Intelligence

Look around you, we humans don’t have giant claws or big teeth, we can’t run very fast and unless you are an old lady with a black cat, pointed hat and special broomstick we can’t fly.

So how do we survive? One word – intelligence.

But it takes a long time to grow our big brains – some twenty-five years for them to fully mature and just brute intelligence is not enough – our brains must be trained.

For that, we must be part of a tribe with older people who can accumulate and pass on information to the next generation.

This big brain and the ability to accumulate information over time is how we have become the dominant creature on Earth.

But it meant that we needed enough people to be fit and healthy to an old age to pass on information. Being alive was not enough – we needed a long health span.

Along with elephants and an odd species of tortoise, crocodiles, and jellyfish we have evolved to be among the longest-living creatures on earth.

We have two brains, the one in our head which we all know about but we have a second, subconscious brain in our gut. The trillions of cells communicate with each other to create intelligence which regulates our appetite, what and how much we eat.

The sort of food we eat and particularly how it is grown is critical to feeding both our brains and achieving a long health span. We need to eat gut-brain food.

Gbiota does not sell food, we show how to grow food for a long health span and if you don’t want to grow yourself we aim to link you to a local grower.

We provide documentation and support by email and video calls – it is not rocket science but must must be done right.

If this is of interest then start by reading the overview article Taste, Hunger and Health span. It is quite long but you are not going to achieve a long health span from a three-word slogan, it does take a bit of effort.

Having read this article you can decide if this is for you and subscribe but if you feel you need more information we can set up an email or video chat.

 Our intelligent control system

This is a members only site for people who are serious about gut health – and recognise that the trillions of microbes in our gut have swarm intelligence and form an essential part of our intelligent control system which regulates our appetite as described below.

They recognise that this is more complex than popping a few pills and takes some effort to successfully improve overall health.

You must be logged in to access this site.  Login here or read the overview and if you feel you can commit then register at the bottom of the page.

Extend health span

by enhancing your gut-brain

 Health Span

We have amazing medical and food science – we should all be fit and healthy and enjoying a longer health span, but we are not – we have such powerful technology which should be working for the benefit of the community – but it is not, why and what can we do about it?

That the question we examine on this web.  It is not trivial so we take it in stages.

The Gbiota movement

The Gbiota movement is based on three core principles.

Our gut-brain is intelligent

Our gut is generally thought of from the viewpoint of bio-chemistry. It is true that our gut digests our food and manufactures a range of chemicals essential for health.

This is true but only a partial truth.

Our gut contains trillions of cells of thousands of species. They communicate with each other to create swarm intelligence, which together with our head brain controls our bodies.

This operates as our subconscious brain which can override our conscious brain.

Our subconscious and conscious brains must work in unison. We can manage our subconscious gut brain in three steps – ensure we have the right species feed and enhance them – train them.

Modify our food system

Our food system is dominated by mega-corporations that focus on profits by giving people what they want which is highly processed food which is cheap, convenient and tastes good.

They crave this food because our current food system is deficient in the food which powers our gut-brain.

We need to create a new industry of gut-brain food.

Creating a gut-brain food industry is a key objective of the Gbiota movement.

Food Honesty

The Internet must be among the greatest innovations of our era, giving people access to information which would not otherwise be readily available.

Unfortunately, it has become the home of manipulative advertising for profit.

All businesses need to cover their costs and make a profit, that is fine, but if they abuse the power of manipulative advertising without considering community benefit and the sustainability of human life on earth the future for the human species looks bleak.

The way to combat this manipulation of the truth is to have an informed public.

Cooperating with concerned individuals, organisations and Governments to inform the public is a key objective of the Gbiota movement.

Join and support the Gbiota movement our future depends on it. The Earth has been spinning around the sun for over four billion years and as far as we know will still spinning around the sun for another four billion years.

How long humans will enjoy a viable existence on earth depends on the decisions every individual takes.

Register now and join the Gbiota movement. Below are our various levels of membership.

Commercial grower

We will help you set up a commercial operation supplying Gbiota baskets and boxes for your local community

Contact us here so we can start talking

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Taste, hunger and Health Span

This document is published under the Creative Commons system which means it can be copied and reproduced without further permission but the source Colin Austin of Gbiota must be acknowledged. Colin Austin 20 Feb 25

This document addresses one of the major health issues – diet, health span and the epidemic of chronic diseases. Comments and suggestions welcome. Email me here.

Zonked

Eighty fifth birthday party

I have just had my eighty fifth birthday, I have a menagerie of grand kids in the young adult stage and two great grand daughters.

One of my grand daughters, Candy came up from Brisbane for my party and to stay for a few days and bring me a birthday cake.

I usually go for a walk around Baldwin Swamp in the morning so I asked her if she wanted to come along but she said I am zonked.

Zonked

I am a native English speaker but young adults like my grand kids seem to talk a different version of the English language but I did learn that Zonked is a pseudo medical term meaning exhausted from the stress on modern living.

So what happens if you are zonked? Obviously go to the doctor.

Haem iron

If you are female, the doctor will look at the blood test, see that your iron level is low, and probably won’t prescribe that you go down to the local scrap yard and munch away on a few cylinder heads but will give you a short lecture on haem iron and prescribe the appropriate pills.

Zinc

If you are male, the doctor will suspect that you have been having to much hanky panky which exhaust you supply of zinc, make some comment about lucky you and prescribe some zinc pills as one good hanky panky can exhaust your supply of zinc.

Nothing wrong with this, the doctors are just doing their job but across the globe, we are suffering from an epidemic of chronic diseases, obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia.

The doctors do their best to treat these illnesses but wouldn’t it be better to find a way of avoiding these illnesses in the first place?

