Ep.02 – How to improve your microbiome
In episode two of Biome Bites James provides an overview of how to master your microbiome. Often asked how you can improve your microbiome diversity and gut health, James covers a wide range of topics including microbiome-friendly eating and how the food you eat is processed by the gut, probiotics, mindset and easy lifestyle changes you can make to improve your microbiome.
Tune in to episode 2 of Biome Bites
Transcript
We're going to talk about how you can improve your microbiome, and how you can master your microbiome. Now, before we go any further. I just want to say that this is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute the practice of medicine or the giving of medical advice. Please always consult with your clinician if you have any queries relating to your medicine.
And that said, without any further ado. Back now to how to master the microbiome. So very, very often I hear people say things like what do I do to improve my microbiome diversity? What do I do to improve my gut health? I've heard about probiotics, prebiotics, FMT, kombucha, kefir, and kimchi, and it's all a bit much.
What I'm going to do in this biome bite is give a high-level overview about some easy, actionable, quick things that you can do, some mindset-type things, how to frame your day, how to frame what you eat, to try and improve the quality of your microbiome. And ultimately, hopefully, you'll start to see some benefits.
So the first step is to reframe how you look at food. One way to quickly assess whether or not something is likely to be good for your microbiome and gut health or not is to think, okay, what on this plate is for me, and on this plate is from my microbes. And the stuff that's for me are probably the things that taste good, that maybe are very meaty, maybe are very kind of easily digestible, “carb-y”, if that's even a scientific term. Whereas the things that are good for your microorganisms are probably the things that our body can't digest.
So the non digestible carbohydrates, the fibre-rich salads, beans, fruits, vegetables, so on and so on, and really the ideal outcome, I think for everybody is to have something microbiome friendly or to have something leafy fibre-rich with every single meal that you have. And eventually, it becomes a habit like brushing your teeth.
How many days over the last year have you not brushed your teeth?
Hopefully, the answer is very few or ideally zero. And that's because it's an inbuilt habit. It's just something you do when you get up in the morning and go to bed, or if you do it more frequently, sometimes in the afternoon as well. And if you can have microbiome and gut health in your head, all day, every day, it starts to imprint itself into what you eat.
And ultimately it's like making investments in your bank. It pays off. It compounds. The more you do for your microbiome and the more frequently you do it, the better your microbiome is going to be, and the more robust it's going to be. Think about feeding your bugs now when you fast and you don't have anything at all, you see dramatic changes to your microbiome because it's good, nothing to feed on, but then it rebounds afterwards every time you put something in your mouth, you have an opportunity to improve your gut health and your microbiome.
Now that might sound a bit extreme and perhaps for some people it is. So if you can't commit to doing something microbiome friendly with every meal and by the way, I don't really mean every single meal, I mean kind of most meals think about like 80% rather than 100% if you can do that. Something that I like to do and something that I've recommended to people with success before is to have one microbiome meal or a microbiome mega shake.
So what's a microbiome? Mega shake and what's a microbiome meal that is a meal or a shake exclusively prepared for your microorganisms. So you've taken time to fill up that Vitamix or fill up that blender with as much green, as much colour, as much fiber as you possibly can, maybe some coffee, air and fermentable foods, that kind of thing.
And you've made it exclusively to increase your fibre intake or to increase your micronutrient intake, whatever it is. And you get that in and you know, you've hit your fibre target and you fed your microbiome for the day. Typically, I like to recommend that it's done in the morning because if it's done, then it's done and your microbes are feeding for the rest of the day on the things that they love and the thing about the microbes is if you feed them, they feed you their little chemical factories.
And the more you feed them with things they like, the more beneficial things that they produce to help. You know, what's a microbiome-friendly meal is typically a big bowl or a big plate full of colourful foods, fruits, vegetables, leafs. Think, colour, think rainbow, think diversity. Think about things that are harder to chew typically, meaning that it's full of fiber and with cheeks.
And this may sound a bit ridiculous, but what I found is that generally speaking, the worse it tastes, the better it is for you. The ones that you buy from Typical supermarkets are usually crammed, loaded, full of sugar and it tastes really good. And actually, they probably don't have much in the way of fibrous content because, well, their juices, rather than being proper blended smoothies, which you can make yourself.
So think about embedding health and health and microbiome into your daily routine. Consider the mega microbiome shake. Mega microbiome blend could also be a soup. And again, the intention is to get as much good stuff in there as you possibly can. So that you're feeding your microbiome And on your gut, you might be thinking, How do I feed my microbiome when it's me that's eating it?
Well, your body possesses the capability to break down many things into components like amino acids and simple sugars, which then go around the body in the bloodstream. But what it can't do is break down non digestible carbohydrates, hence why they're called non-digestible carbohydrates. And it's only the microorganisms that can break those down. So typically they'll pass into the digestive tract, pass the stomach, pass the small intestine, and then these microorganisms get to work and they chew on them, put them into their bodies.
And then as chemical factories, they produce metabolites, things like short chain fatty acids, for example. So there you go. I've not spoken about probiotics. Probiotics are essentially foodstuffs which promote the growth of beneficial bacteria. So we've spoken about probiotics in the form of non-digestible carbohydrates, and we've not spoken about FMT because that's not something I would recommend to people.
I recommend simple, straightforward, easy steps, which hopefully are not too expensive either. Supplements are typically expensive, foods less so. So there's no easy answer to “this is the best possible mega microbiome shake or mega microbiome meal”
In some respects, you have to do a bit of try and see for yourself. You have to figure out what you can afford and you have to figure out what you can stomach.
That's probably the wrong phrase. But the essence there is what you can handle from a quality perspective, what you like, what you don't like, and it takes time to really look forward to these meals. But all the people that I know who've started making microbiome meals are mega microbiome shakes or sandwiches have just become predominantly plant based, will tell you that their cravings have changed.
They don't crave chocolate bars anymore. They don't crave the packs of Haribo. In fact, the thought of it makes them feel ill. What they crave is big bowls full of nutrient dense, minimally processed foods because their microbiome has shifted. And some people think that it's the microbes that drive cravings, at least in part. So I am absolutely sure that when you start off with these mega microbiome shakes and mega microbiome meals and you start loading your plate full of things that you know are going to be good for your microorganism, I'm full of colour, full of fibre.
You wouldn't normally put them together either. You start to look forward to you start to actually crave it. And then when you go travelling or when you go to a restaurant and they've got nothing good like that, you kind of think, Oh, this isn't going to make me feel good. So my advice is to start maybe with something not too extreme.
Berries taste good. Bananas taste good. Colourful foods full of polyphenols, and then work up to literally cramming your blender or your plate full of basically everything that's fibre rich. And you learn to love it. You will learn to look forward to it and eventually you won't be able to imagine life without it.