Actionable Knowledge

• When planning nutrition around the microbiome, it's critical to realize we are not trying to feed a particular microbe; we are trying to feed an ecosystem. Each food molecule is a nutrition to a particular microbe, making other molecules slightly less complex and creating nutrition for another species in the ecosystem. Further, if a microbe flourishes, it takes nutrients from another microbe. If a microbe struggles, it does not produce the nutrients for another microbe.
• Most nutritional recommendations and products regarding fiber, probiotics, and prebiotics are driven by colon health, which may be perfectly appropriate for a colon health problem. But if you have a weight or metabolic problem, breeding, feeding, and treating the colon microbes will have little impact.
• Until science catches up, the best strategy is to stop damaging the microbiome and create the environment and nutrition most likely to encourage the natural healing of the microbiome. Many diets focused on particular foods can be effective for temporary weight loss. However, to avoid or reverse metabolic syndrome, obesity, and metabolic disease, the diet needed is based on diverse nutrients, not restricting one nutrient type or another.
• Like diversity in nutrition, science has consistently observed that calorie-restricted diets have health benefits, although it is unclear why. One reason the explanation is elusive is that the approach thus far has been to focus on what people eat when they're eating less. However, the Nutrimatters model suggests that it's what they are not eating due to the fewer calories. If you're eating fewer calories, you're eating less of everything, including foods that breed the wrong microbes for good health and foods that harm microbes.