferably with a broad spectrum of species.

For hundreds of thousands of years we ate plants grown in living soil full of nutrients so had a healthy gut brain.

The big goof - we stopped feeding our gut brain

Then we made one of the biggest mistakes mankind has ever made, we stopped feeding our gut brain - we became fat and sick and our health span reduced as we started to eat highly processed food which was inert, dead like Monty Pythons parrot, and lacked essential nutrients and minerals.

This is easily solved by feeding our gut brain, which is easy, costs less that buying highly processed food and recycles waste organics which would otherwise be contributing to green house gases.

The plan

But how do we do this? We need a plan.

Concerened thinkers

My plan is to start by creating a social movement of concerned thinkers, anywhere in the world, who understand the importance of a healthy gut brain and are prepared to grow their own gut brain food and show to their friends and contacts that this really works.

Seeing is believing

In the second stage many more people will see the benefit of growing their own gut brain food and even though they have no garden or garden experience start growing their own gut brain food.

Commerial growers

In the third stage there will be a demand for gut brain food which will encourage local commercial growers to supply gut brain food.

My job is to show people how to grow gut brain food - that is what this web is all about.

First you have to join which you do here. For the next three months this is totally free. Over this period I will be writing many posts to show how to grow gut brain food. You should click the button to notify me of new posts at the bottom of any post and you will have to login to access these posts.

If you have any questions of issues just contact me at colin@gbiota.com

Watch videos of Gbiota boxes being made and regenerating with fresh microbes and nutrients, watch time under 3 minutes

watch here

Gut biota and health span

People are becoming very aware of how enhanced gut biota can lead to a longer health span.

Real food over pills

We live in the age of the hype machine promoting some magic pill which will instantaneously give them a healthy gut.

This is a fictitious world - the gut brain is one of the most sophisticated devices on the planet.

Our gut brain is  the intelligent control system which regulates our bodies and keeps us fit and healthy throughout our life.

We don’t get fat and sick simply because we eat too much, we get fat because our gut brain senses our diet it not right and sends our hormones to make us hungry - then we get fat. The solution is to feed our gut brain the food it needs.

Natural sophistication

It is highly sophisticated - the product of millions of years of evolution and is one of the wonders of the world.

From when you take your first gulp of milk from your mum to your very last meal your gut brain is learning what food is good, makes you feel satisfied and provides all the nutrients that you need.

I study the natural process of how our gut brain works and try make this information available to as many people as possible so they can enhance their gut brain.

Living soil over dirt and chemicals

I show how the natural process works from the microbes in the soil making insoluble rock particles in the soil into bio-available nutrients, how different species of plants will exude different sugars to attract specific species of microbes which will enter the plants and we will eat to form our gut biota.

I explain how you can create soil teaming with beneficial microbes and nutrients, which can grow plants which enhance your gut biota and the chances of a longer health span.

We cannot guarantee it will work for everyone, genetics and epigenetics (gene expression) means everyone is different.

Yes it will take more effort than buying some magic pill - but it a natural process that has evolved and been tested over millions of years.

Join the Gbiota movement for free Expires 31st March 2024

Fat and sick

Across the globe people are getting fat and sick from an epidemic of diseases like diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

Why?

Find our here at Fat and Sick

Recycling food waste

Recycling food waste to grow plants which are natural pre and pro biotics - extends health span - saves money - is more sustainable - anyone can do it - everyone should.

Our gut brain, made up of trillions of cells or thousands of species is like a super computer, monitoring everything we eat and the affect on our bodies and learns, over time,  to regulate our appetite - how much and what we want to eat.

If we feed it the right food, the beneficial microbes will work to give us a long health span free from chronic disease.

On the other hand, if we feed it the wrong food it is likely to lead to us becoming fat and sick.

We learned this from experiments with mice. We could make them fat or skinny simply by what we fed them.

We learned that humans are the same from using faecal transplants with slim people becoming fat.

We decide what we want to feed our gut brain.

It is our choice.

Virtually anyone can grow beneficial gut brain food at home starting with organic waste so it cost less than buying food from the supermarket.

There are literally hundreds of articles and videos on growing gut food which may be of interest to the technically curious but can be a bit overwhelming for those people who just want to grow gut brain food, but if you just follow Newposts you will soon get the latest information, as I publish new articles on my experiments regularly.

Read more at Fat and Sick

Check for new posts here

Check for new videos here

The shops are full of food. Currently we are growing enough energy food to feed the entire world with some to spare.

But energy food is not enough, there is a whole range of minerals and vitamins that are missing from modern food.

While we can buy pills containing all known Vitamins and minerals, but they are expensive.

However, there is one food that is totally missing - gut brain food.

That is important as our gut brain works as our intelligent control system which regulates our appetite and decides how much and where we store fat.

Lack of gut brain food is the root cause of the modern health epidemic of overweight, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

But you can’t buy gut brain food from a shop.

There is only really one way of getting gut brain food - and that is to grow it yourself and to pick and eat it while it is genuinely fresh.

Gut brain food is living and must be eaten while really fresh.

That is what this web site is all about - how you can  grow living gut brain food at home.

It is neither difficult or expensive, virtually anyone can do it but you have to do it the right way.

Join the Gbiota movement and grow your own gut brain food.

Join the Gbiota movement for free expires 31st March 2024

Fore more information email me at colin@gbiota.com

See help me help you

Read about the modern epidemic here

Read more at Conflict and aggression or peaceful coexistence

Read about fire and food here

Read about Our gut is a true brain with intelligence.

Join the Gbiota movement here

 See latest posts here

This web is in three sections

www.gbiota.com is a blog for technical information

www.gbiota.club is where club members can share information

www.pickandeat.shop is where members can trade

Need help?  Feel free to email me at colin@gbiota.com

When you have done your research into the Gbiota movement and are ready to join  you can sign up here

Our gut brain controls our body - feed it gut health food

Given the right moisture levels beneficial Biota breeds in the soil and the guts of creature that live in the soil

Which decides what and how much we eat, replaces cells as they age and hosts our immune system

The Gbiota social movement

I talk to a lot of people about gut biology and the importance of eating fresh food grown in biological active nutrient rich soil. Virtually everyone I talk to recognises that this is something they should - in principle - be doing.

Yet most still go to the Supermarket and buy a cabbage which is probably grown in inert soil using chemical industrial agriculture and at minimum is a week old - or more.

The nutrient values of plants deteriorate rapidly after being picked, I have read that the level of some critical nutrients will drop by half within twenty four hours.

Really fresh food simply tastes better so it would not be surprising if it also had more nutrients.

How do we get really fresh food for a healthy gut?

There are thousands of people who grow fresh food in their own gardens - it is nice to mess about in the garden.

But there are some eight billion people on earth and every one of them will have a gut that needs feeding gut food. Maybe there is some tycoon who has delusions of setting up some monster global corporation with captive local farms across the globe delivering really fresh food everyday.

Fresh gut food cannot be supplied by mega corporations with centralised production - chemical industrial farming is great for producing energy food but simply cannot produce gut food with the essential living Biota - that needs local production managed by skilled local growers.

But let me tell you I am fed up with global corporation telling me how I should live my life - better than living under a dictatorship - but not much. But what I can do is to help local growers set up their own viable local businesses to supply gut food.

We can create a global gut food industry based on independant and profitable local growers.

That’s practical - but there is an even better way - get the local growers to grow soil full of beneficial biology and essential minerals. This special soil can then be put into Gbiota Bioboxes so people can grow their own gut food regardless of whether they have growing skills, space or time - just a balcony or window ledge will do.

It is a simple but important change, instead of buying a cabbage from a super market that was probably grown in inert soil and was harvested over week or more ago people can buy a plant still growing in soil rich in biota and nutrients and harvest and eat whenever they want and it will still be genuinely fresh.

