The principle of Gbiota beds

The aim of the Gbiota system is to give us a healthy gut by growing plants which act as natural pre and pro-biotics.

If we eat a modern diet we will have sugar loving bugs in our guts which makes us crave sugary foods – but it is easy to change the type of biology we have in our guts simply by changing our diet.

 

Beneficial biology is bred in organic waste in beds in which the moisture level is carefully controlled.

The diagram illustrates the basic principle of the Gbiota system.

When the bed is first made the bottom half is filled with waste organic material, typically food waste while the top half (which forms the rhizosphere) is filled with soil. Water is pumped from a sump into the water inlet where it filters through a mix of labile (young) compost, manure and minerals essentially forming a nutrient rich compost tea.

A leaky soil dam temporarily prevents this nutrient rich compost tea from quickly draining from the bed so it spreads over the base to the height of the leaky dam. When the water supply switches off the tea drains out of the base of the bed and back into the sump while sucking fresh air into the soil.

Aims of the Gbiota project

 I believe all people in this rich affluent world should have access to healthy food at an affordable price.

Specifically my innovation relates to gut health.

The food we eat feeds, or should feed, the trillions of cells in our guts which do much more than help us digest our food. Each cell communicates with its neighbours to form an intelligent system which controls much of our body – there really is a gut brain.

 It controls our appetite so we eat enough but don’t overeat. Poor gut health is a factor in the global obesity epidemic. It manufactures many of the complex chemicals needed to replace our body parts as they age. And particularly in this age of Covid, houses our immune system.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that our modern system caused Covid but it certainly enabled it to become an epidemic – there is a big difference between causing and enabling but the results may be very similar.

 My innovation is a way of growing plants so they act as a pre and pro-biotic so we have a healthy gut. Now let me be clear – up till about eighty years ago this happened naturally without anyone thinking about it.

But then we stopped and adopted chemical industrial agriculture.

I am not against chemical industrial agriculture providing us with energy food – simple carbohydrates we burn off to provide us with energy.

In the last eighty years our production of food has increased by a factor of 4.5 while the population has increased by a factor of 3.47.

We are now producing more than enough energy food to feed the entire global population. (just with energy food.) It is true we waste a lot of food and more seriously we are degrading the available soils at an alarming rate – to the extent that we will run out of soil in some sixty years.

We may still be able to produce enough energy food but we will not survive as a species without soil to feed our gut brain, which controls our bodies.

My innovation is a simple way of recycling food and organic waste, adding manures and essential minerals and if needed inoculate the soil with biology and worms to grow food to feed our guts, natural pre and pro biotics.

The technology is simple, any competent grower, whether a commercial or home grower can implement it. In this age – obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, dementia and so many diseases are caused by our body not controlling our appetite correctly. Changing our gut biology could have major social benefits.

Gbiota beds

Gbiota beds were developed by studying the way soil is formed in the natural world but dramatically accelerate the process, instead of taking decades to make healthy soil it can be created in months. It is based on taking organic waste, manures, trace minerals, worms and very careful control of the moisture level.

It is relatively simple and is already widely used by home gardeners. The technology is described in the growing section on this web and is the subject of continuous development and improvement.

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