When I was about 5, I was a naughty boy. We were told that we were not allowed to pick apples from the Coxes’ Orange tree in our garden because they were ‘keepers’, which we needed to save for winter. One day, my parents were out so I picked one and had never tasted anything so good; it was simply delicious. Now, all those years later, I understand why – phytonutrients. Plants, unless they are Triffids, cannot walk away, so they have become masters of chemistry, producing an incredible array of chemicals. A single tomato has over a thousand different phytonutrients; we have little idea what most of them do, but we know they are essential for health.
But we do know they taste good, and taste is the way our bodies work to make sure we eat food that is healthy and avoid harmful food. Simple but effective.
Sulforaphane
Some phytonutrients have been studied in depth. Sulforaphane, for example, which is found in many vegetables, but particularly broccoli, is one of the most powerful with major health benefits. But like many phytonutrients, it has a short life; Sulforaphane has a half-life of two hours. Most phytonutrients, which are so important to health, have a short life, and there is a major difference between a plant having a healthy phytonutrient spectrum and simply not going rotten.
Our modern food system has devoted major research into increasing shelf-life so the produce looks healthy, but the life of the valuable phytonutrients has not changed. Our modern food system is therefore deficient in functioning phytonutrients, which is causing a major health crisis, and with the increase in highly processed foods, the situation is deteriorating.
Our bodies know
The human mind and body form an incredibly sophisticated system. It knows whether we have the right balance of nutrients, and when it senses a deficiency, it sends out hormones which make us feel unsatisfied and want to eat more. Overeating, leading to the storage of excess fat, is the underlying cause of the modern epidemic of chronic diseases such as overweight, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia. The cost to our health systems is measured in trillions of dollars yet does not address the fundamental cause: the lack of phytonutrients in our diet.
Home grown
It is just a reality that there is no way of developing a system which can deliver fresh vegetables within two hours of harvesting. The solution is to grow at home so people can pick and eat, but it takes more than just growing at home; the plants must be grown in soil with the essential microbes and minerals. The microbes break down the minerals so they are available for the plants and hence for us, while the microbes themselves will form part of our gut microbes, which regulate our bodies.
There are people with gardens and growing skill who can do this, but the vast majority of people now live in cities, often in apartments with no garden, and people may not have the skills, or just the time, to grow their own vegetables.
Mary
Mary is nominally a fictitious person; any resemblance to a real person is purely coincidental. Mary is a single mum with two kids and three jobs, living a highly stressed-out life, trying to pay the bills and feed her kids healthy food. She is the motif for the Gbiota system and the reason why it was developed.
The Gbiota system
The Gbiota system was developed to provide a way of growing vegetables at home that provide the essential phytonutrients, but is so simple and easy to use that even people living in apartments can grow vegetables that provide these natural phytonutrients. The aim is not to create a system that is super sophisticated and complex, but one that is simple, inexpensive and works for Mary in her stressed-out life.
The major input is food waste, which is a major problem costing society millions of dollars in disposal and treatment, but is in fact a highly valuable resource. Minor inputs, small but essential, are the minerals that provide the essential nutrients, and the creatures of the soil that are the natural recyclers – the worms, soldier fly larvae, beetles and microbes – which turn waste into food for the plants, allowing them to produce the phytonutrients essential for health.