Even more potent is the growing of micro greens and tipping as descibed on this web - fresh every day.

This is a far better system than having some mega global corporation dictate what we eat - that is the cause of our current problems.

But there is good news and bad news.

The good news is that there are plenty of growers who are already convinced of the importance of soil and are applying regenerative farming techniques already.
Gbiota beds are just a form of regenerative growing but focused on gut biota.

The bad news is that it still costs some money and time to set up Gbiota beds to grow this soil and growers will only go to the trouble and expense if they see there is a market for supplying Gbiota Bioboxes.

You can solve this problem right here. Just click on this registration link here so we can contact you directly and in confidence.  We can then produce a geolocation map showing where there are clusters of keen consumers waiting for local growers to supply them with gut food.

This costs nothing and there is no commitment but when there is enough people signed up in a local area it is then straight forward to find local growers in the local area.

Health starts in the soil

A million years ago the first humanoids appeared, they had a food Eco-system based on eating plants from living soils. These microbes bred in the soil, protected them and they thrived and became us.

Then we changed our food Eco-system, started eating sterile food, we felt unsatisfied, overfed but undernourished, stressed and angry.

I developed a way of growing a soil, called Wickimix, teaming with beneficial microbes. I am now 84 fit and healthy from eating food from an Eco-system of this living soil. I show how to make Wickimix so everyone can benefit from food grown in living soil.

Food not pills.

.

 The choice is yours.

- live in the world of fake food, with skyrocketing prices as we exhaust the natural resources of the earth coupled with manipulative dis-information - “buy two for the price of three, special offer, buy now before prices rise”

or

- join the group of people that support real food with nature’s recyclers the worms, beetles, soldier, flies, microbes and fungi that regenerate the soil.

But it is more than recycling to provide a sustainable food system, vital as that is.

Regenerative growers get a fair price for their work selling to their local community without being screwed by the mega-corporations that dominate the current food industry.

Plants grown in regenerated soil are teaming with the beneficial microbes that lead to a healthy gut which leads to a longer health span and avoids the modern epidemic of chronic diseases, like obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, and dementia.

Gbiota technology provides the underlying technology but it is much more, it is a social movement to ensure an ongoing supply of food by recycling as the earth’s resources are depleted.

We welcome regenerative growers to join the movement and get a fair deal but we also welcome the thinking consumers who are supporting the regenerative growers by buying from them.

Working together we can avoid the ever-increasing spiralling cost of living and have a sustainable food system which keeps us healthy.

You will decide right now - you can skip this website and look for that special offer or you can start to learn about the Gbiota movement from the following articles and finally, whether a regenerative grower or thinking consumer join forces in the Gbiota social movement and create a future for our grandkids.

Do you want to live in a world where we all get fat and sick so mega-corporations can make massive profits by getting us addicted to sugary fatty foods?

If that is the way you think please move on, you are not welcome in the Gbiota club.

But if you want to make the world a better place to live in and share our belief that all people should have ready access to food at an affordable price and you are prepared to devote a bit of your time to our cause then please consider joining the Gbiota club.

We are a community benefit organisation based on the understanding that we all have a subconscious control system which regulates our bodies. Our gut is an integral part of this control system which decides how much fat we need to store.

If we have a healthy gut we increase the chances of living a long and healthy life, but an unhealthy gut is the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases, obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, and dementia.

Our modern food system does not feed our gut-brain, we need to create a new industry growing healthy gut-brain food.

If you are interested in helping create this healthy gut-brain food, industry either as a customer or grower, we suggest you start by reading these articles about why gut health is so important and then sign up to join the Gbiota social movement.

List of all files - latest first

Join the gut-brain social movement

Out gut is part of the intelligent control system which regulates what and how much we want to eat.

In the past we had a very healthy gut-brain but died young from infectious diseases.

Modern food may be hygienic and full of energy food but does not feed our gut-brain so we get fat and sick from non-infectious diseases.

Now we know how to get a healthy gut without getting infectious diseases.

We just have to make it happen.  Only we the people can make it happen, we decide what we eat, not big business or the Government, it is up to us.

Microbes breed in the soil, enter the plants we eat and form part of our gut-brain which determines whether we are fit and healthy or get fat and sick - our choice.  It is not rocket sciencce.

We need to create a new industry of growing gut-brain food with local growers and consumers working together. Gbiota aim is to bring consumers and local growers  together by community action.

We train local growers (and skilled individuals) to breed the beneficial microbes that form our gut brain and supply their local community.

Whether you are a consumer who wants a healthy gut-brain or a potential grower sign up to our free membership and become part of the action. You will receive our Newsletter and learn about gut-brain health.

Join the movement for community health and take control of your health.

Feed your gut bugs

Feed your gut bugs, they are your friends, your mates. They look after you, digest your food, house much of your immune system, and make all sorts of complex chemicals your body needs.

You provide a nice warm home for them but you do have to feed them. You would not have a dog, cat or bird and not feed them and they are pets, your gut bugs are your mates and look after you, you just have to feed them in return.

They just need plants, eaten fresh and grown in living soil full of beneficial microbes and nutrients.

They like to party (and breed) with other bugs, it’s called biome diversity.

But if you don’t feed them they get grumpy, just like a human mate would and they send out hormones that make food cravings so you overeat and get fat and sick, you may get diabetes and have a leg chopped off, die from a heart attack, or worst of all get dementia.

So feed your gut bugs, they are your mates, living creatures just like your human mates.

This website shows you how to grow gut food at home but if you are too busy or just can’t be bothered then go to your local farmer’s markets, preferably with a bunch of human mates, and find a local grower - just copy them on this web site and we will take it from there.

They will deliver Gbiota boxes to your door with plants already growing, all you have to do is water in the Gbiota way and pick and eat.

So simple, so inexpensive, less than buying ageing plants from a supermarket, just plants grown in living soil and eaten fresh before the good bugs die.

Why our gut-brain matters

Most people know that our gut is important for health - but do they know why?

Our gut-brain is the command centre for our bodies

Our gut contains trillions of cells which communicate with each other - just like in a computer.

It is the intelligent control system which regulates our bodies, in particular how much and what we want to eat.

We don’t get fat and sick simply because we eat too much. We get fat and sick because our gut-brain senses deficiencies in our diet so decides it need to store more fat, send out hormones so we overeat, then we get fat and sick.

We can choose - do we want to live a long and healthy life, fit and active to the very end or do we want to get fat and sick and die young.

We must feed our gut-brain

If we want to be fit and healthy then we need to feed out gut brain so it works properly. This is not a total guarantee, our genetics play a part but if we don’t feed our gut-brain then the odds of living a long and healthy life are remote.

Gbiota™ is not a product you can buy at a chemist shop - it is a way of growing food - plants that contain the beneficial microbes and phytonutrients that your gut-brain needs to work properly and you intelligent control system. Gut-Brain Food.

If you have the space and gardening skill you can do it yourself but for most people, particularly those living in a flat you will need to buy Gbiota boxes with plants already growing from a local grower.

Put your name on the waiting list

First step is to register here with with your general location so you are on the waiting list. When there is a group we will look for a local grower in your area who can supply Gbiota boxes.

The wrong fat in the wrong place

Overweight, diabetes, heart attacks, and dementia all have a common underlying cause - the wrong fat in the wrong place.

This is not because we have turned into little piggies and overeat, it is because our modern chemical industrial food system is deficient in phyto-nutrients and beneficial microbes.

Our gut-brain, our intelligent control system that regulates our bodies, senses this deficiency and send out signals creating food cravings so we overeat and then we get fat and sick.

You can easily solve this by growing your own gut brain food, even if you live in a flat with no garden.

That is what this website is all about - we show you how.

