Feed Your Brain
Abstract
Our health span is set by our intelligent control system, our gut and head brains, and these must be fed real food which is genuinely fresh before the beneficial microbes die.
In this, and the many articles I write I show how people, ordinary people like you and me can take our food into our own hands to have food which will extend our health span so we are fit and healthy into old age.
But this means people must stop thinking that there will be some magic saviour coming along and solving all the problems of the world for them.
It is only by individual people taking action, may be just a minor action like putting a wicking box on windowsill, not a big deal for one box, but if there is enough people taking action it will really change the world for future generations.
Our intelligent control system
The human body is remarkable. We can simultaneously climb stairs holding a cup of coffee, discussing complex issues with a friend, read a notice and listen to an announcement, but there is more – we automatically adjust our heart rate and breathing to control the oxygen in our blood, control our temperature, check for any germs we may breath in or eat and kill them if they are a threat, repair that cut in our leg, and check if we need to eat.
What is remarkable is that we don’t see this as remarkable, it is just the way our body works – until it doesn’t – and that happens when we don’t feed it the sort of food it needs and unfortunately that is now common.
Our brains
We have two brains, one in our head which runs largely on glucose while the second is in our gut which is made up from trillions of cells from thousands of species and it likes it own sort of food – fibre for food and replacement microbes.
These microbes traditionally came from the soil, enter the plants which if we eat fresh are full of essential living microbes.
In our modern food system the beneficial microbes have been dramatically reduced by synthetic chemicals and by the time they have been transported many more microbes have died (see Sue’s story).
Our modern food system is feeding us plenty of energy food but is not feeding our gut brain which form part of our intelligent control system.
Energy, replacement and gut food
We do not need to replace all our food – in fact we are against eliminating major food groups from our diet – we just need additional food to enhance our gut health.
The bulk of the food we eat is simply burned as fuel, a much smaller proportion is used for the manufacture of the complex chemicals needed to replace our body parts and an even smaller amount, may be just 5%, is needed to feed our brains.
Our intelligent control system – the bodies boss
But it is a very important part because it is our intelligent control system managing our body.
It controls our appetite so we do not starve or overeat, it is continuously monitoring our bodies replacing parts as the age or wear, it manages our immune system and all our bodily functions. It may not be a very big organ but it is the ultimate boss of our body, when it does not work properly we get sick and even die. It is that important.
Just eat the right sort of food
If our brains are not working properly we do not need some exotic pill – we just need to eat the right sort of food.
This is what the Gbiota project is all about – enhancing our gut health by growing plants in soil rich in microbes and nutrients, eating them while fresh to enhance our gut biota.
This is how we evolved over millions of years and it worked well, but then we become overconfident and thought we could replace this time proven system with a synthetic food system. We need to asses what we know and what we don’t know – read the article Unks and Ununks (unknowns and unknown unknowns).
Choice or no choice?
We can eat food from our modern system which works on the assumption that we understand all the chemicals needed to produce food and the only purpose of soil is to hold the plants uprights or we you can eat food grown in soil which is a complex ecosystem.
Eighty years ago we thought we knew all about food and went for synthetic highly processed foods – the results have not been good.
It is easy to understand why. Food shortages were common and put a limit on the number of people the earth could support. Our modern food system has allowed the population to treble and hygienic food and modern medicine has led to a dramatic reduction in infectious diseases however it has led to an epidemic of non infectious diseases.
Every eight seconds someone has a limb amputated from diabetes, heart attacks and dementia have increased and our health span, the length of time we are fit and healthy, has declined.
Modern medical science may mean we are living longer in absolute terms but the length of time we remain fit and healthy, our health span, has declined significantly. Is that the way we really want to end up in old age.
A real choice
But there would be a real choice if our understanding of how the complex ecosystem in the soil works had improved so we could feed the world population without the non infectious disease epidemic.
It is everyone’s decision on what food to eat, it is not my role to tell you what to eat, but if the idea of eating food based on the complex Eco system in the soil is your decision I can show you how you can do it. Read on.
