Three functions of food

We are all familiar with the conventional way of classifying food –

carbohydrates, sugars, fats, proteins etc but let us look at what they do.

There is food we need for energy – this can be virtually any sort of food carbs, sugar, fats, protein.

As long as it contains carbon and hydrogen our bodies will simply burn it for energy – releasing carbon dioxide and water – just like in a steam engine.

Then there is food we need to replace our body parts as they wear or age.

This needs to contain a broad range of complex chemicals which our bodies can often make in our guts as long as the essential minerals are present. If our bodies cannot manufacture them we have to incorporate them into our diets (for example B12).

Finely there is our intelligent control system (Homeostasis). Our bodies are not just a bunch of organs doing their own thing, there is an intelligent control system made up of trillions of cells which receive information from sensors throughout the body, process them by working just like a computer with code, taking decision then sending our signals, either electric or hormonal to adjust how the body is working.

Unfortunately we have no idea how this code actually works – but we know that it does.

We don’t get fat simply because we eat too much – rather our intelligent control system decides we need to store more fat, (again we can only guess why) so it send out signals for us to eat more – then we get fat.

It is a great shame we don’t know how this code actually works because it is totally critical to our health.

Much of this control system is made up from the trillions of cells in our guts and they need to be fed gut brain food.

The cells in our guts are short lived – continuously breeding, dyeing and being replaced. While we only need a small amount of gut food and the beneficial biology – this is a critical part of our diet.

Why we should feed our gut brain

Our gut has trillions of cells made up from thousands of species.

But this is much more than trillions of dumb cells to form our gut brain – these cells communicate with each other and our head brain to form an intelligent control system.

This manages our bodies controlling appetite, replacing aging body part and hosting our immune sytem.

This is what the gut biota (Gbiota) project is all about.

This web site shows how growers can set up and manage their own Gbiota beds to grow gut brain food, (Gbiota food), and ecourages people to form local buying coops so if they don’t want to grow their own Gbiota food they can buy,  at an affordable price, from regenerative farmers.

If you may be interested in setting up your own buying group please contact me here

Our gut brain does three very important jobs,

– it control our appetite so we have enough energy but don’t overeat

– it manufactures the complex chemicals we need to replace our body parts as they age

– they host much of our immune system and so help protect us from pandemics

Our guts are really important for our health. Our gut biology has evolved over millions of years and originates from the soil.

Soil biology

Soil is formed by microbiology breaking down rocks and is continuously circulated as plant grow, die and decompose back into soil. This totally depends on micro-biology and the soil creatures particularly the worms. The natural process of making soil is slow and in the last fifty years has been replaced by chemical industrial farming which has increased productivity but dramatically lacks this essential biology which leads to healthy soil and healthy guts and bodies..

Many of the chemicals used are claimed not to harm us but they certainly harm the soil biology.

Trace minerals

These early soils were rich in a wide range of minerals which both we and the plants need for health. But plants are much simpler than us so there are many minerals which we need but plants either do not need or only need in very small amount.

Chemical industrial agriculture replaces the minerals such as N, P, K which the plants need for growth but there is no economic pressure on farmers to replace the trace minerals like chromium, iron, zinc, selenium, iodine which are essential for our health.

Modern industrial farming

Modern industrial farming may be productive but has meant that our intelligent control system senses that we are lacking key biology and minerals so creates food cravings which has led to a major health epidemic of chronic diseases, obesity, diabetes dementia

See changing our food system here

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How we evolved with food

 During our evolution we were generally short of energy food – the fats and sugars – so we have an in built desire to search and eat energy food. On the other hand there was an abundance of beneficial biology and minerals in the soil so we had this bias to crave energy food rather than gut food.

help

The modern food industry aim is to make profit and the way to do that is to supply energy food in large quantities produced at minimum cost.

It does this very well but the minerals and biology to replace our body parts and power our control system are not well supplied.

Our food system is out of balance so we need to change the balance towards providing food for our gut brain and to provide the essential minerals to replace our body parts.

We can’t necessarily blame the food industry – working in the current economic philosophy based on profit without social responsibility – for supplying the sort of food we crave.

But the results have been a disaster for our health with a global epidemic of chronic disease related to overeating.

 

 

We overeat because our intelligent control system senses we are short of critical minerals and biology, so it sends out hunger signals so we eat more energy food than we need just to try and get the essential minerals and biology we need.

We need to change our food system and we need to do this in a sustainable way by recycling waste organic material

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