Protective Diet Class #348
Populate: The Microbiome Population Project
This third class in the Microbiome Population Project series emphasizes fun and effective strategies for populating your gut with beneficial microbes that produce powerful anti-inflammatory compounds, like butyrate, and keep disease in remission.
Announcements
- Engage in our official support group, Protective Diet Living (PDL). Join Live Chats & Coaching Hour for personal assistance.
- Shop http://www.protectivediet.com/bulk, the organic farm that delivers near you, for low-cost, high-quality PD staples.
Vocabulary
| Microbiome | Prebiotic | Probiotic | Postbiotic | Microbing |
| Can’t I Just Take a Probiotic Pill? No. This does not work. Do not supplement with pills or any kind of potion promising to populate microbes. They will create an imbalance and dysbiosis because they only contain one to two strains of bacterial microbes. It’s not ever a good idea to take these. We get our prebiotics through food, through eating raw fruits and vegetables. You will learn exactly how to do that in this lesson. | Populate Healthy Microbes We populate healthy microbes by being in nature, by socializing with humans and animals, and by expanding our diet by adding new plant fibers in whole food form. In doing this, we experience health, longevity, and put disease into remission. Cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and autism are seen as incurable, but populating a healthy microbiome can eliminate symptoms and halt disease progression. There’s been a suppression of information regarding how medications and treatments for disease symptoms affect the microbiome. | Exposure to chemical medications, processed foods, and supplements leads to dysbiosis, which can cause diseases. Aging often leads to a decline in beneficial microbes due to reduced activity and dietary variety. This can result in a “mono microbiome,” which is linked to various diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, and cognitive disorders. Research on centenarians shows that a robust microbiome is key for health and longevity. On a Protective Diet, we focus on populating a robust microbiome because we are going for more “life in our years” rather than just more “years in our life.” |
| Prebiotics Prebiotics are beneficial microbes that are found in nature. They are on animals, in dirt, on trees and in the air. They are in raw fruits and vegetables and fermented foods. They are also in our gut. They eat exclusively plant fiber. When we feed the probiotics within us plant fiber, they ferment/digest it and produce postbiotics including all our nutrition as well as anti-inflammatory compounds that regress disease. | Probiotics Probiotics are beneficial microbes that are found in nature. They are on animals, in dirt, on trees and in the air. They are in raw fruits and vegetables and fermented foods. They are also in our gut. They eat exclusively plant fiber. When we feed the probiotics within us plant fiber, they ferment/digest it and produce postbiotics including all our nutrition as well as anti-inflammatory compounds that regress disease. | POSTbiotics Postbiotics are byproducts released by probiotics when they ferment/digest prebiotics. One very beneficial one is butyrate, a short-chained fatty acid that promotes health, longevity & satiation. The nutrition we receive from food ultimately comes from the action of our microbes. To get the nutrition from a peach, we must have the microbes that ferment/digest the peach. We feed them, and they feed us nutrients. |
Populate Healthy Microbes
Vitamin Deficiencies
- If you have a vitamin deficiency, such as iron, even though you are eating a Protective Diet, which contains rich sources of iron (leafy greens, herbs, whole grains, legumes), it is due to having a compromised population of beneficial microbes that ferment and digest iron-rich foods.
- If you are consuming vitamins, medications, supplements, or antacids like Tums, you are killing off the healthy microbes essential for fermentation, digestion, and production of postbiotics that serve as our nutrition.
- You can create a gut environment that supports your beneficial microbes and eliminates vitamin deficiencies.
| Populate Through Nature (Go Microbing)Get off the beaten path of sidewalk walking and go to natural environments. Explore a new trail. Spend time in forests, lakes, and natural areas. Go swimming, biking, hiking or camping outdoors. Remove shoes and touch soil, rocks, water & plants. Breathe deeply while outdoors to populate microbes. Picnic outdoors to connect to nature’s microbes. Gather fruit directly from trees at u-pick orchards. Volunteer to weed or help in a friend’s garden. Create a compost to enrich the soil with microbes. Use a clothesline outdoors to dry clothing and linens. Climb trees or shake them for a microbe dusting. Spend time touching pets and animals. After outdoor activities, wait to shower to retain microbes on your skin. Avoid areas treated with glyphosate or pesticides as these are antibacterial and compromise microbes. Populate Through Interactions with People and Animals Hug, kiss, and meet new people to share microbes. Host potlucks, laugh, touch people & serving spoons. Share meals with new friends and cook together. We transfer massive amounts of microbes in microdoses when we dine with other people. Take your yoga class outdoors and breathe deeply. Resist behaviors like masking that limit interaction. Avoid isolation indoors. Get out there. Get your microdoses of microbes from as many people as you can touch, laugh with, kiss, and hug. Be mindful about who is preparing your food—at restaurants; you are sharing microbes with the chef who prepared your food. |
Populate Through Nutrition
- Eat Variety: eat a wide range of plant fibers from raw fruits and vegetables, grains and legumes daily. The recipes are your guide.
- Drink Variety: drink more than water. Calorie-free Protective Diet Beverages are rich in polyphenols which boost the population of your beneficial microbes.
- Source Variety: eat produce grown in a variety of different soils. Do this by sourcing your food from different stores, the farmer’s market, community gardens, and your own garden. If gardening isn’t an option, consider ordering from Azure Standard for various produce from multiple organic farms.
- Notice Excitement: As you populate your beneficial microbes, activities like going to the farmer’s market, shopping for produce, and chopping and preparing produce will feel exciting. These are your microbes communicating their preferences. They send signals through the vagus nerve to our brain, releasing neurotransmitters that enhance our mood and motivation as we engage with food.
Populate Through Travel
- Eat Cultural Foods: eat different foods from different soils.
- Visit Local Markets: sample different types of produce and spices.
- Touch and Explore Nature: hike or explore various terrains like beaches, mountains, or swamps and breathe deeply outdoors.
| Beneficial microbes direct our health because we are their host. They want us to collect, prepare, and eat plant fiber. If we do not eat plant fiber, they are not going to thrive. In the absence of plant fiber, they will survive by eating our gut wall, causing dysbiosis. Unhealthy microbes don’t care about our health. If we spend our life giving them what they demand (junk food) and fall ill and diseased, they will just eat us when we die. | “I want you to experience precisely what I’m experiencing because it’s a dream come true. It’s the microbes that I have populated, protected, and promoted that make it possible.” |
| What is Butyrate? Butyrate is a short-chain fatty acid produced by beneficial gut bacteria during the fermentation/digestion of dietary plant fibers. Butyrate: Has anti-inflammatory properties Tightens and repairs the gut wall and energizes colon cells Reduces risk of inflammatory disease Protects against neurodegenerative disease, improves metabolic health and stimulates GLP-1 production Signals satiation so you don’t eat more than you need |
Class Description:
This third class in the Microbiome Population Project series emphasizes fun and effective strategies for populating your gut with beneficial microbes that produce powerful anti-inflammatory compounds, like butyrate, and keep disease in remission.
Class URL: https://protectivediet.com/courses/microbiome-population-project/lessons/class-348-the-microbiome-population-project-populate/
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