Out numbered

In my family, I am outnumbered. My wife is a medical doctor while my two granddaughters are studying medicine in Brisbane and I am just a humble engineer.

But I think like an engineer which means I like to understand how things really work so when my wife became diabetic and her foot started to turn black and the doctors were talking about amputation I was not at all happy and wanted to understand what is the real cause.

The wrong fat in the wrong place

It turns out that the cause of all chronic diseases, obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia is the wrong fat in the wrong place.

In the case of diabetes, it is fat in the pancreas which can no longer produce enough insulin.

So she went on a diet, largely of fresh home grown vegetables and the good news is she still has both her feet.

Motivated

But is did make me highly motivated, eight million people a year have a limb amputated from diabetes, heart attacks, often related to fat in the arteries, are the most common cause of death while dementia, fat in the brain must be one of the most heart-wrenching diseases.

Chronic diseases are the world’s biggest health crisis well overtaking infectious diseases.

But I am just an engineer what could I do about it? Understand how our bodies work in the way that an engineer understand how a machine works.

Every machine has some sort of control system so I have had to understand how our body’s intelligent control system works.

We have been here before

We have been here before with infectious diseases. It is not that long ago that infectious disease were the big killer, three out of five babies would die before the age of five, another in their teens while most of the adults would never reach their natural life span.

Of course medical science made a great contribution to fighting infectious diseases but the real impact came from prevention.

Engineers built sewage and clean water systems, hygiene was dramatically improved, the humble bed with clean sheets and washing machines removed the source of infections.

Modern day prevention

Now we face the new problem of chronic diseases. Medical science is making great strides but the real solution will come from prevention.

Prevention is more effective and costs far less then trying to resolve the diseases when it has become established.

So how do we prevent chronic disease? By focusing on the underlying cause.

The short, simplistic and wrong answer is to tell tell people to eat the right amount of the right food.

The slogan “eat less, exercise more” has been around for donkeys keys and has not worked because it is not addressing the fundamental cause.

We have an intelligent control system which regulates our bodies, particular our appetite, how much and what we eat. It is called homeostasis and we have known about it for the best part of a couple of hundred years.

Let us take an example of our intelligent control system at work with a young kid riding a bike.

I am an engineer and can explain how a bike stays upright by talking about self balancing gyroscopic couples.

Is that how I taught my kids when they were three years old to ride a bike – no way.

They just got on the bike, fell of a few time but soon got the knack without knowing anything about self balancing gyroscopic couples.

That is because their intelligent control system works in the their subconscious – it is high speed, very powerful and easily overrides our slow and clunky conscious of logical brain.

If we are going to use a strategy of prevention which is the only effective way of combating the epidemic of chronic disease then we must work with our subconscious brain and not just yell at people to eat less and exercise more.

That is a waste of time and energy.

Abstract

We don’t get fat and sick simply because we eat too much.

Our gut and head brains form an intelligent control system which regulates our bodies. If it decides we need to store more fat it will send out hormones which make us feel hungry so then we overeat and get fat and sick.

This happens when we do not feed our gut-brain the right sort of food. Our modern food system is not feeding our gut brain which has led to a global epidemic of chronic or non-infectious disease which is reducing our health span and is modern societiy’s greatest health challenge.

Before our modern food system we ate food that fed our gut-brain with beneficial microbes but we also bred many harmful microbes which led to infectious diseases and much of the population dying before their natural term.

Our modern food system has reduced the harmful microbes but also the beneficial microbes. The great technical challenge is to breed the beneficial microbes without breeding the harmful microbes.

We need to create a new industry of growing gut-brain food, here we show how.

Success requires the successful development of technology, where as a successful innovator I have spent much of my eighty-five years but it also requires a social movement where dedicated community-minded people try it, see if their appetite and food cravings are reduced then tell their friends and contact to create a movement of public awareness.

The essence – Creating the new gut-brain food industry

Chronic disease caused by the wrong fat in the wrong place

Chronic or non-infectious diseases have now far overtaken infectious diseases and are now our major health threat.

Chronic diseases are caused by the wrong fat in the wrong place.

Our bodies have an intelligent control system

Our bodies have an intelligent control system which decides and then regulates by hormones where and how much fat we store.

This intelligent control system is made up of our head and gut brains communicating and working together.

Our gut is an integrated system of trillions of cells consisting of thousands of different species. Each cell can communicate with neighbouring cells to create swarm or group intelligence.

How our gut-brain works depends on the overall integrated system rather than a few specific species.

Our gut-brain dominated by the food we eat

Our gut brain is initially populated by our mum at birth; after that, it is dominated by the food we eat, although contact with other creatures has an effect.

Our gut-brain works in our subconscious brain which is far faster and more effective than our conscious brain in determining what we eat – it is what we want to eat that matters.

Conscious and subconscious brains

It is not effective to tell our conscious brain to eat less and exercise more. We have to manage our subconscious brain so we want to eat the right amount of the right sort of food.

The combination of our gut and head brain has memory and can be trained.

The food we eat contains a spectrum of microbes which come from the soil, particularly the creatures of the soil who have guts like us.

Microbes have a short life – dynamic equilibrium

Microbes have a very short life but breed incredibly fast. Our gut is in a state of dynamic equilibrium with individual cells dying and being replaced by this rapid breeding.

To breed the cells in our gut they must be fed with gut-brain food.

Modern food – high in energy low in gut-brain food

We need to enhance our gut-brain with a steady supply of fresh microbes in our food.

Historically food was grown locally and eaten shortly after harvesting which naturally provided us with gut-brain food.