Save 100,000 legs from diabetic amputation

This looks at the changes we must make to our food system to reduce the impact of chronic diseases like diabetes and ensure a sustainable supply of food that will keep us healthy.

Read more here

Colin Austin © 29th June 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.

My Teddy

If you think everything in the world is fine then you are either a hermit or smoking some pretty strong stuff.

The heartless massacre of ordinary people by powerful militia and the possibility of World War 3 cannot go unnoticed.

Neither can the waves of hungry refugees moving across the globe looking for a safe place to live.

We could say that is just ‘The News’ but look at one of the wealthiest countries in the world, good old Australia. Homeless people sleeping under bridges because there are not enough houses while we have plenty of land while the builders who could build more houses are going bankrupt.

If that is not crazy I don’t know what is. Actually, I do - a food system which is making us fat and sick while we are a major food exporter.

One solution would be to take our teddies and hide under the blanket until mummy says it is safe to come out - but there is not a factory capable of making 8 billion teddies in time.

So who is going to save us? Could it be big business? Unlikely, big business has learned the trick of Neo-monopolies so we now have autocratic capitalism which seems not that much better than the worst of autocratic Governments.

Nice to think that our Governments are coming to save us, but it is not looking good. They are struggling as much as us to come to terms with the new world order as the over-exploitation of our natural resources begins to bite.

So what do we do? We do what made humans the dominant creature on earth, we use our intelligence and cooperate.

But how. Well, look at climate change. For decades scientists were telling us that things were going to get bad, but the delaying tactics of the fossil fuel industry and the lack of public pressure meant that Governments learned the ancient art of procrastination.

Then along came a school girl with Asperger syndrome, a grotty cardboard sign and determination and it totally tipped the balance. Now let us be clear, she did not change the world by herself, what she did was convince a few people that uncontrolled burning of fossil fuels was not the greatest idea, and they convinced the next tier who in turn convinced the next tier.

And before you could say Greta Thunberg the social pressure was so great that no Government could resist the social pressure. She formed a tribe that was unstoppable.

Now we need a food tribe. A tribe that understands that we need more than energy food, we need a food system that both makes us healthy and is sustainable.

To be healthy we need a healthy gut. Our gut does more than digest our food, the trillions of cells in our gut communicate with each other, just like in a supercomputer, to form a brain with real intelligence. This gut-brain decides what and how much food we want to eat and also hosts much of our immune system.

We simply cannot be healthy without a healthy gut-brain and that means feeding it gut-brain food.

And that is why we call it Gbiota and we use the slogan ‘Feed your gut brain’.

Our next job is to form a tribe with people who understand the importance of the gut-brain and want to live a long and healthy life and growers who can grow gut-brain food and see that this is providing both a community service but also an ethical and profitable business opportunity for those with a pioneering spirit.

So be smart, join the Gbiota social movement and be part of a social movement to create a food system that makes us healthy and is sustainable.

The community benefits of gut-brain food

Colin Austin © 8thMay 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.

The black foot and avoiding amputation

My wife Xiulan, a medical doctor and surgeon became diabetic, the professional medical given to us was that diabetes is an irreversible chronic disease, that will steadily get worse, we will put you on progressively stronger medicines but eventually, you are likely to end up with insulin injections and you will probably die young from some complications from diabetes.

We accepted that advice as an honest attempt to make us aware of the harsh reality.

But when her foot started to turn black we were advised that she would probably need to have her foot amputated.

We were not happy to accept that advice, searched all the relevant scientific literature we could find as it was quite clear to us that there was a big difference between what the leading researchers were saying and the advice being offered at the retail level.

So what did we see? Now let me be upfront, my wife may be a medical doctor but I am an engineer and engineering is really about the generation, transmission and application of power. So I naturally tend to look at the human body as a thermodynamic machine - like a steam engine.

The body as a thermodynamic machine

Thermodynamic machines have three components, they have a source of energy, in the case of a steam engine a boiler which burns fuel.

As long as the fuel burns in the boiler it does not matter much what the fuel is, coal, oil, gas, that old piano, table or chair that is never used, as long as it gives off heat that is all that matters.

It is the same with the human body. The energy food we eat, whether chicken wings and chips or the most select organic produce, is simply burned off as fuel.

There is widespread concern about the reliability of food supply yet our modern food system produces enough fuel, energy food to power the entire human population (if it were equatable distributed) now and for years to come.

As long as the sun continues to shine and some dictator with no social conscience and access to rocket technology, and who happens to have a palace on the shores of the Baltic Sea which is in danger of flooding, does not decide to blanket out the sun, there is, and will not be, a shortage of fuel.

Yet nutritionists seem obsessed with calories - lack of calories is not the issue. They should just forget about calories.

There are much bigger issues at stake.

That great clanking machine

Our hypothetical steam engine has a structure which must be built and maintained, oils and lubricants applied to keep the machine running smoothly and parts replaced as they wear. In our steam engine, this is done by humans but our bodies are much more sophisticated.

From very conception the fetus, weighing just a few grams, is supplied with food which enables it to grow to a few kilograms and after birth continues to consume food to grow to full size.

But even then our body parts may look pretty much the same but most of our body parts are being replaced, some like our skin very rapidly others like our teeth much slower.

We could say, in rather round terms that every three months we need to build a new body and for that we need food, not as much volume as for fuel, but still significant.

For some two thousand years this happened from our basic diet, largely from the complex chemicals, and phytonutrients in plants grown in living soil and eaten straight after picking.

These phytonutrients are incredibly complex - a single tomato will have some thousand different phytonutrients and no one really knows what they do.

Our modern food system lacks these phytonutrients and this is where nutritionists shine. They use their skills, and sophistication of modern technology, to produce a range of pills and supplements to overcome these deficiencies.

By and large, it works - at least sort of.

The intelligent controller

But then we come to the last bit of our steam engine. All machines has some sort of controller, it could be a simple on/off switch or it could be a highly sophisticated intelligent control system.

Now it just so happens that my first job as an engineer was working for a company that made controllers for power stations which happen to be highly relevant to the human body.

So let me tell you a funny story about power station controllers - and believe me it is relevant.

Most of the time this is pretty easy, you just monitor the load on the system and adjust the input energy with some fairly basic technology.

The controller measures for any error and if the energy input is too low or high it simply cuts back in proportion to the error. This is called proportional control

But as the error reduces the correction reduces so it never completely corrects the error. So the controller integrates the error and adjusts accordingly. This is called integral control.

But sometimes things change very rapidly so the system also measures the rate of change so the controller applies damping so the system is stable. This is called derivative control.

This may not seem to be connected to how our bodies work but we have a much better control system which I want to tell you about.

On many Saturday afternoons, there is a football match and the power consumption is low until the interval when a sizeable proportion of the population will get up and switch their kettles on for a quick cuppa creating a huge surge in power consumption.

This completely overwhelms the control system which by the time it gets the power plant up to the power setting the play has restarted.

How do struggling engineers like me manage this crisis - and no cuppa at halftime is a real crisis.

We all have an intelligent control system

This is really important because this is what our bodies do exceptionally well.

We call it adaptive or self-learning software (which was among the software I wrote).

The way it works is that you think you know that there will be a power demand at 3.30 and it will take 30 minutes to get up that extra pressure so you write software so at 3 it schedules the power station up to number 6 on the dial and sit back and see how big a goof you have made.

At 3.30 you (or the system) find out that you had made a big goof and it was nowhere near big enough so in the software you have written code which says big goof increase by 50% so next Saturday it dials it up to number 9 and wait and see what happens.

And what happens is pressure relief valves blowing off all over the place because number 9 is far too big so the software says 6 is far too small and number 9 is a bit too big so next week it tries number 8 and this goes on and until it works out that 7.352 works really well.