Not just the fortunate few
Many keen gardeners are already doing this by breeding beneficial microbes in the soil, as shown in the growing section, but most people do not have the time and space so we have developed a simple system to make healthy gut food readily available – even to people living in apartments with no garden.
It is a two stage process. A skilled grower will breed the beneficial microbes in organic waste adding essential minerals and inoculants to produce a soil called Wickimix, a growing medium or soil, which is teaming with microbes and nutrients.
This Wickimix is then loaded into a Gbiota wicking box and can be delivered as either a clean skin for planting out or pre-planted with the plants ready for harvesting, just needing watering.
You can see how this works by reading the stories of George, Mary, Sue and John here.
Breeding the beneficial microbes
Most people need not worry about the production of Wickimix so I will only give a quick overview.
This is best done in an in ground bed to take advantage of the existing soil life.
Raised bed are used with a base layer, a layer of organic waste and a top layer of Wickimix being recycled.
It needs inoculants to start the breeding process and the bed goes through a flood and drain cycle so the beneficial microbes out breed the harmful ones.
The microbes feed on the organic matter and the sugars which plants exude from their roots.
The technical details are in the growing section which most people will not need to study.
The complex Eco system
Plants and the soil from a complex Eco system. It is not just a question of breeding the beneficial microbes. True the soil is full of microscopic creatures which can only be seen with a high powered microscope, but there are also larger creatures which can be seem with a magnifying glass and even larger creatures like worms and Soldier fly larvae which form this complex Eco system.
These have a gut similar to ours which is a home for beneficial microbes.
These enter the roots of the plants by osmosis to create plants which are natural pre and pro biotics.
This is nothing new, it is the way the system has worked for millions of years. It is just that humans thought they could bypass this natural system.
You can read about this in Chat with George.
Fresh means eating food before the microbes die
Breeding beneficial microbes and the food they need is not the difficult bit, microbes breed naturally.
The difficult bit is that is that these beneficial microbes operate on a time scale totally different to us humans who have a life expectancy of over eighty years.
One hour for a microbe is equivalent to a human year. To get the full benefits of the microbes we need to eat plants shortly after picking – which in reality means growing at home.
So how do we create a system where people with no garden, growing experience, may be even a single mum with three kids and three jobs living in a flat, like Mary, have genuinely fresh food growing in their flat?
This is where we need to think about people like Mary, and Sue and John (You can keep up to date with these news stories at New Posts and Gbiota news on the menu, if you want to read about how food actually works then go to Food).
Wickimix
Wicking boxes are now common and are often available commercially sometimes at a high price. They all work, more or less, but are little more than self watering boxes.
The key to feeding our brains is to create an Eco system with a whole range of beneficial microbes, out breeding any harmful microbes, and with the full range of creatures from the most minute viruses to the large creatures like worms which are essentially mobile guts.
This is a living system and is best produced in an in ground bed then directly transferred to a wicking box so it maintains its integrity as a living Eco system.
To act as a wicking medium it has to be highly hydrophilic eg water loving but it must also have a high water holding capacity so it acts like a sponge.
Harmful microbes breed in stagnant water so it is far better to have the soil acting as a sponge with the root system taking the water out of the sponge leaving air spaces behind.
Plants and beneficial microbes need a combination of water, air and nutrients.
Gbiota wicking beds
People will need to know how to look after their Gbiota Wicking beds.
Some people are so busy they just don’t have time so want the simplest possible system. Mary is such a person so I have written a special story just for her, you can read here.
She want the simplest possible wicking box and there is nothing simpler than a box, any box with a hole in the side. The box is simply filled with Wickimix and a stick is pushed through the hole to make a mole tunnel.
This can even be a polystyrene veggy box which can often be bought from the local store for as little as 50 cents.
Or it could even be one of those self watering pots you can buy from the local hardware stores for a few dollars.
George the grower will typically plant the box and mature the plants ready for picking. All Mary has to do is water – may be just once a week and pick and harvest the plants.
