How Our Microbiome Makes Us Overweight

Just this morning I was wondering exactly how all that works. Instead of drinking a cup of coffee with cream and sugar in it, and downing a breakfast cake or donut, I chose fruit and seeds and toast covered with real vanilla unsweetened yogurt. This combination was, in my opinion, better for my body overall and I needed to find out why.

An excursion to the internet found out that when we eat the combination of highly processed starches like highly refined sugar (no vitamins or minerals!) together with white flour and fats, these feed the microbes in our gut that send the results to our fat cells. In short, they tell our body to stuff our fat cells and make more of them.

What’s missing are the very foods that burn up calories the way they were intended, like fresh fruit with its good fiber, packages of nutrients and good sugars with vitamins mixed in. The seeds contain fat along with healthy fibers (these only come with plants!) and nondigestible fibers that feed our friends, our healthy microbes so they can do their work for us. The whole grain toast contributes to the fiber and other nutrients that are missing in processed white flour.

Let’s consider the typical fast-food diet. You will find variations of the combination of fat, sugar, salt and highly processed grains in all meals offered. From the breakfast sandwich with fried potato nuggets to burger and fries lunch and dinner with sugar laden drinks and ice cream. Pizza too. Analyze that for highly processed foods, and you’ll find they all contribute to setting up our microbiome for storing fat and creating more fat cells. It’s not the intention of these restaurants to support your health. Instead, they wish for you to become addicted to their ingredients through your tastebuds. That works, and they profit greatly.

Keep in mind you have really tasty alternatives. Nature intends to support your life in the best way. Turn to nature and its bounty through whole plant foods to feed the healthy microbes in your gut. Their full nutrient packages choose to support you, not addict you. Just think, there are over 30,000 edible plant foods found in nature. Why?

Remember, whole fruit is fast food. If you have trouble digesting nature’s food at first, blend it in a blender to make a fruit smoothie, your choice of fruits. There are hundreds of recipes quickly found on the internet, and blending takes seconds. Fast food also. You can do the same with vegetables in cold soup recipes, or quickly heat up the blended mix in the microwave. Fast food again.

Which one of those scenarios genuinely loves you?

Source: The Gut Microbiome and Its Role in Obesity, Cindy D. Davis, Ph.D., National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health