How does this relate to the human body? This is the way the human body works, we have an intelligent control system which is regulating every aspect of our bodies. This is the way our bodies work. But even though I used to be what was called a gun coder (like a gun shearer pretty good at the job) I have absolutely no idea of the code and nor does anyone else.

But that does not mean it is not happening.

At the shopping centre

Next time you go to a shopping centre you will see many obese or overweight people and assume they are just fat little piggies stuffing themselves. And you would be wrong.

There is a chance it could be genetic, some people are just naturally fat, but not that many.

It could be that the body is sensing that there are deficiencies in the diet, such as a lack of essential phytonutrients and goes into panic sending out signals to eat more so it can stuff fat anywhere and everywhere it can ready for a rainy day.

Or it could be a fault in the supercomputer in your gut-brain or more technically the wrong species of microbes in your gut.

Either of these is easily fixed by adding gut-brain food to your diet. I may not know the code in your gut-brain but at least I know how to feed it gut-brain food which automatically includes the phytonutrients.

You can read the technical details in this post - it is straightforward growing plants in Wickimix, the special soil, and maintaining the Goldilocks moisture level. But the plants must be eaten shortly after picking which means it must done at home or at least locally. This is not an operation for mega industries

But how do I let people know that this technology exists?

The disinformation age

When the internet and its search engines came out I thought this was one of the greatest innovations of all time giving all people access to that vast pool of knowledge which previously was only available to a limited few.

What a great equaliser.

And I was wrong, we are just saturated with dis-information with companies collecting our private details so they can sell that information to anyone who wants to sell us something.

I know this from personal experience. My interest is in gut biology and we get our first gut biology from mum at birth and later while breastfeeding. So naturally I use the internet to search for information about birthing and breastfeeding.

AI of GS?

As a result, I get bombarded with companies trying to sell something that a pregnant lady may want to buy. Now I ask you what is the probability of an 84 year-old male being pregnant - answer sweet FA. That’s why they call it Artificial Intelligence AI or as I prefer GS Genuinely Stupid.

What this means is that instead of the Internet being this wonderful innovation where people can get information out it is a blocker of information transfer.

But it is worse than that. Disinformation is such an important issue that it has received a staggering amount of research with some rather unsavoury conclusions.

What this research says is that we naturally form groups and are far more likely to believe what our group says than the facts.

Whether we are aware of it or like it the software on the internet naturally forms us into groups with common views. They call it the echo chamber.

Right or wrong is irrelevant it is what the group thinks that matters.

This even happens in science where the greedy piggy theory dominates the intelligent control system theory for being overweight.

Social conscience and the food industry

The modern food industry does an amazing job of providing us with energy food. It also does an equally amazing job of supplying us with an enormous variety of food choices - a variety of foods from all over the world in and out of season.

This is just so different to when I was a kid when food was just plain boring, toast for breakfast, meat and two veg for lunch and bread and butter and cake for tea.

But almost everyone would grow some fruit and vegetable in naturally living soil which supplied the phytonutrients and gut-brain food essential for health.

True there were some fat people but there was no epidemic of chronic diseases, that is manmade as a result of our food system.

We can buy vegetables from the supermarket but they will have been grown in soil with synthetic fertilisers so even at picking will be low in phytonutrients and beneficial microbes.

By the time they have been transported and at arrived our table these will have died - hence the food deficiency and chronic disease epidemic.

There is no point in trying to change the existing food industry which is dominated by megacorporations whose focus is on profits rather than saving people from having their limbs amputated from diabetes.

And in any case, the issue is the deficiencies of phytonutrients and beneficial microbes in their food.

If their product contained any ingredients that were harmful they would be legally liable but how can a company be legally liable for something that is not in their product?

We have to think of a new way in which we overcome group-think which has led to a lack of confidence in what people see on the web and is a major obstacle to the adoption of any new technology.

Creating a new local gut-brain industry

At this moment members of the Gbiota movement understand the importance of the technology and are prepared to make the boxes, collect the waste and basically do everything themselves - it is a ‘do it yourself ‘movement run by and for the community.

I have spent a lot of time working our ways that people, living in a flat can collect their waste and turn this into Wickimix, the soil in Gbiota boxes, and a key ingredient in the Gbiota technology.

It works but does require a bit of dedication and is not for everyone.

But think how much easier it would be with Government support.

We should try and persuade local councils to collect food waste and process this into Wickimix. Most councils have land available even in the centre of cities that could be used but they all have some form of recreation land or parks. Every flower bed in every park could be used to prepare Wickimix and they have horticultural expertise.

It is just requires burying the rubbish, covering with soil, growing plants that exude the sugars which attract the beneficial microbes then and managing the moisture levels.

After a few months, the WickiMix could be dug up and sold to local growers who could use the Wickimix to prepare Gbiota boxes with plants ready to harvest, which they could sell, on a swap-over basis, to local people who have little to do other than water and harvest their plants and supply clean kitchen waste to the council collection service.

This is a social issue project but just look at the economics.

In Australia, 4,400 people a year have a diabetic amputation which costs about $40,000 in total cost to our health system. That works out at $176,000,000 per year.

This money could be better spent in other areas of our health system but some of this money should be used to help the local councils who would provide the waste collection and processing.

It just needs coordinating all these activities to make it happen.

Making it easy

Over the years I have written up many posts on how to make Gbiota boxes and beds - so many that it’s all a bit confusing so I have gone back over these posts, selected out the key bits of information and created one single post.

This is part of my campaign to save 100,000 people from diabetes amputation.

Basic principles

People get diabetes from deficiencies of phyto-nutrients and beneficial microbes in our modern diet.

Our intelligent control system, our gut brain, that regulates senses these deficiencies, sends out signals for us to eat more, then stores this as fat which in the case of diabetics goes to the pancreas so it can no longer makes insulin and bingo we are diabetic.

The solution which will work for most people is to feed our gut brain.

Will it work for you? I have no idea, genetics play a part in diabetes - you just have to try it and see.

But it is simple and inexpensive.

- make soil (Wickimix) a combination of clay (chemistry works on the particles surface), minerals (volcanic rock dust), organic waste (from your kitchen), creatures of the soil (like worms, soldier flies and other wrigglies which have a gut biome just like us) and inoculant (good bugs).

- set up an irrigation schedule so the water never becomes stagnant and floods and drain the soil so it breathes expelling old stale air and sucking in fresh air.

- grow a broad spectrum of plants

- pick and eat them while still fresh before the beneficial microbes die.

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 an irreversible disease.

It never used to be like this - what went wrong?​

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

And what are we told? Eat less exercise more.

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

We are not simply little piggies that eat too much - we overeat when we sense a deficiency in our diet and our gut-brain decides we need to fix that deficit.

Our bodies, actually our gut-brain, has real intelligence and can detect deficiencies in our bodies and hits 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.

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 does not tell us to stop eating - that is probably the most common cause of obesity.

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.

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 fake 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.

But what I can do is provide the mechanism for people who are growing their own gut-brain food to tell their story. We are the dominant species on earth because we are intelligent and cooperative.

Join a social movement so we all have food that makes us healthy - read more here.

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.

Our intelligent control system

We all have an intelligent control system that regulates our bodies to give us the best chance of a long and healthy life.

It is a combination of our head and gut brain so we call it the gut-brain.

Its aim is to keep us alive and healthy as long as possible, it understands that it cannot do this forever so it wants us to breed to preserve its DNA.

Our intelligent control system is the most important system in our bodies, it keeps us alive and breeding.

It receives signals from all over our bodies, processes them to decide what action to take then sends out instructions.

If we get fat and sick it is not simply because we eat too much, it is because our gut-brain tells us to eat too much then we get fat and sick.

