Three years ago I started to make a lot of compost to add to my garden. And really started to notice how much better my vegetables were doing. I realised that it’s the same for the microbiome in our gut: with the right foods you start growing healthy gut bacteria. And that is key to your over-all health.
I now compost food waste for many people plus my own garden waste in my nine hotbins. I also have several normal compost cones. Many different things go in there. Garden waste, cooked food, leaves, a bit of soil, peelings, the leftovers from Gut Feeling’s kombucha process…
The bacteria love this diversity, eat the food waste and change what once was waste into something very valuable that feeds the soil in my garden. I use the no-dig methode and leave compost as a mulch on top of the soil. Over time the soil grows healthier and healthier and the vegetables thrive!
It’s the same with the gut.
When we compare our health to a tree, the symptoms and diagnoses are the branches. What mainstream medicine mostly does is try to make the branches – the symptoms – better. But when the roots of the tree aren’t healthy and the soil is poor, this is not going to work… We need to focus our attention to the soil where the roots grow! And that’s what we do in functional nutrition.
The ‘soil’ life in your gut is created by the bacteria and other organisms in your intestines. Together they form your microbiome. They eat what you eat and when they love what you eat they thrive and produce health! Now there are many different bacteria in your gut and they all have slightly different food preferences.
Let’s compare the population in your gut to the population of a city. There are different nationalities and cultural groups in a city.
When you only feed one group their favourite foods, that population will be happy and grow. But other groups will grumble and move away. Same in your gut. It’s the diversity that brings the balance!
A fun challenge: bring in more diversity!
So your gut bacteria want you to eat a wide variety of vegetables and fruits. Now how can you do that? Here’s a fun challenge:
Go to the shop and add two vegetables or fruits to your trolley that you haven’t tried before or in a long time. Find a way to prepare them – raw, cooked, stirfried, peeled, unpeeled, steamed… Then explore how you like them best. Did you find a way to prepare them that you like? Then add them to your regulars and choose two new ones.
Are you in? Which ones are you going to try? Let me know in the comments!
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