Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Permaculture starts with the soil

It doesn't have to be this way, but catastrophic climate change and epidemics of mental and physical health are destroying lives.
 Originator of Permaculture Bill Mollison said simply "All the world’s problems can be solved in a garden" . 
Earlier another wise man said " Let Food be thy Medicine" . 
 Realizing these truths, many people are withdrawing their  support from the agribusiness dash  big pharma corporations controlling food, health and climate. An eg? Bayer crop science ..bayer health. I actually don’t think nearly enough people are aware, but a growing number are, and
we are literally gardening for our lives. Who can afford not to when buying artificially fertilized and sprayed  food is , (apologies to conventional farmers) , a health hazard to both the grower and consumer?
Soils ain't soils, and trying to grow food in Western Australia's kikuyu infested dust is just plain heart breaking. Much of Merri Bee Organic Farmacy was degraded like this , we had non wetting sand on the flat bits and steep clay hills bereft of topsoil on the rest.  We could  still grow stuff when in the good old days it rained,  but when rain stopped falling that much in 2008, formerly easy crops to grow failed. CC was not a hoax! With the help of Dr. Elaine Ingham we are converting our soil back to the luscious, productive chocolate crumbs no doubt was at white settlement  by teaming with microbes. Where this 3 year process is complete, LIVING SOIL holds 10 times its own weight in water, no longer needs to grow weeds, produces abundant disease- free plants and ( as a huge bonus) just happens to cool the planet whenever the sun is shining.  By using the billion year old partnership of animals, plants and fungi ,our farming has entered a new phase of abundance. We now strive to show others the way to regenerate soil, for a myriad of benefits to ecosystems, people's health & profit margins. The smallest things on Earth are turning out to be the most powerful on our farms and in the medical world. Beneficial gut flora are realised now to be key to mental and physical health. Catalyst Gut Reaction 2 part series explored this 2 years ago. Working with biology  to grow food as medicine means better nutrient density &  keeping qualities and forgotten flavours.  Higher vitamin and mineral content  is the result of increasing concentrations of microbes. ….as is carbon sequestration. .Monoculture cropping often relies on ploughing , poisons & fire which all destroy soil microbes , making 99% of  farms emmitt rather than sink carbon. We aim to demonstrate the alternative.

Our farm is a carbon sink now, and our soil carbon  levels are increasing at an ever faster rate too. Colin Seis ‘s farm in NSW is measured to have sequestered 33 tons of CO2 per hectare in 2010.Dr Christine Jones website amazing carbon may have an update , We know his soil carbon has been increasing exponentially using pasture cropping techniques.
Perennial food plants have many eco system benefits over annual cropping so we are developing food forests on Nature's model.  Merri Bee Organic Farmacy is a permaculture that's been evolving over the past 32 years. With over 90 species of fruit  on our 10 hectares beside the Blackwood River in Nannup, life is easier. The  ever- expanding garden of Eden  supports us, our animals, and loyal customers who care for the environment, animal welfare and their own vitality. We are so grateful to them and excited  be part of the growing fair food movement. Besides supplying real food, we now teach soil building skills so we can all grow in health and happiness in a safe climate. 
Reeling from global warming since 2008 we purchased an additional 20 ha in a supposedly wetter region ( Karridale) in 2012. Both properties are tested free of pesticide residues & heavy metals. We were certified organic for a decade  and continue to manage the land organically. The information age has enabled us to absorb & then apply the discoveries of visionaries: Dr E. Ingham ( soil microbiology ) the late BC Mollison (design, earthworks for water harvesting and more) Gabe Brown( multi species cover cropping) Colin Seis ( pasture cropping) & Allan Savory ( cell grazing) . Tons of green waste (normally burnt at the tip) are re recycled into compost, full of beneficial microbes.The microbes are multiplied in a vat of aerated water & this "compost tea" is sprayed on paddocks. Then microbes unlock minerals, build structure & (with perennial pasture species planted in the wake of chook & pig tractors) atmospheric carbon is sequestered along deep roots. The land is now absorbing rainfall, a dramatic improvement! Swales collect any escaping overland flow in downpours & grow abundant  forage for the herd of 5 animal species.  Bio fuel is generated from pig manure.  The combination of multi species fauna and flora, plus 7 acres devoted to wildlife, ensures clean, fresh water feeds into the Blackwood year round.
 What have been our challenges along the way? What solutions did we come to? Our challenges are mainly to do with climate change: hungry wildlife and increasing pestilence, plus I have to say increasingly pesky food laws, did put a  dint in income .
A rapidly heating and drying climate necessitates hand watering of newly developing soil/garden areas, a major time drain: our irrigation season now goes for 10 months a year, not 2 months in summer as was the case up until 2008. Water issues preclude using reticulation, so flood irrigated pits, swales and huglekulture areas are being developed. Carbon is the sponge which holds water & minerals, and the need to irrigate daily has reduced to weekly in improved soils, plus our well fed plants naturally resist pest attack.Fungi and bacteria feed our plants the full array of nutrients, and this confers frost and disease resisitance as well . Soil  this good takes 2 or 3 years to develop and we have not yet found a short cut. 
Our remote rural location means attracting decent permanent workers is difficult, with so many young people affected by health issues. We rely on travellers from overseas through WWOOF, HELP X programmes etc. Over decades we have learnt to: communicate well, spend the time on initial training,  be flexible and use the talents & passions of the individual, to make the workplace  nurturing & fun  and to be assertive and goal- focused from the start. We have had amazing people help us a lot. We face the challenges of many farmers such as our advancing years however, I feel better now than I did when i was 20!   Supermarket food prices have not risen to any extent in 30 years, while the cost of fuel, labour, rates and charges has gone through the roof. Encouraging consumers to invest in the health benefits of food grown in live soil as opposed to "dirt plus fertilizer" is our aim. One bug is the false claims of competitors. Organic grain for our animals is in short supply due to bad seasons &  lack of growers It is expensive but we think chemical free is worth it….when you know that conventional grain crops rely heavily on round up and are aware of it’s effect on gut microbes who protect us from cancer and 200 other auto immune diseases, you find the money. We seek alternatives to grain which can be grown on site such as acacia seed, amaranthus, quinoa , kangaroo grass etc. "Insect hotels" are harvested to provide the otherwise expensive protein needs of our stock. We selectively breed good foragers.