It evolved over many thousands of years, fed by plants, grown in living soil, and eaten fresh.

Our modern food system no longer feeds our gut-brain leading to an epidemic of chronic diseases, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, and dementia.

If we want to increase our chances of a long and healthy life, we need to feed our gut-brain.

This website shows how. Anyone can do it but it is not trivial. Don’t be conned by the manipulative advertising that you can take some magic pill and be fit and healthy for ever, that is the virtual world but we live in the real world.

There are hundreds of posts and videos on this site which can be overwhelming so I have created a special post called Map to direct readers to the posts and videos that are relevant to them. This often changes.

Start by reading these two articles.

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.

This is the covering letter and text to my video save 100,000 diabetic amputations

I have set myself the target of saving 100,000 people from a diabetic leg amputation before the end of 2025.

I know how to do this, I am an engineer and engineers take the best available science and turn this into a practical solution.

But that is not enough, I am also an entrepreneur and entrepreneurs ensure that this practical solution is adopted.

I have a track record I was a pioneer of computer-aided engineering and built up a multi-million dollar company from my back bedroom which ensured that my pioneering technology was adopted globally.

I was recognised by the Institute of Engineers as one of Australia’s leading innovators.

The best of science tells us that the epidemic of diabetes, and other chronic diseases is the wrong fat in the wrong place and the underlying cause is our diet, not eating too much fatter sugary food but a deficiency of phyto-nutrients and beneficial microbes which power our gut brain.

I can do it but I need serious help from people who see this as a worthwhile cause and are prepared to commit some of their time.

It is not a question of money, the average cost of a leg amputation is $48,000 so saving 100,000 amputations saves $4,800,000,000 and that is not counting the personal costs and the solution is cheaper than buying food from the supermarket.

What we need is fresh thinking and committed time - priceless.

I have made a video to explain this, please watch

and if you can help email me at colin@gbiota.com

I made this video to help resolve one of the biggest problem facing mankind, our food supply and consequent health.

My short term objective is to save 100,000 people before the end of 2025 from having a limb amputated from diabetes. This video shows how, technically, this can be done - if I can find a way of getting the message out.

When I ask for help from internet marketing experts they tell me I am doing it all wrong, in our modern information society people are dumb donkeys with the attention span of a grass hopper.

Prove them wrong.

True it is long and there are no car chases, sex scenes, half naked ladies frolicking in water falls, or pub fights to grab you attention but I have compromised by adding this preview in the hope that it will inspire you to watch the video through.

This is what to expect.

Stage 1 analyse the facts

First I analyse the facts, and come to the highly controversial conclusion that the issue it not an excess of sugar and fats but a deficiency in gut-brain food.

Simply eating less is not the solution - we need to eat more, of the right sort of food that feeds our but-brain which regulates our bodies.

A healthy gut-brain needs the right sort of microbes in our gut.

Stage 2 develop a solution

But I am an engineer, I use science as a tool to provide solutions which will work for the eight billion people on earth.

So secondly I have to take my analysis and work out a practical solution.

Pro-biotics, even if they work, which is doubtful, is not a practical solution. We need to eat plants grown in living soil full of the beneficial microbes. But the majority of people live in cities, often in apartments with no garden. Where do they get the living soil?

When I suggest that they should put out a tray of bird seeds and the birds will deliver, free of charge, little capsules full of nutrients and beneficial biota people think I am a nutter.

Pigeon pooh has a far wider range of beneficial microbes than any commercial pro-biotic.

Just add it to the soil mix and grow plants full of living biota. Eating fresh baby greens, as a juice or salad before main meals could be the difference between you becoming fat and sick, and like eight million people every year having a limb amputated from diabetes.

Am I a green nutter?

At this point you would be quite justified in thinking I am some sort of green nutter. I can live with that, but I don’t want you missing the message that could save 100,000 legs from amputation.

So not for my ego but for credibility for my augments let me just say I was a pioneer of computer aided engineering, I solved complex coupled partial differential equations that had never been solved before.

I was recognised by the Institute of Engineers as one of Australia's, leading innovators and build up a company that was the countries leading exporter of technical software.

I was recognised as the world leader in my somewhat niche area of computational fluid flow. I was jeered at when I suggested that some flow problems could be solve by using flow channels smaller which goes against common sense but was proved to be correct.

So please just hesitate when I suggest that pigeon pooh may be the practical solution for providing the eight billion people on earth a healthy gut.

Stage 3 How to create a paradigm shift

The scars on my back from trying to introduce paradigm changes ideas show I have learned a bit about how to create change.

So now comes the third and biggest problem of getting widespread adoption.

Innovators, by themselves, rarely change community attitudes.

That is done by a social change where other people try the new technology for themselves, find it works, tell others who form a second tier, then a third and forth tiers develop and what was thought of as a nutty idea becomes the accepted norm.

But even these three stages are not enough, targets have to be set and plans developed to reach those targets.

Stage 4 Setting targets

So let me, before you get down to the body of the video, let me tell you my targets are and how to reach them.

My immediate target is to save 100,000 people from having a limb amputated from diabetes before the end of 2025.

As eight million people a year have a limb amputated this may seem a puny target but it achievable and once the rock starts to roll down the hill it will pick up its own inertia.

So how does the plan shape up.

Diet, and feeding the gut-brain, may be the big issue but genetics still play a part, may be a small part, so some people will not avoid having a limb amputated.

So to save 100,000 amputations we need to 150,000 diabetics.

There is no way I can help 150,000 diabetics myself so lets work backwards.

5,000 people, knowledgeable in the Gbiota technology of growing gut-brain food could each act as coaches to groups of 30 diabetics giving us the support structure for the 150,000 diabetics.

So how do we get 5,000 trained coaches? Well I have been working on the Gbiota technology for many years now and could name at least 200 people who would make excellent coaches to the coaches giving the right incentives.

Motivation

So what is in if for them? The same as what is in it for me.

In a world which has gone crazy where so many people seem obsessed with greed, money and power and kill other humans on an industrial scale the feeling that you are one of the last few humans in existence that is prepared to work for the benefit of other humans.

Humans are the most successful creature on the planet because we are intelligent and naturally cooperative. We enjoy cooperting.

Ok lets start the video

My name is Colin Austin, the founder of the Gbiota movement. I am eighty-four years old, fit and healthy. Most days I go for a long walk in the neighbouring bushland, ride my bike and dig my garden.

I don’t blow my top when medical experts, half my age, tell me how to increase my life span - that is until they start telling me things which are wrong and make things worse rather than better.

Infectious diseases

Let me tell you about life. When I was a kid people worried about infectious diseases. We did not get vaccinated, if a local kid came down with a childhood infection, like chicken pox, our mums would set up a chicken pox party so we kids caught chicken pox, or whatever, and would develop immunity.

It was like a right of passage.

The disease we feared most was polio, I had an aunt who predated Sigourney Weaver in Aliens by having an iron exoskeleton so she could clump around.

Modern non-infectious or chronic diseases, like diabetes, no doubt existed but were rare and most people, including myself, did not even know they existed.

But over the years we made dramatic improvements in medical science overcoming many of these infectious diseases.

But then we replaced these infectious diseases with an epidemic of chronic or non-infectious diseases, in particular diabetes, heart attacks and dementia. This did not happen by some fluke of nature, it was man-made - unintentional, but still man-made.

Science developed a whole range of powerful technologies, like Mass spectrometry and DNA testing which gave us an insight into these chronic diseases. Biochemistry became a highly sophisticated science telling us the most intricate details of the chemicals in our bodies.

The wrong fat in the wrong places

The wrong fat in the wrong place is the underlying cause of these chronic diseases, fat in the pancreas prevents the production of insulin, plaque in the arteries prevents the supply of oxygen to the heart and amyloid plaques lead to dementia.