Our modern food has changed what we eat. It contains an abundance of energy food – sugars and fats – but is deficient in gut-brain food and microbes. It is largely inert and any microbes that may have been in it will have died from the extended time from harvest to eating.

We need to create a new industry of gut-brain food

We need to create a new industry of gut-brain food.

This industry will be based on the underlying principle of controlling the conditions so the beneficial microbes out-breed and out-compete the harmful microbes – the principle of Ecological balance.

Ecological balance

Beneficial microbes need a balanced combination of nutrients, water and air.

Nutrients can be provided from recycling organic waste which has the added advantage of being sustainable.

Circulate Soil Blood

This can be achieved by circulating the soil blood (the mixture of water, dissolved nutrients and microbes) in a regular flood and flush cycle so the soil and plants receive a regular supply of nutrients, water and air without the soil blood ever becoming stagnant.

Skilled growers already exist but they need a market

There are an adequate number of skilled growers who are fully capable of producing gut-brain food but they need a market to create a sustainable business.

Need for major educational program

This requires a major educational program from the relevant organisations, particularly Governments who have responsibility for their community health.

This education is challenged by the level of disinformation on the Internet and the marketing power of the current food industry, which is dominated by mega, multinational organisations that are extremely skilled in manipulative marketing.

Must make the effort

Despite all these obstacles if we are to thrive as a species we must make the effort. In the first instance, this will fall on the shoulders of a few dedicated individuals.

Taste, hunger and healthspan

Preface

Extinction

Is humanity in danger of extinction? Probably not.

Is our modern comfortable lifestyle in danger of extinction? Definitely yes and it is happening right now.

Can we do anything to avoid this? Yes – but it takes a bit of effort to understand the problem and do something about it.

What is the biggest problem? Food – there is plenty of food – that is not the problem – modern food is making us fat and sick. We need food that will lead to a long and healthy life.

Is this a technical problem? No – we know how to grow food that will make us healthy.

So what is the problem? Persuading people to eat healthy food when they are bombarded with manipulative advertising and food that is deliberately made addictive.

Will that happen? It is up to you with the power of the wallet.

Deciding what we eat

Modern science has given us a good understanding of what we should eat to lead a long and healthy life. We understand this at the conscious level.

That is the easy bit.

But our body has an intelligent control system which makes us want to eat too much of the wrong sorts of food – and it almost always wins.

That is the difficult bit.

Intelligent control

Without taste and hunger, we would soon be dead so it seems a pretty good idea to see how they work and how we can use this understanding to increase our health span – how long we are fit and healthy.

It starts with our intelligent control system which regulates our bodies which is formed by cooperation between our gut and head brain.

Our gut contains trillions of cells of thousands of species and we often talk about our gut as having swarm intelligence and compare it to flocks of birds, swarms of ants and bees and not to forget the wonder of slime moulds.

This analogy may not be strictly accurate as these have many identical items with each item communicating with its neighbour so the entire system has a collective intelligence.

However, our gut has thousands of species of microbes which can have very different behaviour so it might be better to talk about group intelligence.

And what animal is spectacularly successful at group intelligence? Well, what about us.

In fact, we are so good at it that we never bother to think about it and study how it works. Let us look at that at work in building a house.

Group intelligence and building a house

Our bodies are complex and difficult to understand so it may be useful to look at an everyday occurrence which we can understand – building a house.

It all seems so simple but no one single person knows everything about building a house.

It starts with a soil engineer who examines the load-bearing capacity of the soil and designs a system of foundations.

Then an earth-moving specialist may come along and drill holes for a concrete specialist to fill.

Then a framework designer will design a structure which a tradesman skilled in wood or steel builds to be later encased by a bricklayer, or other tradesmen.

Along comes further specialists to install the internal, plumbing, electricals, air conditions, internet, phone and satellite connection etc.

A project manager may coordinate all these activities but won’t understand the details of every speciality.

If he sees that the electrical work is falling behind he won’t recruit more bricklayers. Instead, he will try and recruit more electricians – which won’t be easy if the house is being built in Bundaberg. (Believe, me I know).

Combining a multitude of skills comes naturally to us humans that we never even recognise it is happening.

Group intelligence and our bodies

Our intelligent control system faces similar, but much more complex problems.

For a start we need oxygen so we need lungs to suck in air and to transfer oxygen to our blood, then we need a heart to pump it around our arteries and deliver it to our muscles.

The speed has to be controlled to match demand and the air will almost certainly contain some harmful microbes so an immune system is needed to identify and deal with these harmful intruders.

This all works automatically, controlled by our subconscious brain, and we never bother to think about it but I needed to set the scene for the big issue that I want to talk about – “Food”.

The Big Food Control Myth

We like to think that we decide what and how much we want to eat in our conscious brain.

It is true we do have the benefit of some intelligent and conscientious dietitians who will tell us we need so many calories, so many grams of carbohydrates and proteins and so many milligrams or micrograms of a whole range of minerals and vitamins.

Now let me be clear, I am not saying they are wrong they may well be perfectly correct down to the last micro-gram of B12 but it is not the way our intelligent control system (our gut-brain) works now or has worked for the last million years or so.

Our gut-brain works in our subconscious brain deciding whether we have enough of the right sort of food.

Feeling satisfied

Our subconscious gut-brain asks “Do we have the right amount of the right sort of food?”

If yes it will create hormones so we feel satisfied and not want to eat.

If no it will create hormones to make us feel hungry. But it does much more than making us feel hungry and want to eat, it knows what sorts of food we need.

It has been learning from the first suck on mum’s breasts what food makes us feel good and associate that with a particular taste.

So, depending on the learning experience, we may crave a slice of cheesecake, a giant steak or a vegetable curry.