Monday, August 14, 2017

Soil Health, Human Health
Many of us are ailing today.  I believe we can fix our selves, our soil and we could just be in time to save  our beautiful Earth. But we have to hurry! It will take a lot of education, a lot of unlearning of misinformation and an openess to new ideas.  Here is a very personal story of recovery of the land and the people on it.  Please Share !


Introduction

We come from the Soil. “From dust you come, and to dust you shall return” say the scriptures of   major religions and the stories of Indigenous people who have survived for thousands of years .
“This is my body says” the old Native Americans….and indeed we are a reflection of the soil that produced the food that built our bodies and brains.
All enduring tribes have taught their children and grand children  “look after   the   soil, and the soil will  look after you”

Humus gone , Humans gone

But today in the developed world, the food that builds most children’s bodies  is in a terrible state. At white settlement this country’s soil was  alive with 30% of its weight being living microscopic and macroscopic critters, the average carbon content was 8% , although scientists say some places were as high as 28%.   The “soil” of nearly all West Australian farms has a carbon content now of only half a percent. The humus is gone. The dirt is just holding up the plants and lots of artificial fertilizer and lots of water are needed to grow a crop. Nothing is recycled. Ironically synthetic fertilizers attack the indigenous soil microbes (that did fertilizing for free) and grow unbalanced plants which attract pests. Pesticides kill more than the target. The manufacture of chemical pesticides and fertilizers uses tons of water and fossil fuel contributing to Climate Change ( CC) There may only be several species of pathogenic bacteria and fungi in very conventional, “productive”, poisoned soil, where 200 years ago stood a Jarrah and Marri forest or grassland where the soil was heaving with beneficial bacteria, fungi, protozoa, micro arthropods, nematodes and thousands of species of macroscopic  creatures ( macro means you can see with our naked eyes, microscopic means…well  you need a microscope to these.) Collectively the living things in soil has been dubbed “ the Soil Food Web” by Dr Elaine Ingham, eminient  soil microbiologist from whom we learnt HEAPS!  Microscopic organisms will often be called microbes in this talk, mainly because I don’t want to get tongue twisted and say micro orgasms!
 Only 1 in a hundred farms are organic or bio dynamic where we can expect the soil to be a lot more like the native soil …. far more alive. If you want to learn how Mother Nature grows plants , visit a forest , a native prairie or a biological farm, or keep listening!  Nature uses the ancient trio of plants, animals and soil microbes to build and maintain humus. Humus is the black sponge in the soil, the storage place for water and minerals, home of trillions of microbes. It is around 70% carbon, which use to be in the air. It got there by carbon capture and storage driven by microbes. Many a civilization has risen to great heights on the back of humus. Unfortunately many of these civilisations didn’t maintain their humus, or carbon levels and crashed. Easter Island is one example. I think we are all aware that the entire human race is threatened now with extinction from climate change, desertification and biodiversity loss. I have been to the middle east lately, the cradle of humanity. Once a forest, now just shifting sand and bare rocks after 8,000 years of bad farming practice. Deserts are growing all over the world at an alarming rate. Need to stop being a desert making species and start to build humus, because we humans are made of and for the Earth.