Eat less exercise more

Medical scientists applied the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of mass, normally the domain of engineers like myself, to the human body with disastrous results.

This led to the widespread view that we got fat because we ate too much and the solution was to eat less and exercise more.

Now while we can debate the wisdom of applying these engineering laws to the human body it totally misses the point.

The real reason why we get fat

Of course, these basic laws apply to the body as well as everything else but eating too much is not the reason why we get fat.

Biochemistry may be an exceptionally powerful tool it is still just a tool which does not get the real reason why we get fat.

It is the wrong tool. A hammer is a very good tool but is not a good tool for smashing open a bottle of wine.

While our bodies must conform to the fundamental laws of physics they are not the driving force that make our bodies work.

Intelligent control system

Our bodies have an intelligent control system which regulates our bodies, particularly how much and what sort of food we want to eat. It starts learning from birth when mum teaches us that her breasts are a good source of food.

It continues learning throughout life. It can sense if we are short of a particular nutrient and learns what type of food will satisfy that need.

We see this in action every time we dig our gardens on a hot summer day. We sweat and lose that complex combination of salts needed in our blood. So when we take a break we do not crave sweet food, even though we have used a lot of energy, we crave foods that will replace those salts.

We see this in people who have been deprived of food - like in wartime. Our control system learns and when food becomes available it sends out signals for us to eat as much as we can and store more fat.

We repeat this with calorie-restricted diets, we are training our control system that it needs to store more fat.

Not little piggies

This is a crunch point, we do not store fat simply because we are little piggies and eat too much, we store fat because our control system is attempting to protect us from food deficiencies by sending out signals, hormones and electrical signals saying ‘eat more’ so it can store more fat.

Eating more is not the cause of people getting fat, it is enabling our control system to store more fat.

Chronic diseases

This is a big deal, chronic diseases have largely replaced infectious diseases as a major health threat. They are now the dominant cause of death, I am told that 80% of deaths are from chronic diseases.

The social and financial costs to modern society are huge.

Eight million people have a limb amputated from diabetes. This may not affect life span but it certainly affects health span and the quality of life.

Deficiencies in our diet

The underlying cause is deficiencies in our modern diet. Our modern food system is a highly efficient producer of bulk or energy food, sugars, fats and carbohydrates - enough to feed the entire world with energy food but it has two fundamental deficiencies.

The simplest to solve is a lack of trace minerals which is easily solved by taking the appropriate supplement - far from ideal - much better to eat the right sort of food but supplements can work.

This is highly profitable for the food and supplement industry which is dominated by large profit-orientated companies so it happens.

Dominant deficiency - gut-brain food

But by far the most important is the food that feeds our intelligent control system - our gut-brain.

Our gut has trillions of cells which communicate with each other providing genuine intelligence.

Our gut brain controls our appetite, manufactures many of the complex chemicals our bodies need and powers much of our immune system.

If you want to have a long and healthy life you just have to feed your gut brain.

Feeding our gut-brain

We need to feed the existing microbes in our gut. This is relatively simple, their main food is fibre which is readily grown.

But that is not enough - we also need to be introducing new microbial life into our gut.

That is much more difficult.

Microbes breed like crazy - there is no problem about breeding microbes. 

Good v Bad bugs

But we need to breed the right sort of microbes - there are a whole spectrum of beneficial microbes we need but there are also harmful microbes which can make us sick or even kill us.

We can solve this by creating the conditions which favour the beneficial microbes so they out-compete and out-breed the harmful microbes.

This is a key part of the Gbiota system but is not our invention - it has been going on naturally for millions of years.

This is relatively easily done, even people living in apartments can grow their own gut-brain food.

One bug year is equivalent to one human year

Microbes may breed very fast but they also die very fast - an hour in the life of a microbe may be equivalent to a human year.

Do it yourself

This is not a problem for the home growers who can have plants growing in containers in their home so they can just pick and eat.

But it is a major problem for the current food system which is based on large centralised growing, often in mono-cultures and with an extended distribution system.

In the short term, people can grow their own gut-brain food. This is a solution for many people but everyone on this earth needs to have a healthy gut-brain.

Local growers

Longer term we need a system of local growers, a totally different scenario from our current food system which is dominated by a small number of very large corporations who dominate the market.

Gbiota - aim number 1

Gbiota’s first aim is to show people how to grow their own gut-brain food.

It is neither desirable nor practical to set up a global operation supplying gut-brain food as a supermarket shelf item.

Profit v health

The big question that people have to ask themselves is this - across the globe people living in a modern society are getting sick and dying from non-infectious diseases which is the result of deficiencies in our food system dominated by a few mega companies dominated by short-term profits.

Is this really what we want?

Our current food system is however very efficient in producing large quantities of energy food, sugars, fats and carbs which are our primary food source.

It is difficult to believe that they would have the desire, let alone the capability of creating a local industry to provide the relatively small, but essential, amount of gut-brain food needed to supply the community with gut-brain food.

Sustainability

We can go to the supermarket and think that the shelves will remain full of food way out into the foreseeable future - so why worry?

The eight billion people on earth generate an outstanding amount of waste which is full of nutrients that have typically been mined and there is a finite supply.

Phosphorous is essential for plant growth and is top of the list for critical minerals which will be exhausted, certainly in the lives of our current children. But this applies, in a less urgent way, to all the nutrients we currently mine.

In the short-term, we can recycle food waste - which is precisely what the Gbiota system does.

But in the longer term we will need a major revolution in recycling waste which is likely to come from reprocessing seaweed which effectively captures all the organic waste which we dump into the sea.

Gbiota aims number 2 - Community action

We can learn a lot about how social movements occur by studying the climate action movement.

This is closely analogous to the food industry with a small number of mega corporations in the fossil fuel industry that were making large profits and had the capacity to influence Governments.

But a climate action started from a little school girl sitting out in the freezing cold outside the Swedish parliament with a grotty cardboard sign.

Now let’s be clear, politicians even from the Swedish parliament, let alone from around the world, did not stop to talk to Greta Thunberg.

But a few people just passing by stopped to talk and thought she had a point.

Then these people talked to other people creating a second tier who in turn created a third then a forth tier. And soon there was a global climate movement which the politician could not ignore.

We must learn from this because having a food supply that keeps us healthy is a sister to climate change.

In a country like Australia which can go from below freezing at night to 40ºC in the day a couple of degrees of warming may not seem worth while worrying about. But it affects rainfall and coupled with the degradation of our soils will inevitably lead to a food crisis.

This will cause unimaginable difficulties, mass migration of desperate starving people, political instability within countries and conflict between countries.

Have no illusions this is something that we all must take steps to avoid, and we have two overridingly powerful weapons - the power of public opinion and the power of the wallet.

So if you share these views why not join the Gbiota movement. You can start by joining the free section of the gbiota.com web. Later you can upgrade, learn how to make Gbiota beds and boxes and participate in our community. 

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.

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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

Survival

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.

Humans, the great survivors

Humans are the great survivors. We are the dominant species on Earth, spreading across the globe to every corner of the Earth that is vaguely habitable.

Now we are under threat, what could possibly be a threat to this great survivor species? To answer that we have to ask what makes us so good at surviving.

We are not naturally well equipped, we don’t have big teeth or claws like a tiger, we cannot run fast like an antelope and we don’t even have the reaction time of a fly.

Yet I can walk down Bundaberg main street, I am not attacked by a tiger but I could easily be killed by another human being. Not with a knife in some desperate attack but by the driver of a car, not intentionally but either me or the driver not paying attention.

The danger of the unintended error.

That is the big threat, humans just not bothering to pay attention, killing each other or even the entire species.

And what is this great threat that will kill us? Not the atomic bomb, not some local conflict spreading from Ukraine or Gaza to World War 3 but something as simple as friendly as food.