We are not born craving cheesecake or vegetable curry and enjoying the taste, we learn over a period to time and associate the particular taste with feeling good and satisfied.

What tastes good to me could well be revolting to you, taste is learned from what makes us feel good and satisfied.

Conscious v subconscious – the battle

We may learn from our dietitian that eating a specific diet is the most healthy for us and will lead to a long and healthy life but if our subconscious brain is saying no, don’t eat that go stuff yourself with this – then we have a conflict.

Whether our conscious or subconscious brain wins that conflict depends a bit on willpower and it is possible that we will eat the dietitian-created diet for a period, but the odds are that eventually the subconscious brain will win.

Don’t believe me? Go to the local shopping centre and see the number of wobbly bums and tums.

Training our subconscious brain

But we can adopt a different strategy of training our gut-brain so it sends out signals to eat the healthier diet.

There are three steps to this.

Full spectrum of microbes

The first step is to ensure we have the right spectrum of microbes in our gut.

This is more complex than taking pro-biotics containing a few species we need a full spectrum.

Just as in building a house, it is pointless recruiting more concreters if we are short of electricians.

Feed the microbes so they breed

The second step is to feed the microbes so they breed. Microbes breed like crazy, but they need food so we need to eat food that will enable our microbes to breed inside us.

But that is not enough we also need to eat food that contains a fresh supply of microbes with a full spectrum to ensure our gut maintains a full spectrum.

Train the gut-brain

Our subconscious brain has intelligence and is continuously learning from the first such on mum’s breasts.

We have to use our conscious brain to expose it to a variety of foods so it learns.

Feeding our kids ultra-processed food is condemning them to a life of being fat and sick. They need to be exposed to what I call Gbiota food meaning plants, grown in living soil and eaten fresh.

That includes spices and herbs which add a bit of flavour to what could otherwise be a very bland food.

Part 2 Solutions Technology and Social

Technology

This is not a manual, that is separate, this is just an overview.

The aim is to grow food containing a broad spectrum of beneficial microbes.

Before I describe how to do this I need to talk about three essential concepts.

Ecological balance

Breeding microbes is more than easy, it is almost impossible to stop. Just leave anything organic, meat veggies food scraps, prunings, dead logs, grass cutting, whatever and some microbe will come along and use it as food and once fed it will breed like crazy.

The problem is that a lot of these microbes are harmful so how do we breed the beneficial microbes without breeding the harmful ones?

I should add a foot-note – on a scale to feed eight billion people at an economic price.

The answer comes from nature and has existed for billions of years – Ecological balance.

It is why we have polar bears in the Arctic but no Antelopes but no polar bears but plenty of Antelopes in Africa.

It is simply a question of carefully controlling the conditions to preferentially favour the beneficial microbes.

Plants need five things – sunlight and carbon dioxide which they get from the air free of charge.

They also need a balanced ration of nutrients, water and air (technically dissolved oxygen) they get from the soil.

All we have to do is to manage the ratio of nutrients, water and air in the soil to preferentially benefit the good microbes.

The flood and flush system is a practical way of maintaining this air to water ratio.

Goldilocks moisture, not to wet and not to dry – just right.

Soil blood

A second basic concept is soil blood, a term I made up thinking about how our bodies work.

All our organs need oxygen which they get from blood which contains dissolved oxygen via our lungs.

This is how fish and soil life works.

In the Gbiota technology, we are consistently circulating water containing both nutrients and dissolved oxygen.

Dynamic equilibrium

There is another basic concept I must introduce before I describe the mechanics.

Look at the major cities of the world that have existed for thousands of years, but the characteristics of their citizens have remained relatively consistent over generations.

It is the same with microbes in the soil, plants and our gut – given stable conditions they are consistent over a long period of time. But change the conditions and the microbes will change very rapidly.

Microbes may breed like crazy but they also die very quickly, we are talking about a half-life of less than a day. When we harvest a plant we cut off the natural supply of nutrients so the microbes in the plant, which will later form our gut biota will change (from good to bad).

Plants need to be eaten while fresh, and fresh does not mean ‘not gone rotten’.

Gbiota beds

Gbiota beds are the most direct way of growing plants to enhance our gut biota.

They are generally raised beds, preferably not enclosed, to avoid the soil becoming saturated in times of heavy rain.

Ag pipes (slotted drainage pipes) are laid on the base and feed into a sump (by a leaky dam as described in the support articles).

They are filled with a mixture of organic waste, soil with a fine particle size, minerals and initially inoculants and soil creatures.

Beneficial microbes do breed in the soil but they also breed in the gut of the creatures of the soil, worms, beetles, larvae, nematodes etc.

These creatures play a key role in breaking down the organic waste.

We need to grow a spectrum of plants as each species exudes nutrients which attract specific species of microbes.

Plants can be seeded directly into the soil and the bed irrigated using a combination of flood and flush and spraying.

The water or soil blood comes from the sump using a pump.

The drainage pipes are used as subsurface irrigation pipes to flood the base of the bed but when the pump is turned off the soil blood drains slowly (via the leaky dam) back into the sump.

As the soil blood drains it will suck fresh air into the bed.

The same pump can be used to sprinkle irrigate. This has several advantages, the soil blood contains beneficial microbes which will enter the plant via the foliage, the soil blood will absorb oxygen by sprinkling and it also helps germinate seeds.

The limitation of the Gbiota bed is that the plants need to be eaten shortly after harvesting. This is no problem for a home grower but severely limits the market for commercial growers.

This problem is resolved by Gbiota baskets.

Gbiota baskets

Gbiota baskets are any suitable container with holes – supermarket baskets work fine and are light enough to carry.