Before Elaine

We were organic for decades but did not know about biology until recently.  When we first brought our little 27 acre place in Nannup in 1985, the good biology had been extinguished for, oh , 15o years , when it was first cleared , burnt , ploughed and supered, It was not until we got the best available microbes  back into the soil from a nearby forest that everything improved in leaps and bounds. It was marginal steep land.  We did all the right things, cover crops, composting ( inexpertly we now know)…. I was thinking it would improve since it was no longer getting regular applications of super phosphate and what- not which I knew killed earthworms, ( although my X husband, trained in horticulture , was known  use to use Round Up here and there and even urea and NPK fertilizers…..note the “X”!) and it was improving but very slowly. Friendly farmers in the district predicted that  because I refused to use super phosphate (and stinginess prevented Mr Winfield from using it)  that our cows would get chalky bones after the phosphate bank in the soil ran out in 7 years time. BUT This did not occur. That was interesting. With the greatest sincerity these same farmers advised us in the beginning  to use the latest great thing: Round Up “because there are no residues of it after 2 days, and it is so safe you can drink it” and without using Round Up “ you will not get much to harvest for your efforts” . They had been marketed to ….brainwashed.  I was fortunately always suspicious of round up and only once (years after splitting with Steve) let a friend who swore by its safety and efficacy put it on my feijoa patch to get rid of the kikuyu that was driving me nuts. To my disgust the kike came back 6 months later, and I never used it again.

CC

So the land was looking OK with no inputs for 20 years except seaweed and wood chips and chook food, no crippled cows. On weekends we grew a permaculture, a food forest with 90 species of fruit and nut tree, berries beans and herbs under them, timber trees, pasture for sheep, geese, cows, pigs and alpacas. All going fine.  In 2008 , change became apparent and we were suddenly  going backwards.  We realized our soil wasn’t even getting wet in rain events. The only thing thriving was kikuyu grass and it was taking over. We had to learn more about soil. I did Dr Elaine Inghams on line soil microbiology course in 2014 at great expense ( and greater now...it costs $8,000 to do the course today)  but it was worth every cent. What we learnt about microbes and it was a game changer. We now water once a week in summer instead of 8 hours of every day, pests and weeds have dwindled, no damage from drought and frost, we are laughing. This  has led me to be standing here, because I want everyone to know about microbes. I believe the smallest things on Earth are the most powerful and important to our health and can heal the world from all the damage humans have done to it.