But first, why have we been so good at the survival game?

What makes humans so good at surviving?

Intelligence and cooperation.

All creatures have some form of control system so they search for food, and run away from danger.

But humans have an intelligent control system, far superior to any animal. It regulates every action in our bodies, it has sensors throughout the body that receive information, either by chemicals or electrical signals, processes this information, just like a computer processes information, then sends out action signals.

Air

We need air to breathe, if we are short of oxygen our bodies sense this and send out signals telling our lungs to breathe faster and our heart beats faster to distribute the oxygen.

Our immune system

Every time we breathe we suck in air which will certainly contain some microscopic life that could kill us, yet this is examined by our immune system, and the results reported to our intelligent control system which then decides whether this is a threat, and if the answer is yes, sends signals to our immune system saying ‘deal with this one’.

This happens so automatically we don’t even think about it, but it does not just happen, it is the result of our intelligent control system working so well that we are just not aware of it.

Temperature

This happens with every bodily function, think about temperature.

Our bodies only work over a very limited temperature range, if it gets to cold our intelligent control system sends our signals to shut down the blood flow to our extremities so we lose less heat, our fingers may turn white and we will burn more energy to create heat, shivering and flapping our arms about.

Food

Now think about food, in our affluent Western lifestyle we have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with maybe snacks in between. We don’t think about it much, we just do it, largely out of habit.

But we have two levels of thought, the conscious one saying choosing steak or fish or even vegetarian but then there is the subconscious thinking by our intelligent control system - which is much more intent.

Let us have a look at what is going on under the bonnet with an intelligent control system.

Self-learning

As soon as we are born our gut-brain starts going through a learning process.

We hear a lot these days about artificial intelligence which needs to go through a process of learning and when it is adequately trained can make quite remarkable predictions. When I have finished writing this I will run it through an AI program to check for all those typos and grammatical errors everyone makes.

But it won’t check for any illogical thinking, it takes a human brain to do that.

Human bodies have been using a much superior form of artificial intelligence for many thousands of years.

How our intelligent control system works

It is amazing that the most important system in our bodies, our intelligent control system does not have a proper name, the nearest is homeostasis but that does not describe what it does, so I call it simply our gut-brain.

Our gut-brain works just like AI Artificial Intelligence, except it has real intelligence from our head brain.

Whenever we eat our gut-brain learns. It understands that we need food to provide energy, food to grow or replace our body parts as they age, and food for our gut-brain itself.

If we are short of a particular essential nutrient, some phytonutrient or mineral like zinc, and we eat a food that provides that missing nutrient our gut- brain learns and remembers this, so when we are short of that specific nutrient again, it sends us signals making us crave that particular food.

Baby

Baby will start to hunt around to find something to suck on, hopefully find mum’s breast and have a good feed.

You may say that is just instinct, but it is not. We come pre-prepared with genes from our Mum and Dad which forms part of our intelligent control system, and that part says suck.

If sucking feels good, then the baby will continue sucking.

But breast milk, in addition to containing babies food also contains another mystery substance. That mystery has now been solved as it is food for the baby’s gut biota.

The baby acquires microbes from mum during birth (hopefully) but microbes have a short life so it was essential to develop a system of feeding them.

Solution - put microbe food into breast milk.

Designing the gut

If someone were designing the human body from scratch they would quickly see the need for a gut, with microbes to process the food to make it bio-available to the body.

It is not obvious, at first, that the gut should become a second brain. But with a little thought, the benefits are obvious. The gut is where we receive our food, which until very recently was contaminated with many harmful microbes - germs.

So making the gut a centre for the immune system makes perfect sense. But the immune system needs an intelligent controller, at a minimum to decide which microbes are beneficial and which are harmful and need dealing with.

Intelligent control systems are common in nature, bees, ants, and slime moulds which have intelligent control systems, existed long before humans came on the scene. They are based on the ability of microbes to communicate with each other to form an intelligent system.

The microbes already existed in our food so it was natural that we should develop a second intelligence system in our gut.

We were lucky that the designer, in this case, nature, linked the two intelligence centres together so they worked as an integrated system.

How can nature be so clever?

Our intelligent control system is one of the wonders of the world so how did it develop?

It did take a long time, something like a billion years but time is not enough - it needed something else.

I am in the innovation business so I have to learn how innovation happens. It is not the nice logical process that is normally projected. See Innovation.

If I wanted to give it a posh name I would try something like beneficial variable randomised events but I am not into posh names so I better name would better names would be ‘stuff up’ or ‘mistakes’.

Why we need sex

This is how nature develops such amazing systems and why we need sex.

There are a few creatures that reproduce without sex, stick insects are a common example. The offspring are just like their parents and their offspring will be just like them. That is the way it is and will go on for maybe millions of years.

To develop and change we need variability. Look at all the couples you know, some will be very similar - same ethnicity, social background, and physical characteristics while others will be very different, particularly of different races and colour. Why? Because it is natural to pick a partner that will bring diversity to the offspring.

Darwin may have been a great scientist but his ideas show how totally cruel natural selection is. Create diversity and some offspring will not be successful and die out, which is cruel, while others will evolve into future generations which are substantially different.

The species will survive

I choose the words in my opening remarks carefully. I very much doubt that humans will become extinct due to some unintended error. A nuclear war could be touch and go, but the amount of energy released by the meteor crashing into the earth that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs was much greater than our atomic bombs.

But some creatures survived and evolved into a new spectrum of creatures - including us. When I find the keys to my time machine, which being old I have misplaced, I will zap forward a million years and expect to find some version of humanity existing.

Some will survive even the worst disaster and breed to create new versions of the human species.

What I worry about is humans committing some unintended error which results in my great-grandkids being exterminated.

Unfortunately, it is not a question of if we commit an unintended error - the combination of climate change and destruction of the microbiology in our top soils will lead to widespread deaths of a significant proportion of the population.

Why I am so sure?

Because it is happening right now. When I was a kid people died predominately from infectious diseases. The figures are startling, three out of five babies born would die from an infectious disease before the age of 5, and another would die in the teens but admittedly not primarily from infection. Young boys do daft things and kill themselves.

Now we have made major improvements in the technology of combating infectious diseases.

In some areas the Black Death wiped out half the population, we had absolutely no defence against it other than primitive isolation.

Covid, bad as it was (or is), did not wipe out people on anywhere near that scale.

We are now suffering from an epidemic of chronic diseases, the scale is vast. In some areas two-thirds of the population are overweight, 8 million people a year have a limb amputated from diabetes - the fastest growing disease of all, heart attacks are the most common cause of death, dementia is rampant.

What is the underlying cause?

The underlying cause is simply that we changed our food system so we now no longer feed our gut brain. This is not some devious plot, as thought by the conspiracy theorist, but a simple unintended error with disastrous consequences.

When I was a kid we had little protection against infectious diseases. There were little in the way of vaccines and no available antibiotics. If one kid came down with chicken pox, mumps or measles there would be a party and mum would take us to the party so we caught whatever was going around.

We all knew about germs and anything to avoid germs was automatically good.

Diabetes and other chronic diseases, existed but were rare, certainly not an issue in decision-making.

Swapping infectious diseases for chronic diseases.

Under these conditions producing food that was germ-free, and probably cheaper was considered an improvement. In any case, there was no technology available for killing the harmful microbes without killing the beneficial ones.

So we moved from a people getting sick and dying from infectious diseases to one where people got sick and died from chronic diseases.

It may be one of the worst decisions that mankind has made but it was certainly an unintended error.

But if it man made then we can fix it.

If we get fat and sick it is not simply because we eat too much, it is because we are not feeding our gut brain the right food so it tells us to eat too much, then we get fat and sick.

