Microflora as PRIORITY.
If you are starting here, I’d want to express that microorganisms have already been addressed as part of the other priorities. I began writing at the top of the pyramid and intended to keep each topic as a unit unto itself. But PRIORITIES OVERLAP. The aspects and leverages affecting one priority influence the entire body.
I’ll be brief.
Leveraging at HYDRATION benefits flora in the body in the same way that an aquarium half-full of water is less optimal for the fish living in the tank. There is more concentrated waste-potential in a fish tank half-full and over 5,000 types of bacteria and yeasts have been identified residing in the human gut alone. Some forms of microscopic life prefer a more septic food source, and these tend to harm the host and then give off their own WASTES, which further toxify the “broader aquarium.”
The same principle is how wine is made. You begin with fruit, water, sugar and yeast. The yeasts consume the sugar and produce alcohol as their waste. If the “sum total” of that is called wine, leave that out, exposed to oxygen and to other microorganisms, and these will consume the alcohol and produce what we call VINEGAR.
This models what happens inside of the human body. The wastes of microorganisms inside the human body are the food of other microorganisms, releasing a third type of waste. The more putrid the human’s inner environment, the more specific becomes the TYPES of microorganisms designed to consume putrid wastes. The human body, being comprised mostly of WATER, is where all this production occurs.
Humans are less bones and teeth and eyeballs and a beating heart, than we are a big sack of water where other things have taken up RESIDENCE.
This is #1 to appreciate: the other LIFE forms, which a person’s body supports, give off WASTE. WASTE is how these little creatures COMPETE. Most are kindly and their waste flows like BLOOD inside the human body, not as much volume as blood, but still significant. The unfriendly ones are more interested in their own preservation, than yours. The good ones will choke those out and that’s the human’s goal, to support the good ones.
Just like plants in a garden. Some have thorns. Some are poisonous. Some are invasive. Some like sun, some prefer shade. There are over 5,000 types of microorganisms on and within the human body and every single one is unique. They each have little faces and greet each other going by.
“Hello, hello. Goodbye, goodbye. Hello, hello, etc.”
Mr. Katz
I enjoy learning about fermentation and have attended several workshops taught by fermentation expert, Sandor Katz. He always starts out with the same major factor for what facilitates the fermentation of foods. Within the culture-base is a soup of POTENTIAL microorganisms, some of which will cause the vegetables, or whatever, to rot and putrefy. Others are beneficial, and all that the human fermenter is doing, is creating the most optimal environment for the beneficial microorganisms to thrive and multiply, and then that food-environment is edible for humans.
Mr. Katz makes it all incredibly simple because it is.
Your body works the same way.
I’ve addressed some of how the LIVER PRIORITY works with regard to regeneration and maximum metabolic potential. The STRATEGY is to view the human liver in the same way that “a person fermenting vegetables” wants to ASSIST the beneficial microorganisms to thrive. For example, since chlorine in tap water is added to kill microorganisms, not only would a person NOT want to use tap water added to “a fermentation crock,” you wouldn’t want to add it to your body, either. The chlorine in the tap water kills the beneficial microflora in the human body, too.
You would want to be aware that chain restaurants use concentrated chlorine rinses for cut salads as a preservative. This allows the salad to be made off-site and still appear fresh. When the customer eats that salad, the chlorine molecules active on the salad, go to work within the human body and then sterilize it. Nobody is being a SNOB if they wouldn’t eat a fast food salad. They are just aware that it impairs gut and liver function. Maybe now and then it’s okay, but maybe not even once.
pH is also a controlling factor for human microflora. They prefer different and distinct pH zones in the body. Some yeasts will excrete poisons that change the pH around it, keeping healthy bacteria away and at bay. With this case, if there is yeast overgrowth, the probiotic supplement will provide almost no benefit because it’s like D-Day in WWII, lots of machine gun fire at the beachhead. pH is fungal machine gun fire and flame throwers at the probiotic beachhead.
To overcome the situation, the yeast must be killed first, then send in the microflora.
Plus, if the insides of the person taking a probiotic supplement are severely putrid, the “bad” bacteria loving that environment have the ability to CONVERT beneficial bacteria to their side. In this case, one might want to OVERWHELM the bad bacteria with some additional strategy other than just taking a single daily probiotic pill and expect to be just fine.