My life in 5 mins

  I am Bee, born 1959 ( which makes me 57, ( I tell you this so you don’t sit there doing the maths when your supposed to be listening…)I would love to be standing before you as a vibrant product of an organic farm, but alas, I was born and raised in the outer suburb of Melbourne, Mt Waverly: a sea of brick and tile. How I longed for living things!  A visit to old Aunty Dot Orpwood’s farm in the country one Christmas day when I must have been about 4 or 5 was the highlight of my childhood, there were chooks and vege plants and I discovered peaches grew on trees for the first time. We ate plum pudding with sixpences in it and later I cuddled up to the dogs lying  by the loungeroom fire to end a perfect day. So began my hankering to live in the country. But back in the nature- less suburbs we started most  days with a bowlful of cornflakes or weeties, sometimes coco pops, always snuck half a cup of sugar on to it …mum never found out. The standard school lunch was a bleached and preserved white sandwich with an apple  or shrivelled orange that tasted like moth balls. ….mum chased flies around the house with a pump action sprayer  full of DDT….the morning fluoride pill Mum dutifully gave us which was in addition to the fluoridated and chlorinated water supply. No wonder I was very sickly and suffered from ear and throat infections one after another, for which later on there was always a course of antibiotics dispensed by our local GP, Dr Harms. I kid you not, that was his name.  I suffered from severe anxiety starting in grade 6, no one knew. Although I tried to tell my mum. No doubt my parents had mercury fillings too, and did their best.  I came through that  at 15. On the good side my grandparents on both sides were angels who I believe still care for me even though they have passed on. We always had lamb chops and 3 veg every night and mum did sometimes make porridge and one day she threw a Readers Digest on my bed and said “ there’s an article in this you might like”  And so I got to read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring… and decided to be an organic farmer. Possibly the worst assault to my health was 8 mercury fillings at the tender age of 7. Realizing now that mad hatters were mad because they worked with mercury, I see that the course of my life was gravely affected by sheer madness. I became a vegetarian at 16, even though I suffered from a strange mouth disease when taking this up . My first husband was a mung bean eating hippy when I met him at 18, and he insisted we go vegan. After a few months of veganism I decended into my second bout of debilitating mental illness and  was physically ill from every passing flu for weeks at a time. Falling pregnant with my first child in this state of anorexia dash nervous  breakdown ….my body just took over and it demanded meat, much to the Leo husband’s shock. We did not get on so well after that, he didn’t like the more assertive me.  But the madness continued, I had 4 children to him! Skipping ahead 5 years and 3 kids later, we bought  our little 27 acres in Nannup in 1985. We straight away planted fruit and nut trees, being devotees of Bill Mollison , and we also had inherited about 12 very old citrus and stone fruit trees. So things were looking up, and my first  4 children ate well. We went fishing often, were keeping chooks, milking a cow, making tons of yogurt, bottling  and drying fruit etc .  I was a fulltime mother and my children were my world. All too soon the eldest started leaving home and soon after I split with their father after 17 years. About then  I had severe PMS which went for 7 years ( remember the DDT, it is an endocrine disrupter)  I had a few short term disastrous relationships after that, was really sucked in by one guy I thought was wonderful . Well, presto, along came my 5th child , now 17 . I will just call him L. J . I graded potatoes at his father’s workplace,  probably around the time of conceiving. Imagine the poisons I was absorbing through my hands doing that job!  Maybe you cannot imagine the amount of pesticide, Yarragadee water and Chinese fertilizer used on a spud farm, particularly this one which produced seed potatoes. I believe they dessicate the crop with round up right before harvest.