Food plants are grown in the soil in the baskets and the microbes and the creatures of the soil enter the baskets and the irrigation, both subsurface and spray are spreading the microbes.

When the plants are ready to start harvesting they can be delivered and all the consumer has to do is to water and harvest, preferably by tipping (see documentation).

As the baskets, using tipping, may be productive for a month or more this makes transport more manageable.

The baskets can be placed in a box with a swivel tube so it works similar to a wicking box and allows the use of the flood and flush system to maintain the Goldilocks moisture level.

It also save time with less frequent waterings.

The box can be partially filled with water which will wick up to the plants, but it must not lie there stagnant or the wrong microbes will breed.

It need to be circulated using the flood and flush.

Gbiota boxes

Gbiota boxes are intermediate between beds and baskets.

They use compost tubes for recycling and are fitted with swivel tubes so can operate the flood and flush system as in a Gbiota bed.

They do need the special mix we call Wickimix to set them up and they do need replenishing after a time.

They may have a longer time between swapping but they require more skill and effort to manage than a Gbiota baskets.

Social

The Gbiota system may provide a technical solution to the epidemic of chronic disease but it does require a change in the way our food system works and social changes are never easy, particularly when the main players are multi-national mega companies seemingly beyond the control of National Governments.

So how do we go about creating this social change?

Functions of food

We need food for energy, we are thermodynamic machines so we eat food to power our bodies. Typically that energy comes from sugar and fats and if there is one thing that our current food system is good at is providing us with sugary fatty foods, laced with flavourings which are often addictive and promoted by highly skilled manipulative marketing.

Some 80% of the food we eat is energy food and our current food system is well geared to keep on supplying energy food on a massive scale.

We also need food to replace our body parts as they wear and age.

Modern technology has dramatically increased the production of energy food but the supply of the critical nutrients for replacement food has remained static so there is an issue with trace minerals and vitamins but at this moment it is not at a critical level.

Replacement food needs to be around 15% of our food intake.

The serious issue is that our modern food is deficient in food to feed and replace our gut microbes.

In an effort to get fed our gut microbes, who are at the wheel as our intelligent control system, send out signals for us to eat more in the hope of getting gut-brain food.

This may be only 5% of our needed food intake but this deficiency is at the core of resolving the epidemic of chronic disease.

The big challenge we face is how to educate the public that they need to be eating gut-brain food.

There will be no new gut-brain food industry if there is no demand from the public.

How do we do that?

Farther Christmas

My daughter, when she was about seven accidentally taught me a very valuable lesson.

Like all seven year old’s the world is full of wonder and discovery and those rather stupid, uniformed adults need educating about these discoveries.

She has found out the way of identifying real Farther Christmases from fake ones.

All you had to do was look behind their ears. If there was elastic holding up their beard they were fakes, no elastic and they were real.

After she had explained this major discovery to me I asked in the typical clumsy way of adults if she still believed in Father Christmas.

This was a big problem for her which required a long thought but eventually, she responded with a question “If I say I have stopped believing in Father Christmas, will I still get presents?”

That was a long time ago, she is now a grandmother but in the age of the internet and disinformation and manipulative marketing, people will believe in what is best for them and the truth plays only a minor part.

How to convince the public

I don’t think I am particularly weird in wanting to live a long and healthy life so have experimented on myself with many diets.

I am a natural pig so in my older years have developed a bit of a tum so I tried a strict calorie-restricted diet. I caught sight of myself in a mirror and was horrified to see the emaciated face, like from a feature film about the concentration camps, looking back at me.

That certainly made me question the value of simple calorie restriction and led me to investigate how the body naturally controls weight.

I know that the natural system works because if we had been fat back in our period of evolution we could not have climbed trees and swung from branch to branch to escape the ferocious beast below.

I have stopped worrying about calories, but ensure that I eat food that will feed my gut-brain and also contains the essential minerals and vitamins.

I am eighty-five, fit and healthy go for a long walk or bike ride most mornings so as far as I am concerned it has worked for me.

I don’t spend hours worrying about my diet, if my body tells me I am hungry I eat and if it tells me I am not hungry I don’t eat (or only eat a little).

Statistics and an n of 1

I know enough about statistics to know that an ‘n’ or sample size of 1 is next to useless and that you need a sample size in the many thousands with complex adjustments to correct for a range of factors to be scientifically valid.

But even then the public will be confused by the technical jargon of statistics and will still be unconvinced – unless – yes wait for it

that ‘n’ happens to be you.

Strategy for the Disinformation Age

Step 1 – Keen, health-conscious gardeners

I think we can assume that in this disinformation age that hardly anyone is going to believe what they see on the internet – unless it is from a real person they trust.

It is also unrealistic to go head to head against the might of the modern food industry who are very good at their job – which is making as much money as possible and manipulative promotion plays a key part and is something they are very good at.

But there are people who have that magic combination of being both keen gardeners and concerned about their health. Maybe only a minority of the population but they can play a critical role.

So we start by helping these keen health-conscious gardeners to set up their own Gbiota beds, get them to eat the gut-brain food they grow and see if their appetite is reduced.

They don’t have to do what I have done, wait until they are eighty-five and see if they are still fit and healthy.

If they feel that they are satisfied, stop craving food and naturally eat less then it is virtually certain that they have extended their health span.

Then, and this is the critical bit, persuade them of their community obligation to tell their friends and contacts.

Step 2 Set up a local gut-brain food industry

The epidemic of chronic diseases is global involving billions of people. It will not be resolved by home growers. We need to create a global gut-brain industry. But how?

There are many entrepreneurial growers who are potential gut-brain growers. As professional growers, they already have the technical base, so with a little training they can be effective suppliers.

