Scott Anderson, Ph.D.

The Microbiotaphilic Reset Diet (MRD) contains lots of fermented food such as kimchee, sauerkraut, vinegar, and kombucha. While these fermented foods and other forms of probiotics are teeming with bacteria that's beneficial to the gut, the benefits are not about "seeding" the microbiota with beneficial bacteria. These "passers by" improve your gut health by strengthening the gut/blood barrier (preventing leaky gut) and boosting your immune system. Biddy found little that wasn't fibrous or fermented The beneficial microbes in probiotics and fermented foods are unlikely to set up residence in your gut. In general, the microbes in these healthful foods are not adapted to survive in the human gut, largely because the gut does not contain the foods that they need to survive and thrive. These vagabond bacteria do, however, confer significant health benefits by strengthening the integrity of your intestinal wall. There are two ways that this strengthening occurs -

If you live with allergies, are susceptible to illness or manage autoimmune disease, increase your consumption of the fiber that naturally occurs in unprocessed plant foods. The health of the barrier that keeps undigested food and pathogens out of your bloodstream, a crucial part of a healthy immune system, requires a diet containing bountiful fiber. Here's how: a healthy immune system = healthy gut (A=B); a healthy gut = high-fiber diet (B=C); and as a result, healthy immune system = high fiber diet (A=C). Healthy immune system = high fiber diet The large intestine is lined with mucous. Yep – gross, slimy mucous. Not that many years ago, alternative health practitioners viewed this mucous warily, and “treatments” such as colonics and various “cleanses” to reduce intestinal mucous were promoted to cure various ills. Thankfully mucous is now recognized for is essential role in preventing “leaky gut,” the condition where pathogens or undigested food escape from the large intestine an

  Is the glass half-full or half-empty? While I’m typically pretty optimistic, my eating habits have historically been half-empty in their approach. In my adult life, I’ve periodically followed strict elimination diets to cleanse and identify food sensitivities. In a change of approach, I recently embarked upon a Microbiotaphilic Reset Diet. Food: fibrous and fermented After another long COVID Winter, Collette and I decided to shake up our eating habits with a dietary reboot. Our initial inclination was to repeat the elimination diet we last followed ten years ago, though recent scientific developments led us to rethink that approach. Since our last foray into eliminating foods, there has been an explosion of research on the human microbiota. Books such as The Good Gut and Fiber Fueled made the science accessible, and both books reframed my approach to food. Rather than focusing on the foods that historically made me ill, I focused more on fortifying my gut’s resilience. For the pas