This post is my entry to the first challenge by the Natural Medicine community on Hive, on how to improve our immune system.
I have written about my probiotic drinks before: Kombucha, Water Kefir, and Milk Kefir. These three cultures are my favorites, mostly because I’ve been growing them, and selling their products. However, they are by far not the only probiotics at our disposal. A simple yogurt is literally full of life, particularly if it is home made. In fact, anything cultured / fermented, such as cheeses, salami, sauerkraut, or decent beer can enrich our organisms with other forms of life that is not our own. Here in this post I want to talk (in a very simplified way) about microbes in our bodies, and how their diversity helps us resist all kinds of ailments, from a simple cold all the way to the evil Coronavirus.
What Is Our Body Made Of, Really?
Okay, so our bodies start on the outer layer of our skin, right? From there on all the way into the depths of our guts it’s mostly our body (that is cells carrying our DNA) with a few occasional exceptions of “good bacteria” that we have accepted into a symbiosis to help us digest our food. Or is it...?
Well, in fact it’s kinda the other way around: most of our body is actually made up of foreign organisms. And they don’t only live in our intestines, by far. Starting on (and IN) our skin we have a rich flora (or fauna if you will) inhabiting our pores. But the same can be said about our hair, our eyes, our ears, our mouths, in fact every orifice of our body is teeming with life, even if we’ve been killing them off with all kinds of antibiotics and other types of chemical warfare. And when it comes to digestion, we can’t actually break down most of the food to make the nutrients available for our bodies. We are entirely dependent on our gut microbes to do this for us. It was precisely for this reason (as well as their protection) we have evolved together. But evolution hasn’t stopped… and in the world of microbes it progresses at a much faster rate.
The Myth of the Good Guys vs. the Bad Guys
When I was selling my drinks at the market, I always had to smile when my customers were talking about the “good bacteria”. If they seemed open for it, I would explain that there are actually very few bacteria that have a direct benefit for us. Yes, it’s those I just mentioned who break down the food for us. The same is true for the types of microbes that can cause us harm: there are very few of them, really. The vast majority of bacteria are neutral from our perspective. They are neither good, nor bad. All they do is take up space… which is more important than you’d think.
If we manage to leave our own selfish perspective for a while, we will understand the dynamic equilibrium life weaves in and around us. While most microbes in our bodies have no effect on us directly, they may prey on each other, compete for resources, have a parasitic relationship on others, or even form symbioses with each other. One species may decrease in numbers for a while, thus depleting the food source of their predators, until their population also decreases, letting the first species recover too. In fact, our guts (eyes, skin pores, penises and vaginas, etc.) are formidable jungles, where countless species are born, feed, mate, and die each day in staggering numbers, all without us noticing a thing.
Okay, But How Can This Benefit Us?
Well, consider an example that's more to our own scale: an actual forest. How can you make it more resistant to outside attacks? Plagues of insects, fungi, bacteria, or (preindustrial) loggers? Well, the keyword is diversity: If there are many different kinds of members in the community, it’s more likely that they will make it more difficult for the invaders. They could be as large as a jaguar or as tiny as a mosquito… or even bacteria. The invader may resist one or the other, but all of them probably not. So how can we increase our biodiversity?
By introducing a large number of species, of course! This will provide lots of food and lots of niches for other species, and they in turn will feed others. The best way to do so is by ingesting a community of cultures, such as the Water Kefir, or Tibicos. Since the culture really doesn’t care about us, it may easily happen that its rapidly changing cultural make-up may accept a kind of bacteria that could actually make us sick. However, even if this should happen, we are safe thanks to the culture that will not let it grow out of proportion. With its controlled numbers, our body’s own immune system will recognize it as harmful, and kill it off before it has a chance to wreck havoc on our health. While doing so, it will also remember it, so it can eliminate it more effectively the next time it encounters it.
The Art of Fermentation
Okay, I have thrown out a lot of possibly radical sounding ideas, shaking up the traditional world-view of (mostly) one species in one body. But what can I offer to back this up? I have not browsed the net for the most actual info supporting this. However, there is a wonderful book I can recommend to anyone, which goes into great lengths explaining the microbial life inside of us. It is none other than The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz. Much more than that, it gives us examples of how (human) cultures around the world have used (microbial) cultures to preserve their food and drinks, or make them more tasty. Making our bodies more resistant to all kinds of microbes is only an additional perk. After reading it, I developed an enthusiasm for anything fermented, and a healthy attitude of maintaining a large diversity of life inside my body. The result… I have been sick less and less in the years since. For this reason I have been making tibicos drinks for us at the Mazunte Earthship Build.