But professional growers have to earn a living so how can this be turned into a sound and stable business?

Technically gbiota baskets and boxes are good products but there is a transport issue. We are not shipping plants but plants growing in boxes or baskets.

In practice this means they must be local suppliers but today so many people live in cities well away from the conventional farming areas.

However, it does not take a lot of space and most cities are surrounded by growing areas. In some cities areas have already been set aside for food production.

This is a problem where local Governments need to be involved.

Central Governments also need to be involved, particularly for public education. As they bear the brunt of the cost of the epidemic there is every reason for them to be motivated.

The modern internet resolves some of the problems with consumers being able to order and pay online.

But there is still the physical problem of distribution. An ideal solution would be to have some central location where consumers visit as part of their normal routine and baskets or boxes could be delivered in bulk.

Local farmers markets, health food shops and gyms come to mind.

Final note

Despite all these obstacles if we are to thrive as a species we must make the effort. In the first instance, this will fall on the shoulders of a few dedicated individuals.

I cannot create the change myself, I am just one person. But a group of dedicated people, who see the importance of creating a new industry of gut-brain food so we have a healthy community, can make this essential change.

At this moment the most important job it so spread the word to create an active community.

This document is published under the creative commons which means it can be copied and republished without further approval just acknowledgement of source.

So if you appreciate the importance of this project please tell your friends and if you really want to make an impact persuade your Government that they carry the responsibility for community health.

If you are serious contact me here and I can set up a video call, one of the good things of modern technology, and we can have a chat.

Your choice

We are at a crossroads and have two options.

In option one we can live in a society dominated by marketing hype, where we buy health bars full of sugars and fats because they are promoted as healthy, where we spend a thousand dollars a month to take drugs like Ozemic in an attempt to get slim but find that after a year our bodies have acclimatised so they no longer work.

It takes little effort but costs a lot of money and we destroy the natural resources of the Earth.

In option 2 we live in a circular economy where we respect the Earth. We take advantage of creatures like a little fly that lays its eggs in mulch. The larvae that hatch out are so ugly that even their mother cannot love them and flies away.

But they excrete into the soil microbes which change our Gut Biota which controls our appetite so we don’t overeat, get fat and sick but instead live long and healthy lives.

It costs less than option 1 but it does take effort to understand how a sustainable circular economy works.

You will take this decision right now when you decide whether to skip away or make the effort to understand how a sustainable circular system works and the health and social benefits that result.

Where is the introduction?

When you write an article, give a talk or create a website it is normal to have a short introduction that tells people what is coming up.

I can tell you what I would like to talk about, how we can solve the challenge of our modern food system which is causing an epidemic of chronic diseases – overweight, diabetes, heart attacks and dementia and how we can overcome the future challenges from climate change, degradation of our soils and running out of critical minerals – like phosphorous.

Well, I am not going to do that – at least not straight away, that will come later, for a very good reason-I need to tell you a little story to set the scene.

A long time ago

Many years ago, about fifty to be precise before I decided to devote my attention to what I consider the greatest threat to mankind – how we can sustainably grow food that will keep us healthy.  At that time plastics had not become antisocial so I wrote a computer simulation of how plastics flow into a mould.

The conventional wisdom at the time was that if a mould did not fill then make the flow channels bigger. That was simple, easy and did not work.

I went around the world giving lectures saying that the solution was to make some flow channels smaller, specifically the flow channels feeding the easy areas of the mould to fill, which would then direct the flow to the more difficult areas to fill.

Nutter from down under

And almost everyone thought I was a nutter and I was booed and heckled.

But a few entrepreneurial engineers thought I might have a point, tried it and it worked.

They then told their friends, published scientific papers and soon the whole industry accepted this apparently crazy idea.

For this, I was recognised by the Institute of Engineers as one of Australia’s leading innovators.

Simple, obvious and does not work

We now face a similar situation with food, but this affects everyone on Earth.

The simple and obvious solution to people getting fat, (and fat in the wrong place is the root cause of the epidemic) is to eat less.

It may be simple, obvious but does not work.  We have been trying that for years and people are getter fatter and chronic diseases increase.

Every book on diet, every article you read and almost every expert you talk to will tell you ‘eat less exercise more’ but it does not work, at least long term and for a very simple reason.

Our body has intelligence

Our body is not a dumb collection of organs it has intelligence, largely in our head and gut and its tries to keep us alive by whatever means possible.

Now I ask you, if you were a brain and your job was to keep your body alive and you saw that your body was short of food what would your do?

You would probably think that the smart thing to do would be to store any and every bit of food that you could lay your hands (or teeth) on and that is exaclty what your smart body does.

We have ignored this for eighty years

This is exactly what happens and we have known this for some eighty years when people who were starved in WW2 later later became fat when food was available, we had trained out bodies to store fat.

We see it every day, rich people who have an abundant supply of healthy food tend to be slim, people struggling with excessive rent payment who can’t afford healthy food tend to get fat.

Eat more but of the right sort of food

Just as with my battle over flow channels when I said make some flow channels smaller but people heard make all flow channels smaller I am now saying forget about the old thinking of eating less I am saying eat more.

But I am not saying go out and eat a monster plate of hamburger and chips I am saying eat more of the right sort of food.

That food is gut-brain food which feeds out intellitgent control system which regualtes our bodies.

This website is all about how to eat more of the right sort of food.

Thanks for re-thinking

As expected most people hear ‘your fat eat more’ which is not what I am saying but all I can do is hope some entrepreneurial thinkers come along read and think about what I am saying, try it for themselves and then tell their friends and we start thinking about fat in a different, more enlightened, way.

