Feeding the microbiome

At various points throughout my life I thought I was healthy. But as I’ve grown older and wiser I’ve learnt more and realised I wasn’t very healthy at all. As a child I ate a lot of white food – white bread, white rice, white pasta. Although my parents cooked at home it was often with jars of sauce rather than from scratch and I don’t ever remember wholemeal options. I’m not sure there were even available to buy in the supermarket at that time. We didn’t eat much in the way of plants – meat was the main ingredient on the dinner plate – and we rarely ate beans or other legumes. We also used to get fast-food takeaway semi-regularly.

In my 20s I became vegan and this was probably the healthiest diet I had until now as back then there wasn’t vegan fast food or vegan alternatives so I cooked whole, plant foods. But I still had a lot of white food like white bread, white pasta and white rice.

In my 30s vegan products became available and I started eating them. Vegan meat alternatives aren’t very healthy. They’re high in salt and many would be regarded as ultra-processed food. I also used a lot of jars of sauces not realising these are high in salt.

This diet continued into my 40s until I reached 47 and discovered I had high blood pressure. At that point I eliminated all salt. This meant I could no longer eat processed vegan food or stuff in jars and packets. I’m still vegan but I eat mostly whole-foods again and only minimally processed foods. I cook everything from scratch including bread. We buy wholemeal pasta and rice. We don’t eat fast food and I don’t buy packets of sauces.

My diet has evolved to a point where I now think I’m healthier than I’ve ever been although I’m sure there’s still room for improvement. My blood pressure is excellent and I’ve never had to take any drugs for it. It’s all down to a good, healthy diet. My philosophy has changed again and now I view food as sustenance for my gut microbiome.

There are trillions of microbes living in our guts that help digest our food, support our immune system, protect us from harmful pathogens, and extract nutrients from the food we eat. The greater the diversity in microbes the better our health. People with lower diversity in their guts are at greater risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease, type 2 diabetes, eczema and psoriatic arthritis. Our gut microbiome also affects our cognitive abilities and our mood.

Given these trillions of organisms are so important for our health it makes sense to feed them. The modern Western diet which is highly processed and low in plants starves the good organisms we need for health and promotes the harmful ones. These organisms love fibre which is found only in plants and yet more than 90% of adults in the UK do not eat enough fibre.

You can buy probiotics that contain microorganisms. These can be useful after a course of antibiotics. But more important than consuming these biotics is to actually feed them. There’s no point topping up with new organisms only for them to starve and die. This has led to a new type of supplement called prebiotics which is food for the microbiome.

This week I’ve been trying a prebiotic made by Zoe called the Daily 30. What’s unique about it is it’s not a powder or tablet because when you crush a plant into powder it changes the plant’s cell structure which can reduce the benefit you would have otherwise got from it. Instead the Zoe Daily 30 consists of 30 different plant species that you sprinkle on food. It looks like this.

I find it quite delicious and can eat it by the spoonful but I also like it on porridge which is what I eat for breakfast every morning. I make a fruit compote to go with the porridge. It contains summer fruits that I buy frozen, chia seeds, and a bit of apple syrup that I stew together. I don’t add any sugar or salt to it – the apple syrup adds sweetness.

It’s also nice on my lunch which I have to say is much the same each day too. I make my own sourdough, toast it, smear with avocado, top with sliced beetroot and sprinkle some Zoe Daily 30 on top. In this example I mashed the avocado with cannellini beans, lemon juice and chilli flakes – it’s delicious!

It is not cheap to buy; you could potentially make it yourself but it wouldn’t be easy as it also contains 8 different type of mushrooms. You can read the full list of ingredients here.