L J

 In the partner stakes I ‘d certainly had no luck . IF only I had heard Bill Mollison say what I heard him say on a few months ago on You Tube. He was speaking in 1983 about an aspect of African tribal law and interpreted it thus “ screw who you want to, but who you have children with is a matter for the whole tribe to decide” Ok, so I didn’t have the internet, I didn’t have the guidance of elders . L. J.’s dad turned out to be a charming psychopath and there I was , now a single mother of a very hyper active kid. And worse, I couldn’t get a pension because I had 20 acres of land. I had to think of a way to make ends meet. It was all very hard with a colicky new born and no income, but a Busselton shop, Bay Organics, said they would buy eggs from me as long as they were certified organic. Somehow I found the money and time to become certified organic, I bred up lots of chooks and ROOSTERS, which was a nightmare as I had to kill the roosters….but eventually started selling eggs to Bay organics. I use to faint at the price of the organic veges in bay organics, hurry out with my little pay check into coles over the road and buy the way- cheaper veges and all the rest there. About a year after becoming certified organic, my child covered in excema was now 3 and my luck suddenly changed when Stewart K Seesink jumped out of his gravel- delivering truck and into my life. Little did he know what he was in for.  We have been life and business partners for 13 years now and Stewart is my wings and my rock. And little by little we learnt the importance of eating organic. A little too late for L J though. He was a very challenging child. He could climb onto a roof or fall into a water tank before he could walk.  He was obsessed with dangerous knives and matches which I put on top of the fridge, but turn your back and where was he ? Sitting on top of the fridge.  He was a very fussy eater, and suffered from terrible nightmares nearly every night . He did a lot of sleep walking. Long story short, and if you would like the longer story please email me and I will send you all the gory details ( merribeefarmacy@gmail.com)  L.J turned out to have many health issues and left home at 14. A friend put the GAPS book into my hands and I read about my son on page one. And I discovered ODD could be helped by the GAPS diet. HE had certainly fallen through the gaps at school and the gap in our medical knowledge which is thankfully starting to close.
I felt sure I had the cure in GAPS and now days my child is back in WA, and but he wasn’t returning our calls. With recipes in the book  I made lots of bone broth and kimchee and stored it in the freezer ever hopeful of connecting with my son and correcting his microbes, but really we didn’t even know where he lived. I just hope and pray that someone else gets through to him.  We are waiting for a miracle.
In that hope, I have been studying flat out for him and for you,. Why for you? Well, I believe nearly all people  today have inherited faulty gut flora, and I know that Im not alone in having a child like mine. If autism  hasn’t touched you yet, how about auto immune diseases, 200 of them and the incidence rates are skyrocketing. One out of  every 3 people will get cancer today while  60 years ago it was a rare disease that affected 1 in 100 . Alzheimers, alcoholism, allergies, anorexia, Add ADHD Depresssion, schizophrenia all on the rise along with our atmospheric  carbon dioxide level. 350 is considered the upper limit for a safe climate, but we just keep going up and up, we are now at 410?  We canot adapt to changes this rapid. Forget adapting. We have to fix.
How about that all we have to do to reverse climate change completely and stop the  cancer and autism epidemic is to grow our food  ORGANICALLY using  biology?    If everyone did that we would return to a safe climate within 5 years and auto immune diseases such as cancer would be a thing of the past….. because a living soil sequesters carbon and nourishes plants and therefore people with the full array of minerals. A plant or person so well fed needs no inputs from the 5 corporations controlling food and health. Sure , the land and our gut is going to need a lot of natural therapy. For the land that is compst tea and cell grazing and multi species cover crops. This heals erosion .For the people it is healing and sealing the gut wall , similarly eroded and leaking, with a bone broth fast and then introducing probiotic foods like home made yogurt and sauerkraut. Our first step is to cut the chemicals. This is a big task, even our drinking water contain fluoride and chlorine in drinking water. Farmers are in debt and brainwashed as are their bankers who insist they use “best” agronomic practice. Who here avoids fluoride and chlorine? I suspect you do, or you wouldn’t be here, you’d be watching footy on TV thinking the government was looking after you. Voting Liberal or Labour , swinging back and fourth every several years, reading the papers and watching the news.Compliant as a lamb.
Dr Elaine taught us a lot about the miniature unseen world in the soil and all the amazing services provided by beneficial microbes and how everything goes wrong when they aren’t there. So we have now begun to understand about the unseen human  microbes and their affect on physical and mental health…… and a summary of this is information is I want to impart today.
It turns out that the life in the soil, the state of soil microbes, the number, diversity composition of the various species populations in any given soil (ie its good guy to bad guy ratio ) determines a soil’s fertility. Fertility  profoundly affects plant growth of course. And it seems, the  diversity and composition of the various populations of critters living  in and on a person (ie the good guy to bad guy ratio  ) determines that person’s health .
As Hippocrates said 2,400 years ago , “All disease begins in the gut”.
When we are born, we are sterile, a new born has no gut microbes until the very moment of birth  when he or she passes through the birth canal and swallows bacteria. So we inherit  our gut flora from our parents. Both parents. Father shares his microbes with the mother on a regular basis. A healthy set of parents passes on a normal gut flora to their child , who thrives . C section born children are not so lucky and are often populated by the bacteria found on the latex gloves of the nursing staff! The naturally born child who gets lots more good bacteria, fungi and protozoa from  colostrum and breast milk soon has a flourishing gut flora . And it happens that when a seed germinates and puts forth it’s very first little root into the soil, it gets colonized with mychorrizal fungi immediately and if it does not, it is bound to be a sickly  plant . It will need life support….it will need to be fed soluable fertilizer and will always be malnourished and a target for pests.

Permaculture to the rescue

It seems as our world gets more and more toxic, and as our diet in the western world relies on less and less species of food plants, our gut flora gets less and less diverse. A modern person from a developed country has a  simplified microbiome of about 500 species. So like a reflection of our Earth’s ecosystems which are being eroded and turning to desert at an alarming rate, our internal gardens of flora are less diverse and quite sparse . Like a boring Mt Waverley pebble and pampas grass garden. The SAD or standard American diet I grew up on did make me sad and sick and I want to say that since growing our own food and living almost entirely from our permaculture for the past 10 years now  I feel better now than I did when I was 20 ! I feel deep gratitude to Bill Mollison.