Every year eight million people a year who have a limb amputated from diabetes and  will be very grateful to these entrepreneurial thinkers who went out on a limb to change the way we think about food.

If you are one of these please email me at colin@gbiota.com  I would love to hear from you.

Wonce a pone a tie’m

Nothing like a good yarn

Seems like my spell checker is not working too well but starting with “Once upon a time” is a way of saying story coming up – yes this web is a bit different.

We are suffering from an epidemic of chronic diseases, our food system is making us fat and sick.

We have to change the way we grow at least some of our food so we can enjoy a long and healthy life.

I think people would prefer to hear directly from a guy that is out there, living in the real world, getting his hands dirty experimenting with different ways of growing food rather than a marketing wiz kids living in a virtual world of marketing hype and Avatars.

Sorry if I offend but the truth can be nasty.

I tell this as a story because people like a good yarn and are put off by a lot of dull boring statistics.

Father Christmas and Fantasy land

The story starts many years ago when I was chatting with my seven year old daughter. When you are seven everything is new and exciting and obviously you have a duty to explain your new discover to your aging parents who may not be too enlightened.

She was explaining how to tell the difference between real Father Christmases and fake ones.

You look behind their ears. If there is elastic holding up their beard they are fake but it there is no elastic they are real.

Without really thinking I asked her if she still believed in Father Christmas.

A big deal

This was apparently a big deal for her because she thought about it for a long time and then asked “If I stop believing in Farther Christmas will I still get presents?”

This taught me a lot about human nature, what we believe is what is convenient to believe and the facts are only a very secondary issue.

Humanity faces many challenges, there is climate variability from the increasing carbon dioxide levels, the degradation of our soils, and the way we are rapidly exploiting the available resources of water and critical minerals like phosphorus.

These are a threat to humans’ ability to feed ourselves but don’t seem to be a big issue that people want to talk about.

Take climate change, I would have thought that the danger was pretty clear yet many young adolescent males totally deny there is a problem and insist on doing wheelies in giant V8’s totally denouncing any change to electric cars.

What is the driving force here (excuse the pun)​​?

The point is that doing wheelies is rutting behaviour. Humans don’t have the vocal capacity of a moose but we are the great tool makers and what better tool to make a lot of noise to show that you are ready for a bit of hanky panky, than a giant V8 at full throttle?

Don’t tangle with a rutting moose

If you learn anything from this website remember never to tangle with a rutting moose, (or rutting adolescent) they are focused on a bit of hanky-panky and any facts are irrelevant.

Unfortunately, it seems to attract more adolescent males than females but the smart males have worked out that a Harley Davidson bike is far more effective, maybe they are more noisy or maybe it is the attraction for the ladies of having a giant throbbing V twin between their legs.

We can avoid thinking about all the threats that we face but it does not make them go away. We can console ourselves that the Earth has been bobbing around the sun for the last 4.3 billion years so say happy birthday Earth.

Happy Birthday Earth

We should make a birthday cake to celebrate but it will have to be big for the 4.3 billion candles, about the size of Tasmania.

I say that to make the point that it is a really long time and in all probability, the Earth will be still bobbing around the sun for a few more billion years so we don’t have to worry about protecting the Earth, it will do fine without us.

How well we will survive is another question.

Dinosaurs lived on the earth for some 265 million years some thousand times longer than modern man.

The future is here now

But even if we put all those future concerns away as some left of centre city trendy worry about the future there is still the problem of what is happening today. Three out of four people now die from a chronic disease which is caused by our food system.

But even that is not the real issue, our health span, how long we remain healthy is declining again because of our food system.

Eight million people a year suffer a limb amputation from diabetes. We can’t pretend that is not happening, if you have a leg amputated you can’t suddenly pretend that you have a virtual leg and become a football star.

It just won’t happen.

You can take action

This website is about what action we can take to prevent chronic diseases, we know how to prevent chronic diseases, they are a modern man-made creation and man can reverse them just as easily as we created them.

The challenge is to persuade people to stop pretending and thinking that they will go away.

My daughter, when young, believed in Father Christmas and the Tooth fairy but at some point in her life she accepted that she had to stop pretending and accept the world as it is.

Stop pretending and accept the world as it is

With chronic diseases, resulting from our food system, we likewise have to stop pretending and accept the world as it is and do something about it.

That is what this web is all about so why not register and change the world?

The food industry is dominated by a small number of oligopolies who put their profits ahead of community benefit and even seem to intimidate our Governments whose job is to put the community first.

Getting fat and sick and having eight million legs chopped off every year is not the society that I or anyone wants.

It is only by a large number of people showing that the system must change that we will achieve change – so register and show you want change. It costs nothing but shows you care and it may be you that that is the person who avoids getting fat and sick and having your leg chopped off.

Welcome to my site

Welcome to my site. If you are expecting super-sophisticated marketing this is not the site for you.

Clever but manipulative marketing of fake food is not just reducing life span; worse it is reducing health span – how long we are fit and active.

Medical science has meant that our life span has steadily increased but has now plateaued and is even decreasing.

Modern food has meant that our health span, how long we are fit and healthy, has steadily declined.

The modern internet is saturated with dubious claims for magical health products.  There is no way that you can say for sure that if you take this or that product in twenty years time you will be fitter and healthier.  There is no way I can make claims about the future benefits of the technology I promote.

But there is one test that anyone can do. Just eat gut-brain food and see if your appetite is reduced. This makes it easier to eat less food and still feel satisfied which will increase the probability of a longer health span. There is no scientific proof but life is about managing risks.

But do not believe what they may tell you about the “good old days” – that is another myth, people died like flies from infection.

