Dree's Notes

Last time I posted, on May 25, I said I would clean and count the mealworms that evening, and change the feed of the "?GM" labelled container to suspected GM soy from China. Well, I did it. This time around, I ground the soy meal from dry beans in a clean coffee grinder, because turning dried beans into meal with a mortar and pestle last time was hard work. I have also punched holes in the containers (15 small holes in each lid) so that I can do away with the pantyhose screen and elastics. With pupae turning into beetles soon, those lids need to be firmly on! As of today, May 27, the "?GM" mealworms have been eating the non-organic soy from China for two days with no ill effects. Therefore, there can't have been any measurable amount of pesticide in the beans, nor is it likely that the soy beans were genetically engineered or modified. When I compare the wellness of these mealworms to the rapid death of crickets fed non-organic produce (the crickets were ...

What's been happening with the mealworms?! They're all fine. Interestingly, the non-organic (the one that I labelled "?GM") side has four worms already pupating, as you can see from the picture (bottom right corner, looking pale and contracted). The organic side looks very similar, but not a single worm has advanced to the pupal stage. Does that mean that the cheaper non-organic bulk soy is actually more nutritious, or is there something else in it that is accelerating the worms' growth? After nearly two weeks, apparently no mealworm has died from eating non-organic bulk soy. Just because the soy lacked organic certification doesn't mean you can't live off it. This suggests something generally good about the human food supply, so I am not disappointed. It means I should be able to eat the natto that I cultured from non-organic soy without compromising my diet. Tonight, I will enlist the aid of my son and lab assistant in counting the worms again...

It's been five days, so it's time to clean the containers and take a mealworm count. Mealworms can be killed by mold, so I want to make sure that the pieces of carrot, mango peel, and banana peel and moistened soy meal that I have given as food and drink do not spoil. When transferring the mealworms and waste and leftover food, I learned that the moistened soy meal hardened as it dried. From now on I will not moisten the soy meal, as it will be the mainstay of the mealworms diet, supplemented by a slice of carrot. Here is a picture of the mealworms from the container being fed organic soy meal after the cleaning. Cleaning was a simple matter of shaking each container in turn, into a bowl, picking out the mealworms and putting them in another bowl, wiping the container, adding fresh food, and then returning each group of mealworms to the container they came from (labelled either "?GM" or unlabelled). While I did the cleaning, aided by my son, I supervise...

To bring my notes up to date: on Day 1, last Thursday night, I added some soy meal (both organic and suspected GM) ground up in a mortar and pestle and mixed with a bit of water, to both sets of mealworms. On Friday, I added a carrot slice to each. I've checked them every day since, and both sets of mealworms look about the same. They've been eating a bit of the soy, in each container, but seem to prefer the bran and other foods.

Would you be willing to take the time and expense to avoid GM foods unless you were sure that GM food was a problem in your area? Who wants to give up all processed food and restaurant food? Most GM products end up hidden in either processed or restaurant food ingredients. We visited Community Natural Foods in Calgary to compare prices and selection against our regular stores. While I was pleasantly surprised with the costs of some items (goat milk feta cheese was cheaper at Community Natural Foods than what I'd seen at either Coop or Basha Foods ), it became apparent we'd be paying significantly more for common items. While it certainly feels good to buy organic and local, it requires commitment. So we decided to run an inexpensive experiment that would pit a suspected GM food against its organic equivalent to bolster our commitment. The experimental animals would be mealworms. (What would people think of me if I experimented on mice or rats?) The mealworms ( Tenebrio...

Last night, our family watched Genetic Roulette on Vimeo. Jeffrey M. Smith is the director, and the film is promoted by the Institute for Responsible Technology. My husband and I talked about how the controversy over GMO looks a bit like the controversy over vaccines, with moms who claim that their kids have been harmed on one side and most experts on the other side. If you google the names of some writers of anti-GMO books, there are a lot of articles written by scientific authorities to discredit the anti-GMO writers. It borders on vitriol. However, one tiny bit of news caught my attention: Kaiser Permanente, the largest managed healthcare organization in the United States, advised its members against consuming GMOs for health reasons. So it's not like the vaccine controversy at all, is it? Insurance companies are incredibly good at crunching numbers - they have to be - and the data is stacking up in a big way against consumption of GMOs because of the known deleterious ...