We just have to learn how to grow gut-brain food with the beneficial microbes but without the harmful microbes.

Now we have defined the problem it has been relatively easy to solve.

The two-stage fix - first information

Before we can make physical changes there must be wide-spread public education about the importance of the gut-brain, how it works, and that we need to feed it.

Modify our diet

We don’t need to make massive changes to our diet, the bulk of the food we eat is simply burned off as energy food and our current food system does an effective job of supplying energy food.

We do need to start eating gut-brain food. That is not difficult - it simply means breeding beneficial microbes in organic waste, adding essential minerals, and growing plants that are eaten fresh.

We just need to create the conditions where the beneficial microbes out compete and out breed the harmful microbes (see Rethinking food and Diabetes)

Fresh is an issue. The beneficial microbes have a short life and die within a short period after picking. You often hear how much tastier food that has just been picked is. That is not some fluke, the beneficial microbes are alive and well.

People with a garden can readily grow gut-brain food, with a little instruction.

But nowadays the majority of people live in apartments or large houses with small blocks so there is no real space for growing.

That is why I developed the Gbiota box system - so people living in an apartment with no growing experience could have fresh gut-brain food growing at home.

Colin colin@gbiota.com

I am busy working on this post which aims to direct readers to the most appropriate page

Last updated 15 March 2024 with list of all files and list of recent files about growing- at bottom of this post

The number of articles on this web has grown to over 260 and the number of videos to 135. This is so much information that it is overwhelming and difficult for readers to find the information they need.

I understand I need to start organising this information better by breaking it up into groups and subgroups.

I usually don’t touch a post after it has been written as people never know what has changed. This post Map is totally different, it is a dynamic post which I will probably be changing most days.

Creating sub-groups

The biggest issue seems to be that many members have decided they want to make Gbiota beds or boxes and are looking for instructions on how to make and manage them.

I already have a section of growing but this is still massive so I need to break this down into subgroups.

For example, there are three distinct categories of growers.

- home growers with a garden who want to make both Gbiota beds and boxes

- people living in an apartment who just want to make boxes and recycle all their waste to make Wickimix (Gbiota soil)

- people living in an apartment who just want to buy a box already planted and just need to know about watering

- growers who create Wickimix and boxes to supply to apartment dwellers

All of these groups need to know about how to water Gbiota beds and boxes and the principles are the same for all groups. They all need to know about avoiding the soil blood (water full of nutrients and microbes) becoming stagnant and going putrid and how flood and drain breathes the soil.

Some members would like to know about how water moves through the soil and want to learn more about wicking, osmosis, tensile strength of water, diurnal cycles etc. while others are just not interested and don’t want to be bamboozled by a lot of unnecessary information.

This meant that the Growing section can be broken down into at least six separate sections.

Reorganising all this information is my current project which will take some time.

Important

But you can help me work out these subgroups. All you have to do is email me at colin@gbiota.com describe your situation so I can see if you fit into one of the above categories and what you want to know. Then I can refer you to the appropriate posts (or write a new one if needed).

This helps both of us, it helps me to work out what categories I need and you get the links to the appropriate articles.

Oh if your name happens to be Elon Musk I have no ideas about setting up Gbiota boxes on Mars.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

In the mean time you may like to look at some of these posts.

Colin

List of all files - latest first

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/03/14/survival-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/03/12/map/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/03/11/newsletter-11-march-2024/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/03/06/letter-to-obesity-centre/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/03/03/innovation-and-managing-ignorance/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/02/28/learning-plan/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/02/26/rethinking-food-and-diabetes/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/02/19/support-our-gut-health-movement/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/02/19/diabetes-start-with-the-soil/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/02/14/the-gbiota-project/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/02/05/growers-and-gut-biota/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/31/recycle-to-survive/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/28/learning-experience/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/26/become-a-gbiota-supplier/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/21/help-wanted-with-digital-marketing/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/19/creating-change/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/18/prevention-better-than-cure/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/18/health-starts-in-the-soil-5/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/18/support-plastic-sheeting/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/18/support/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/18/prevention-better-than-cure/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/18/health-starts-in-the-soil-5/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/18/support-plastic-sheeting/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/17/solving-the-food-crisis/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/13/the-best-pro-biotic-ever/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/09/11396/ (Food matters)

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/06/hello/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/05/gbiota-101/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/03/gbiota-overview-2024/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/27/try-it-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/27/true-brain/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/27/fire-and-food/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/27/conflict-and-aggression/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/27/modern-epidemic/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/27/help-me-help-you/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/26/fire-water-and-technology/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/25/fat-and-sick/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/20/health-starts-in-the-soil-4/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/11/try-it/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/08/inoculants/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/12/06/what-science-tells-us/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/11/20/gbiota-soil/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/11/17/about-gbiota-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/11/16/tribox-story/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/11/15/survival/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/11/12/gbiota-meaning/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/11/11/invisible-extinction/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/11/08/gbiota-intro/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/10/29/gbiota-biobox-practise/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/10/29/gbiota-biobox-theory/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/10/03/what-plants-to-grow/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/09/26/why-we-need-to-change/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/09/22/our-choice/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/09/20/tribox-how-to/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/09/18/gbiota-tri-box-intro/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/09/08/future-of-food/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/08/24/gbiota-easy-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/08/21/good-men/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/08/17/homeostasis/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/08/17/gbiota-food-for-health/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/08/10/how-to-gpots/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/07/25/diabetes-project/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/07/25/about-us/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/07/13/missinformation/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/07/13/diabetes-gut-food-project/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/07/12/growing-gut-food-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/06/30/gut-and-diabetes/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/06/30/qldgov/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/06/19/newsletter-19th-june-23/

https://www.gbiota.com/2024/01/16/bill-bryson/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/06/14/gbiota-movement-3/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/06/08/fat-wrong/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/06/05/food-waste/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/06/02/people-over-profits/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/06/02/real-and-fantasy/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/05/18/invite-to-medical-research/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/05/15/lamborghini-and-our-gut/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/05/04/the-wickimix-story/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/04/24/feed-your-brains/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/04/17/unks-and-ununks/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/04/09/sues-story/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/04/09/upgraded-beds-introduction/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/04/04/upgraded-beds/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/04/02/new-posts/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/04/02/welcome/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/04/02/food-for-gut-health/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/03/28/the-food-crisis/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/03/21/chat-with-george/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/03/19/george/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/03/13/marys-mini/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/03/08/the-side-hustle/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/03/08/it-worked/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/03/08/frustration/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/03/02/our-gut/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/02/27/our-gut-brain-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/02/13/what-is-the-gbiota-project/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/02/13/what-is-it-all-about/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/02/01/the-story-of-our-guts/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/01/10/better-gut-health/

https://www.gbiota.com/2023/01/05/health-starts-in-the-soil-3/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/12/15/gbiota-bed-update-4-dec-2022/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/12/11/overview-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/12/07/diabetes-trial/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/11/14/health-span/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/11/10/trench-beds/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/11/02/gbiota-boxes-update/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/11/01/wwwww/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/31/the-plan/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/24/food-and-floods/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/24/crazy-world/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/21/key-points/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/17/no-dumb-donkeys/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/14/soaker-beds/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/12/in-grounds-beds/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/10/food-for-health-3/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/10/community-food-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/05/welcome-to-worm-pooh/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/05/how-gbiota-beds-work/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/04/water/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/03/food-and-the-gut-biome/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/10/03/prologue/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/08/22/health-starts-in-the-soil-2/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/08/16/action-plan/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/07/19/bit-of-a-mess/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/07/16/community-growers/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/07/13/meet-you/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/07/06/bioboxes/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/06/30/lettuce/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/06/29/about-gbiota/

https://www.gbiota.com/2022/05/30/elowyn/