And don’t expect a thirty-second flash-through with three-word slogans will give you the answer – it takes time and thinking to ferret out the truth.

But if you are prepared to invest a bit of time and thinking welcome to my website.

I am an engineer and see the real world as it is – not some marketing guru who sees some fantasy world full of Avatars.

I am a real person email me and we can chat – real person to real person or better still sign up here and get the full story for free.

No water – no food. Water without flow – food that makes us sick.

Food that makes us healthy comes from understanding and controlling how water moves through the soil.

I am Colin Austin, recognised by the Institute of Engineers as one of Australia’s leading innovators for my pioneering work on computational fluid flow.

Let me give you a brief explanation of what Gbiota is all about.

A very brief history of the world

Some 4.3 billion years ago there was a rock spinning around the sun.

It was dead, inert with nothing living and that went on for around three billion years.

The first life

Then, we don’t know from where but we think on an asteroid some microbes appeared.

They broke down the rocks and soon soil appeared, then plants followed by an incredible array of creatures. Some like the dinosaurs lived for 165 million years.

Humanoids appear

Then about a million years ago the first humanoid appeared – a puny creatures that barely survived until about two hundred thousand years ago the most important event in human history occurred – the management of fire for cooking.

Fire, cooking and the creation of modern man

This turned the puny creature into modern man. Cooking gave us ready access to nutrients and we physically changed – our guts shrunk and our brains grew and we became the tool maker.

Brains are very greedy, they need a large amount of food but they are also hungry for stimulation – they need entertainment and while other animals may be happy to sit and ruminate we need amusement and stimulation.

Tribes – fit and healthy

At first we lived in small tribes and were relatively fit and healthy but we were curious, continuously inventing new tools and the second major event in human history was the development of agriculture to provided a more reliable food system.

Agriculture, cities and disease

Again the effects on humanity were dramatic, we became smaller and living in dense communities suffered from infectious diseases.

Disease meant that only one out of five babies born would reach mature adulthood.

Just to maintain the population with two babies reaching adulthood women had to have ten babies.

Women became very valuable and we became a highly aggressive creature not just fighting over land but fighting to steal women.

The fight against infection

But being an innovative and creative creature we understood the problem and came up with solutions, we developed technologies for managing sewage and supplying fresh water, better beds so we were better protected from biting creatures which carry infections and of course we improved our medical services with innovations like anti-biotics.

Population explosion

The result was dramatic, the global population trebled every hundred years so in a period of just two hundred years the global population increased from under a billion to over eight billion.

All those mouths had to be fed and humans, the very innovative creature developed its agricultural technology at a faster rate than the human population expanded – an incredible achievement.

The dreaded side effects

But, as often happens with new technology there was a side effect.

The food was full of energy but was deficient in critical minerals and nutrients, which we tried to correct by developing a supplement industry but our food was inert, lacking beneficial microbes which formed out gut brain.

The supercomputer that controls appetite

We had not understood that all those trillions of cells in our gut communicate with each other to from genuine intelligence – like having a super computer in our tummies.

One of the critical functions of this supercomputer was to regulate our bodies, particularly our appetite.

Faced with a surplus of tasty energy food, which we love, and lacking an effective regulator for our appetite we began to overeat and get fat.

If this fat goes to where we evolved to store it, which is our bum, there is no serious problem but if this fat goes to the wrong place the results are disastrous.

The epidemic of chronic disease

Heart attacks, the commonest cause of death are typically caused by blocked arteries, diabetes – the fastest growing disease is fat blocking the pancreas and our muscles so we have the dreaded combination of not enough insulin and being resistant to the insulin we may produce.

But perhaps the most dreaded disease is dementia, where people are still alive but with no understanding of the world around them.

The current epidemic of chronic disease which kills three out of four people but perhaps worse living a life of poor health.

The solution – breeding beneficial microbes

But we are a creative and innovative creature and the solution is obvious, we need to have a food system which contains the beneficial microbes that control our appetite without the harmful microbes which have caused infectious diseases throughout human history.

We know how to do that. This is what the Gbiota technology is all about, preferentially breeding the beneficial microbes without breeding the harmful ones by controlling the conditions.

Simple and inexpensive – but must be done right

This is a simple and inexpensive technology which could save millions of lives but as always there is a snag.

It has to be done right so we don’t preferentially breed the harmful microbes.

Eventually, this will change our food system but today’s issue is how to introduce this technology to the world in a controlled way.

The search for dedicate pioneers

For this we need dedicate pioneers who are prepared to commit their time to understand the technology and apply it correctly.

If this is you please contact me at colin@gbiota.com

Register to enter this site

This is a subscription site for people concerned about our modern food supply which is making us fat and sick and are prepared to help change the system so we can enjoy living a longer and healthier life.

There are several levels of membership.

We are currently creating a series of YouTube videos which are bringing a stream of potential interested people to the site just wanting to find out what it is all about.

They can access much of the site for free while they decide whether this is something they want to become involved with but they do need to register when they will receive our newsletter and notifications of the new posts which we write on a regular basis.

They may like to look at New Posts

If they decide this is not for them they do not need to do anything as membership is automatically cancelled for people who are not active on the site.

Should you decide that you want to be an active member then you have three option.

You can decide that you want to be a consumer and eat food which will enhance your gut health but don’t want to be involved in growing the food yourself in which case we will link you with a community grower.

They may like to look at articles on Food and Health

You can decide that you want to grow the food that will enhance you gut health just for you own use.

You may like to upgrade you subsciption to Private Grower and read the articles in Growing

Or you you decide that you want to set up a business to supply food that will enhance gut health by becoming a community grower in which case we will help you set up your business.  You should email me so I can explain how we can help.

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