Get Mercury out of your head

Another great step I took was to get rid of my mercury fillings at a biological dentist. I nearly chickened out because of the cost but Dr Natasha said somewhere you will never get rid of candida until you get rid of mercury. This is because the body tries to destroy toxic stuff and if it can’t it stores them in safe places like in fungal biomass, in your hair and body fat. I had tinea for 4 years. The day after my amalgum removal the itch stopped, soon after the skin healed up and has been fine ever since. I also lost 8 kg pretty easily over the next month, to my delight. Obese mice ate the pooh of skinny mice and got permanently skinny so we now think there are skinny microbes at play. Converslel the fermicutes seem over represented in fat people and are  possibly keeping them fat. Demanding their host eats ice cream and timtams.

Tribal Life

The SAD diet is a far cry from what our ancestors ate, and there is luckily still a couple of tribes today who live a hunter gather life. The HADZA of West Tanzania have been studied a lot recently and Jeff Leach was one scientist who joined them for 3 days to see if his microbiome would change. Baseline  poo samples were taken before he went to live as one with the Hadza. He said “nothing is wasted or killed unnecessarily, but they eat an amazing variety of plant and animal species (around 600, most of which are birds) compared with us in the West. My other lasting impression was how little time they spent getting food. It appeared as though it took just a few hours a day -- as simple as going round a large supermarket. Any direction you walked there was food -- above, on and below ground.”After three days of a forager diet his gut microbal diversity increased a stunning 20%, including some totally novel African microbes, such as those of the phylum Synergistetes.
The bad news was, after a few days, his gut microbes had virtually returned to where they were before the trip. Jeff says we have to try re-wilding our diet and lifestyle, be more adventurous in your cuisine plus reconnect with nature and its associated microbial life. Well we have to do something, the graphs show such an exponential growth in Autism that Dr Stephanie Seneff says that by 2032 every second child born will be on the Autistic spectrum ! In the U S in 1970 , before Round Up appeared, one child in 10,000 had austism, in 2007, 1 in 100, In 2013, 1 in 50 . This is an over whelming burden on society. So what on Earth is going on, why might this be? The healthier the person, the greater his diversity of gut microbes. Why did human gut flora diversity dip in 1940, and then dip  again in 1975?
The rise of autism and the rise in the amount of Round Up used on food crops correlates  almost exactly . Graphs plotted by Nancy Swanson plot many diseases against round up used on farms.One of the biggest users is the U.S. A. who’s infant mortality rates are one of the highest in the world, behind Haiti and Guam.  
BRAIN STORM
Why are our gut microbes so damaged?  LIST
Pesticides, artificial fertilizers, C section, medicine: ANTIBIOTICS ,the contraceptive pill, Panadol and Tylanol being some of the worst, food additives preservatives colourings and flavourings, chlorinated water, fluoride, alcohol, detergents, shampoos, soaps conditioners, hair dye, make up, deodorant, perfume, air fresheners, new car smell, BPA in plastic drink bottles and tin cans, slow death by rubber duck,  formaldehyde and flame retardants on soft furnishing and clothes, baby formula,  smoking, heavy metals eg mercury from dental amalgums and vaccinations,  lead from petrol, cadmium from clothing dye, GMO’s but the worst and most pervasive and dangerous of all…….Round Up.
EMR ? It has been measured to promote growth of pathogenic fungi or “mould” in homes, most unhealthy. EMR possibly damages bacteria and every other cell , a lot of Russian research supports this theory.
I will just invite you now to think about you life,  maybe identify toxins in your or a close friend or family member’s life, and whether you (or they)  were harmed.  
There’s an old saying “You are what you eat” ….   Perhaps we should say “You are what you digest” What we digest and absorb is a  function of what critters  we co exist with, so we are the reflection of our gut microbe garden. HEre is a paragraph from a paper which shows how exciting this research is: 

In 5 human randomized controlled trials from July 2016 found that certain commercially available strains of probiotic bacteria from the Bifidobacteriumand Lactobacillus genera (B. longumB. breveB. infantisL. helveticusL. rhamnosusL. plantarum, and L. casei), when taken by mouth in daily doses of 109–1010 colony forming units (CFU) for 1–2 months, possess treatment efficacy (i.e., improved behavioral outcomes) in certain central nervous system disorders – including anxietydepressionautism spectrum disorder, and obsessive–compulsive disorder – and improved certain aspects of memory.