The box is then swapped over for a fresh one with fresh Wickimix soil and new plants – nothing could be simpler.
For the more adventuristic
The more adventuristic grower may want to use a more sophisticated Wicking box and there are a number of options available.
The most efficient, at least in terms of water storage, is the twin box system. This has a top box for the plants, a bottom box for the water storage connected by wicks.
This has the theoretical advantage that there is no loss of water storage volume with stones and the water storage box can be made as large as you want.
If you are growing thirsty plants in a hot climate you need substantial wicks to satisfy the plants.
If the aim is to have as long a time as possible between irrigations this is the way to go but my interest is in breeding beneficial biota.
Breeding beneficial biota
The system I use is a box with swivel drainage, a length of ag pipe running along the base and a compost tube which can be moved around the box as needed.
I put a layer of organic waste in the base to act as a sponge. I have used vermiculite which is inert and last a lot longer but the organic waste is food for the microbes.
Now this is where I have to be very careful. If I operate this like a conventional wicking bed with a water reservoir full of stagnant water and organic waste then I would end up with a foul stinking mess.
Don’t believe me? Try it yourself and you will see I am right.
This means the harmful microbes are out competing the beneficial microbes and is exactly the opposite of what we want. See Chat with George.
So I need to think of this as a sponge bed and not a conventional wicking bed.
I twist the drainage pipe into the empty position (flat) so water will not accumulate in the base of the box.
I seed and surface water from above with a sprinkler or watering can applying just enough water to wet the seeds so they germinate.
You will notice there is no cloth in this box as I want the roots to go right down to the base of the box so they suck out the water from the base.
I will fill the compost tube with organic waste.
When the plant has germinated and put down roots I will switch from surface watering to watering through the compost tube to the base of the bed.
I definitely do not want to have stagnant water in the base for any length of time so I twist the swivel drain tube to empty and water slowly through the compost tube until I see water just beginning to drain out.
I don’t want to waste water so I swivel the drain tube to upright to catch any excess water.
I don’t want that water sitting there for any length of time so when I seeded I put in a couple of water pumps – called plants (see Upgraded beds). I use Spinach as they grow like weeds in my climate (dry subtropics).
I plant when I seed making a hole right down to the base. By the time the seeds have germinated and I have swapped to subsurface watering they will have developed roots and being greedy little plants will be busy sucking up water.
Wickimix is like a sponge so even though there will still be plenty of water after the plants have sucked up all the liquid water.
This is actually very easy but you do have to understand about flood and drain and sponge beds.
Take 2 minutes to think
Everyone seems so busy nowadays that no one seems to have time to stop and think about the state of the world. And it is no all bad news.
Simply we have an incredible capacity to produce goods, we have machines that take the hard work out of most jobs and many do the thinking for us, far faster and better than we can do.
So we should all be rolling around in a sea of affluence – but we are not – so what has gone wrong?
Clearly there is an issue with information, or lack of reliable information. The Internet, probably the greatest innovation of our era has just become a receptacle for false information, saturated by dubious advertising to get us to buy products we don’t need and probably don’t work.
We do face some serious challenges, climate change is one of the most critical and that surfaces as a threat to our food supply chains. This is not some dubious threat in the future it is happening right now, not just empty supermarket shelves which is real enough but lack of food which will lead to us having a long and healthy life.
People seem to have lost confidence in the systems which are supposed to work for us and worse lost confidence in ourselves that we can do anything about things.
I wrote about this some time ago in Dumb Donkeys.
In this, and the many articles I write I show how people, ordinary people like you and me can take our food into our own hands to have food which will extend our health span so we are fit and healthy into old age.
But this means people must stop thinking that there will be some magic saviour coming along and solving all the problems of the world for them.
It is only by individual people taking action, may be just a minor action like putting a wicking box on windowsill, not a big deal for one box, but if there is enough people taking action it will really change the world for future generations.
The community section on this web is where people can work together to make things happen.
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