Wicking Beds: How Underground Water Storage Changed the Way We Grow Food
Wicking beds emerged from practical experiments aimed at growing food under drought conditions, first in Ethiopia and later elsewhere. The core problem…
Scaling Wicking Beds: Large-Scale Adoption for Food, Water, and Climate Resilience
Wicking beds are usually seen as a backyard method, but they can also be scaled up to deliver major public benefits: more…
The Future of Food Growing: Water-Efficient Food Growing for a Changing Climate
This presentation outlines why the future of agriculture must adapt to climate change and water shortages, and why co-operation is essential. It…
Water for Food: How Wicking Beds Build Climate-Resilient Agriculture With Less Water
Water for food is one of the defining challenges of a warming world. The wicking bed system appears simple, yet it represents…
Join the Revolution: the Fight for Human Health
This article introduces what I believe is the next major revolution shaping human health and survival: gut biology. While technology has transformed…
The Development of Wicking Beds through Soil and Water Systems
The Development of Wicking Beds through Soil and Water Systems This blog explains how wicking beds were developed and why they work…
Soils for Wicking Beds
Many people think wicking beds are just to save water; the most important feature however is creating a mini ecology with a…
How to Replenish Your Gut Microbes
The microbes in our gut are critical for our health but in an effort to feed the ever increasing population and avoid…
Health starts in the soil
Health starts in the soil
Health starts in the soil
Every day we here stories of doom and gloom about food, price hikes from floods and droughts, problems with the supply chain from Covid, lack of nutrients and beneficial biota...
Action plan
Our gut brain is the key to good health. Consumer get fresh veggies which act as gut food which is genuinely healthy at an affordable price, growers get paid for...
Bit of a mess
Unless you are a total hermit you can’t have missed that the world is in a bit of a mess – Covid, bush fires, floods droughts and food shortages. When...
Community growers
If you looking at this web I assume you are interested in your health and understand that you just cannot be really healthy unless you are eating healthy food. You...
Time travel
The aim of the Gbiota technology is to replenish our gut with living beneficial biota and the food it needs to thrive. Gut biota has a short life so it...
Why Gbiota boxes
Our gut brain consists of trillions of cells which communicate with eat other and send out signals saying we need to eat more of this or that or simply stop...
I am a person
The aim of the Gbiota technology is to replenish our gut with living beneficial biota and the food it needs to thrive. Gut biota has a short life so it...
Bioboxes basics
The aim of the Gbiota technology is to replenish our gut with living beneficial biota and the food it needs to thrive. Gut biota has a short life so it...
The paradigm shift
In the wonderful world of food the established paradigm, based on chemistry, has been incredibly successful. In my life time, incredibly short on a geological time scale, we have increased...
Gut health
We have two brains, one that lives in our head and another we can call Gertrude that lives largely in our gut. They both work in the same way with...
Gut biology basics
The purpose of the Gbiota local food movement is to help people set up viable, ethical, and sustainable businesses supplying their local community with gut food. To understand why this...
Local gut food
It is about breeding beneficial biology in the soil and in the guts of the creatures that live in the soil. This biology enters the plants which we eat together...
Community food
Let me tell you a story about food. In our modern society all we seem to want as adults is a catch phrase ‘Make plum pudding tasty again’ or better...
Gut health
Our gut is one of the most important organs in our body – made up of trillions of cells that communicate with each other – it has real intelligence –...
Mother bed
Gbiota beds were developed to grow plants to feed our guts. Technically they have been successful but may be a bit complex for many people, particularly pregnant ladies and mums...
Action plan for gut health
People don’t get fat and sick simply because they just happen to eat too much, they get fat and sick because their gut brain is not working as it should...
Alice
Our gut is not strictly part of us and we, or rather our mum, has to make it for us from the food she eats and feeds us as a...
ecobalance
Why our gut brain is so important Our gut is one of the most important organs in our body. It contains trillions of cells which communicate with each, like in...
Gbiota box story
Over hundreds of thousands of years we have evolved a gut brain that automatically looks after us, without us even thinking about it – and it does it much better...
Opportunity
We all have to eat and the way we are currently growing our food is slowly but inevitably destroying our planet’s ability to grow the food we need. We are...
Introduction to Gbiota
This web is a bit different. We are not trying to sell you something – there are not special offers – buy now before prices jump – or any of...
Gbiota boxes
The purpose of GBiota beds is to breed beneficial biology in the soil. This biology enters the plants growing in the soil so when we eat the plants they act...
updateAug21
This is an update on the practical side of making and managing Gbiota beds. I assume you are familiar with the previous publications and videos available under videos, blogs and...
Anthropocene
What should I eat so I am fit and healthy – what can eight billion people eat so they are fit and healthy and what will my great grand kids...
Overview
How gut food will enhance our gut biology and immune system – overview
What food does
I start with what food does which explains the various jobs that food does in our bodies and how innovation has dramatically increased the overall supply of food – far...
Principles of Gbiota beds
Gbiota beds grow plants to enhance our gut biology – here is the basic principles of how they work
Feed your gut brain
Feed your gut brain My interest is how to grow plants that improve our gut brain – one of the most vital organs in our bodies and the key to...
Food for health
Gbiotafood was developed to provide the trace minerals and beneficial biology essential to health but missing in our modern food system.
Letter From China: Fermented Food, Gut Health, and Why We Age So Differently
I came to China to look for better ways to make fermented foods that support gut biology, because gut biology is a…
What an Ordinary Chinese Town Reveals About Diet, Gut Health, and Aging Well
This article describes careful observation — “gawking” — in Jiangkou, an unremarkable town in inland China, and what it reveals about health,…
Diabetes and the Eco-Village: Wicking Beds, Minerals, and Practical Recovery
Type 2 diabetes is when insulin struggles to move sugar out of the bloodstream and into the muscles and organs. This article…
Reversing Type 2 Diabetes the Yangtou Way
Many people are told Type 2 diabetes is permanent and will only worsen, but that message is often wrong. This article explains…
Stay at Our Gbiota Village: Practical Support for Diabetes Recovery
Spend a few weeks at our Gbiota village and improve your chances of reversing Type 2 diabetes. You will be supported by…
The Future of Agriculture: Adapting Farming to Climate Change
This article is based on a talk Colin Austin — inventor of the wicking bed — gave during a China tour in September 2009.…
The Healthy Food Association: Growing Together for Better Health
This article introduces the Healthy Food Association, a non-profit community focused on improving health through nutrient-rich, biologically active soil and home-grown food.…