OK, so we have the rise and rise of disorders starting with A : Alzheimer’s,  Allergies, asthma, ADD ,ADHD,  Anaphylaxis, atopic excema, autism and auto immune diseases ( 200 including diabetes and cancer)
Dr Natasha Cambell McBride,  Russian medical doctor, neurologist and brain surgeon…. went back to university to study nutrition when her own son was born with Autism. She has ended up curing completely with diet. For the last 20 years she has run a busy clinic seeing hundreds of children with Autism. She saw in every case there was more than one issue , there were co morbidities of  excema , food allergies and always there were digestive disorders. She asked   what the underlying problem is causing our children, in greater and greater numbers, to be susceptible to these behavioural and physical disorders in varying combinations?  What was going on?

The services provided by a  HEALTHY GUT flora

We co exist with about 10 trillion microbes , they are in us , on us and we need them and they need us, ie it is a symbiotic relationship. The largest colonies of bacteria are in our gut, an adult carries around about 2 kgs of microbes of all types : fungi, yeasts, bacteria, nematodes and protozoa. It is a highly organized microbial world with certain species predominating and controlling others. In a healthy person we have 3 groups of microbes: The Essential or Beneficials, the Opportunistic and the Transitional. You’ve read the names of beneficial bacteria on the sides of yogurt pots: Bifido, Lactobacilli, Propioobacteria, good trains pf e coli, pepptostreppptococci, enterococci, There are like your knights in shiny armour. The functions they fulfill are so vital to us that if our gut was sterilized we would probably not survive. They protect you against pathogens like parasites, viruses and bad bacteria, they make vitamins, digest and absorb our food, inactivate toxins , suppress carcinogens, neutralize nitrates and phenols, inactivate histamine, chelate heavy metals and remove them through the elimination system , and play a vital role in the appropriate functioning of our immune system.  Our intestines are home to between 500 to 1000 of bacterial species but it was far more in the distant past as Ozi the Ice Man 5,300 years old, attests. And he wasn’t all that healthy a member of the village by all accounts.
The delicate balance between our bugs play an important role in our well-being, digestion, immunity, mood, but also in the production of certain vitamins.
Vitamin K2 is known to prevent and even reverse arteriosclerosis and is notoriously difficult to obtain from food sources, except in fermented products. Bacillus subtilis is a bacteria that produces the K2, a species found in cheese and natto
Another common K2 producer is 
Escherichia coli, which has a bad reputation for being a cause of food poisoning, but is usually harmless in small quantities, and the good guys do keep them in check.


Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) in food is almost exclusively found in animal products, and especially in shellfish, crustaceans and beef. The most famous B12 producer is Lactobacillus reuteri, But there are other B12-producers such as  Propionibacterium freudenreichii subsp. shermanii is used in cheesemaking to create CO2 bubbles that become the round holes in cheese like 
Emmental  and Jarlsberg cheese.
Other gut bacteria who make B 12 are Acetobacterium, Bacillus, Clostridium, Flavobacterium and Lactobacillus, although Bacillus and Clostridium both have a few pathogenic species too.


Vitamin B9 (folate or folic acid) is usually found in fresh (uncooked, unfrozen) leafy vegetables. One of the best is
Lactobacillus Plantarum. It is found in sauerkraut, fermented sausages, pickles, brined olives, Korean kimchi, sourdough, stockfish, as well as in some cheeses. That may explain why people who never eat fresh leafy vegetables are not necessarily deficient in folate.