So it’s tricky, but simple. Now and then it might be a good idea to consume an entire CUP of homemade sauerkraut or kimchee and let that work it’s way through the gut and then keep taking your probiotic supplement. And you can supplement a whole variety of antifungal supplements in spurts, when you think about it. Tea tree oil, pau d’arco, caprylic acid, grapefruit seed extract. A spoonful of coconut oil. A rounded tablespoon of raw miso paste. A raw medium-size clove of garlic mixed with local honey on a spoon, chewed. Not every day. Just when you remember to do it.
I’m going to end this short discourse on flora because there is already so much information out there to read about it. I’ll add some links to products I’d recommend and just a few bullet points to consider.
- The plethora of cow’s milk yogurt products available at grocery stores are NOT a wise source for probiotic supplementation. Instead, they are sugar and gelatin-based and will form MUCUS in the digestive tract, which yeasts can utilize for support and protection.
- Everybody NATURALLY has fungi within the body and we want them.
- Yeast OVERGROWTH is not fun, but a sign that you are not paying attention to how that could happen.
- Rebuilding flora balance will require the average person one year of avoiding antibiotics in their food, so eating out at restaurants will be like walking through a mine field, but it can be done. All meat served at 90% of restaurants is problematic when it comes to the STERILIZATION of it by INDUSTRY sources, including shrimp, salmon, and especially ground meats including sausage and hamburger.
- Never eat tilapia and if the menu just says “fish,” ask the server what kind of fish it is. You can ignore this, eat tilapia and recover, but WHY add the bodily stress?
- Farmers consider antibiotics a miracle drug because it facilitates the safe concentrating of animals and fish AND it increases/speeds growth. However, it stresses the animal’s internal organs and the molecules comprising the animal’s tissues are forever changed, especially that their fats lose specific benefits to whomever might consume them.
- Taking a walk in nature helps to replenish beneficial microorganisms which reside in the AIR.
- Airborne microorganisms blanket our planet as high as we can see jets fly and are deep within the oceans as deep as submarines can dive. “Blanket” equates to billions per square inch and not visible to the human eye.
- The human body is so PACKED with microorganisms, nobody could flush them out with an enema or from doing a colonic or even multiple colonics in a row. This idea of “dangerously flushing probiotics” from flushing the colon with water may seem logical if you knew very little about the subject.
Lastly, I don’t own a television, but will catch a show here or there where televisions are. Recently I caught a Today Show segment where a guy tested a gym for bacteria on exercise equipment and the show offered strategies for avoiding other people’s germs. Let me offer this perspective: we live within a SEA of microorganisms, not little splashes of them here and there. If a person could spray disinfectant all around them 24/7, what a personal tragedy that would be. If you could cause Lysol to rain down from the clouds, it would not be very long before the entire planet would wither and die.
Except for one thing. There ARE microscopic life forms which would eventually consume the Lysol chemicals and convert that to something else. Then, maybe other life-forms could get a toe-hold and in a billion years we might see trees again.
What I mean is, no matter how badly we humans continue to screw up our planet, and our own insides, there will always be hope. And perhaps the next time around, human will not raise medicated tilapia in giant toxic aquariums and feed it to their kids.
What other dietary things support beneficial bacteria:
- Flax oil, one tablespoon per day.
- Diatomaceous earth, one teaspoon per day.
- Bentonite clay, per directions, but half as much.
- Raw, uncooked, organic plant foods such as salad.
- Natto.
- Raw miso paste eaten on a spoon.
- Kombucha drinks.
- Watch for new fermentation products coming out at health food stores and farmer’s markets.
- Cape aloe to speed bowel transit time, 250 mg.
- Mucus-cutting foods such as raw citrus, ginger, garlic, pomegranate, pineapple, cucumber, Granny Smith apples, onions, pumpkin seeds and cloves.
- Raw goat’s milk.
- Coconut milk, flakes, oil, as unprocessed as possible.
- Fermentation recipes researched on the Internet.
I suppose the best approach to supporting beneficial flora is just to jump in somewhere, and see where it takes you, and soon you will be as much of an expert as anybody.
