A daily shot of bacteria
In the introductory film, we learned that plant fibres are difficult to digest, partly because of the cellulose in their cell walls. Did you know that no mammal is capable of breaking down cellulose by itself?
We need a variety of bacteria to help us digest plant fibres. Our distant ancestors had many more of these fibre-digesting bacteria in their gut, but during the course of evolution and because of our Western diet in recent centuries, some of these bacteria have become extinct.
Here are models of several types of plant-based foods – a beetroot, an ear of corn and a kale leaf – each with an enlargement of the cell walls and an example of the bacteria that can break down the specific fibres of each kind of plant.
To the left of the kale leaf is the model of the new ‘designer bacteria’ that combines the various properties of different fibre-digesting bacteria. The idea is to grow them and drink them as a daily shot. Cheers.
Did you know that
some animals occasionally eat their own faeces to get extra nutrients and bacteria? This helps them to digest plant-based foods better. We call this behaviour ‘coprophagy’.