How does the saying go? You are what you eat. Well, microbes are everywhere, in everything, so we know it’s in our food. And we know from our article, Microbes and You: We’re All Just a Dipslide with Shoes, that we’re made up of a BUNCH of microbes. So, in that case, yes, we are what we eat! But let’s dig a little deeper than that.
Research and dieticians will tell you that the microbes in our gut are very important to our overall health. But we’re curious, do those microbes coincide with the microbes in the food we eat?
We found a study published by three scientists are the University of California, Davis who characterized microbe consumption based on three different common diets: a typical American diet, a USDA recommended diet, and a vegan diet.
The American diet included more fast food like Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Stouffer’s frozen meals. The USDA recommended diet included foods such as fruits and vegetables, lean meat, dairy, and whole grains. The vegan diet was just that: vegan. It excluded all animal products.
According to their study, the USDA recommended diet contained the most microbes, at about 1.3 billion per day. The vegan diet came in second with about 6 million microbes, and the American diet came in last at 1.4 million microbes. That’s a pretty wide spread! This is because the USDA diet contained foods with many live active cultures, like yogurt and cottage cheese.
There is a great example of this in LaMotte’s Milk Microbe Hunter Activity kit. In this kit, students identify and explore microbes cultured from popular dairy products like milk, yogurt and Kefir. Again, these products can contain many live active cultures.
As far as what microbes we eat, it’s all over the board, and that’s too difficult to classify. We do know it’s a combination of bacteria, yeasts and molds, with the majority being bacteria. And certainly, the type of microbe can impact our microbiome. In other words, some bacteria are better for your gut than others.
Our gut bugs help our bodies digest, absorb nutrients, synthesize certain vitamins, boost our immune system, and regulate metabolism. They play an important role. We all know we need to get our daily servings of fruit and vegetables, but did you also know that these colorful, plant-based foods help our internal microbes flourish?
So, essentially, it comes down to this…
We all know the basics of healthy nutrition, and what we should be eating. While many of us probably thought that was primarily for the purposes of maintaining a healthy weight, as it turns out, it helps our microbiome, too! And our microbiome plays several important roles in our overall health.
Leave A Comment