Guts, Poop, Gas and Dysbiosis.

Composting is a past time most of us are involved in without even knowing it.

Robert Long, a naturopath who lived reclusively for decades in the isolated area of the West Coast of the South Island said ‘food is just fuel’.

This is exactly what it is, and its quality will affect the energy production that it offers the individual. Food is processed for the energy producing elements that are necessary for human life by being ‘cooked’ in the ovens of our cells. These tiny ovens are our mitochondria. There are upwards of 1000 in nearly every cell.

There are multiple elements to our fuel requirements, carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients. These are all extracted from our food via our gastrointestinal tract and sunlight through our skin surface.

Our never ending survival search for food has created both opportunity and disaster. Increasing distortion of our food chain confuses our ability to compost and extract the nutrients we require. If the fuel generates an inappropriate inflammatory response the interrelationship of the trillions of bacteria, fungi, yeast and viruses (that do the composting) with each other can cause internal catastrophe. Changes in poop consistency, bloating, discomfort and the variability of the odour of our gases signals to us the state of health of our gut.

There is a dramatic increase in gut related problems in our western societies, new terminologies have been created to describe these. One such terminology is ‘leaky gut’. Once ‘poo pooed’ by the doctors as nonsense, leaky gut has been blamed as the cause of the increasing occurrence of overactive immunity responses causing chronic fatigue and autoimmune disorders.

We are all unique in our inflammatory response and for those who are genetically positioned to be more inflammatory, have a higher risk of developing faulty composting diseases.

Dysbiosis is a term given to the process where imbalances of gut bacteria and other microbes generate unhelpful byproducts such as excess methane and hydrogen sulphide and numerous bioactive peptides. Diverticulitis, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel syndrome, polyposis of the bowel, bowel cancers, constipation and diarrhoea are a few among many composting disorders.

As always, opportunity to sell into this distressed gut related market has seen the development of prebiotics, probiotics, gut restoration protocols and gut healing products such as glutamine being promoted.

So there it is, better quality food leads to less farting and better health, which is better for all.