Naturally, when one thinks of PHASE II , one thinks of Star Trek, but that's only because the lack of good microbiota in one's digestive tract is causing one's mind to wander. Please try to concentrate; there have been some improvements on the Microbiome Diet . Phase II is great because you only need to average about 90% compliance, so there is a little more leeway allowed without totally straying from the path. However, it's really important to continue to avoid dairy, wheat, sugar and alcohol, as before, and continue to emphasize prebiotic and probiotic foods. A daily drink of 2 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp chili sauce should help me to achieve some of the aims of the diet (boost metabolism, reduce inflammation and maintain a stable blood sugar). Here is the list of FOODS TO AVOID, in Phase II, as in all phases of this diet: Processed or packaged foods High-fructose corn syrup Trans fats Hydrogenated fats Dried or canned fruit...

There's a lot of produce to consume with this diet, but so far my pipeline is feeling good! Okay, on with the do's and don'ts... DON'T EAT List: dairy, wheat, eggs, soy, sugar, alcohol, potatoes, processed and fried foods DO EAT List by Category: Highly Recommended: probiotics, prebiotics (feed good bacteria) such as asparagus, carrots (small quantities, as they metabolize to a lot of sugar), garlic, jerusalem artichoke, jicama, leeks, onion, radishes, tomatoes Include: cinnamon (balances blood sugar) and turmeric (anti-inflammatory) Apple cider vinegar (1-2 tbsps) before meals if stomach acid is low For protein: beef, chicken, fish (low-mercury only), lamb, shellfish Vegetables: artichoke, asparagus, beets, black radish, bok choy, broccoli, broccolini, broccoli rabe, brussels sprouts, cabbages, capers, carrots, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, eggplant, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce (anything but iceberg), mushrooms, onions, spinach, squash, tomatoe...

My attitude toward diet books is generally skeptical. Nevertheless, in my microbiome-themed readings, I picked up The Microbiome Diet by Raphael Kellman, MD, and I must say that it is the best how-to-improve-your-microbiome-and-overall-health book so far. You can't argue with Kellman's success rate. The Kellman Center in NYC has treated thousands of patients with an enviable success rate, for conditions ranging from gastrointestinal disorders, fibromyalgia, fatigue, autoimmune disease, neurological conditions, lyme disease, thyroid issues, and they are also conducting research into ways to ameliorate cancer and autism. As with many such books, it's the usual 1-2-3: change your diet while taking steps to get more exercise and improve your emotional health by managing stress and cultivating appreciation... for your food! Kellman encourages you to take 20-40 minutes to chew your food and be grateful for all that makes your meal possible. This will help your parasympa...

Robynne Chutkan looks a lot like one of my closest friends, so I was predisposed to like her book, The Microbiome Solution . She is a gastroenterologist, and her work has helped many people struggling with difficult health problems, especially those who have taken many courses of antibiotics for various infections and then find themselves getting sick more and more frequently. Clearly, depleting the most beneficial species in your microbiome with broad-spectrum bacteria-killing drugs leads to weakened immunity as there will not be a healthy microbial ecology to resist invaders and modulate immune response. Other cases include patients with irritable bowel problems, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disorders, weight problems, eczema, fatigue, brain fog, and Crohn's.  Chutkan's approach to the problem is the "Live Dirty, Eat Clean Plan" which she mentions so often that it starts to become irritating. What it eventually boils down to is that to be healthier, mo...

A while back, I came across news of a new centre for microbiome research to open at the Cumming School of Medicine (U of C) in 2017 (https://www.ucalgary.ca/utoday/issue/2015-07-31/world-class-research-centre-launched-99-million-federal-grant). It's about time! The American Gut Project is way ahead of us on this one (http://humanfoodproject.com/americangut/), but if I am going to get my gut microbiota analyzed, I'd prefer to save Fedex-ing my sample to California and get it done locally instead! Besides, this is approximately what I would receive in return for $99 USD and a few more hundred in rush delivery charges: The data that you get back tells you what your most common gut species are, the percent composition of the main species overall, and compares you to a few other population groups. Although it would look gorgeous framed on your desk to show off to your workmates (!), it doesn't tell me most of the things that I would really want to know about my microbiome,...