Vitamin B2 (riboflavin), which is mostly found in meat, eggs, dairy products and legumes, is synthesised especially by bacteria that belong to the Lactobacillus, Streptococcus and Enterococcus genera. One of the most efficient at producing riboflavin is Lactobacillus fermentum, which is found in sourdough and in many probiotics. It is also noted for its ability to reduce cholesterol levels and to act as an antimicrobial and antioxidative. Other good producers are the above-mentioned B12 synthesisers P. freudenreichii and L. reuteri.
The next group are the opportunists, shady characters which the good guys keep in check. The beneficials tightly control populations of species that have names like staphloccoci, strepolcocci, Clostridia, any one of which can cause terrible health problems as mentioned, if they get out of control. Whose heard of C Difficille? Some bad bacteria make terribly potent toxins. I met a lady who had no hands and feet because a flesh eating bacteria had proliferated in her, she went into a coma and woke up to find they had had to amputate her extremities. OMG. This is why we really must not only get our gut healthy but  learn how to make compost properly and only breed up the beneficials.
Thirdly the transitionals are various microbes from the environment you swallow in food and drink. IN a person well protected by beneficial bacteria they pass through the digestive tract without doing any harm, but if the beneficial bacteria population is damaged , they can cause disease.
Your Army would fight for you
OK, so bacteria are a major nutrient suppliers and without a good gut flora, the gut wall is not only unprotected but is malnourished. Think of the layer of good bacteria coating the very convoluted surface of our gut wall (which has an  absorptive surface the size of a tennis court) is  like the  grass on a paddock. Without that thick grass or turf, the soil is unprotected and may erode in the next strong wind or rain event. So it is that the gut wall can erode when our good guy flora dies. A chain of degenerative changes in the wall structure takes place which further impairs its ability to digest and absorb nutrients.
Epithellial cells called enterocytes coat the villi , these are the very cells that complete the digestive process and pass nutrients through to the blood stream. Very important work.  
These enterocytes always have to be young and in good shape. Born in the crypts they move up to the top of the villi over the course of a week and are then worn out and are shed off.
The entire gut lining is renewed every 2 weeks . Animal experiments have shown that when the beneficials aren’t there in abundance these new cells don’t have nourishment. They are not as numerous , healthy or well formed. In fact they are misshapen and often cancerous , twisted and deformed. This means the gut wall is not as strong as it was. Without our good gatekeepers the whole structure of the gut wall changes , the villi degenerate and are unable to digest food properly. The  hair of an enterocyte is called  microvilli or  brush border which is normally full of digestive enzymes as well. So people  become unable to digest dairy and gluten. They get passed through partially digested as caseo morphines and gluteo morphines…..these cause havoc when they reach the brain.
Normal gut flora digests proteins, ferments carbohydrates and breaks down lipids and fiber. Without our good microbes all the best food and supplements in the world are not going to be absorbed.
We have looked at the modern- life causes of a dwindling microbiome . It is the opinion of Dr Stephanie Senneff and Anthony Samsel that the greatest cause of soil and human microbe depletion is Round Up.
 Malta banned it coz it probably causes cancer according to the WHO, Sri Lanka Banned glyphosate because it was linked to a five-fold increase in the prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) throughout Sri Lanka’s farming communities. The Netherlands well they are just smart, have a green government that actuallu represents the people  and  Argentina has banned it because  birth defects and infertility are linked with aerial  spraying on extensive GM soy plantations.
…. It is a Broad spectrum biocide. Kills all life!  There are only a very few bacteria resistant to it, and one agrobacterium has been used to GE the crop plants corn, cotton, canola and soy, sugar beet and alfalfa. Round Up is a registered antibiotic, also it was first patented in 1970 as a chelator, a substance that binds up minerals. Depletion by chelation of the nutrients manganese, iron, selenium, cobalt, zinc means GMO crops are deficient in these nutrients vital for both us and our beneficial bacteria. Iron anemia , LJ has it and Stew’s Dad, (who uses Round Up in his yard) he has to have transfusions because his iron is so low. Any connection to his beloved herbicide?  Micronutrients or trace elements such as the last 3 are only needed in tiny amounts but are essential.

Round Up virtually kills all plants by starvation, they die slowly of mineral deficiency,  so it takes a month to work. It does this by disrupting the shikimate pathway in plants. Monsanto claims that because humans do not have the shikimate pathway it is perfectly safe for us. But ! We depend fully on our beneficial gut bacteria who DO HAVE and use the shikimate pathway to synthesize vital aromatic amino acids for us and themselves: Tyrosine, tryptophan and phenylalanine. Lacto bacilli are established quickly after birth in the gut of a healthy  infant, they digest milk and out compete  bad bacteria. Lactobacillus are unique because they use manganese as a  de toxifying element, so they die off to our peril. Besides this
Round Up causes disruption to the gut and the depletion of aromatic amino acids and another important protein methionine.
So Ingest Round Up  and no, you don’t get a big reaction, in fact you don’t perceive anything has happened to you, but  it slowly, by many mechansims, takes away nutrients critical to us. It takes a while for it to reveal its deadly weapons, and it is interesting that Monsanto experiments upon which government regulators based their approval for this herbicide, only went for 3 months. It is in the 4th month that aggressive cancers appeared in the whole of life study on rats by Giles Seralini who got them ingesting  3 levels of Round Up and GMO corn. It didn’t matter how tiny the dose, the effect was the same.
 Round Up harms our beneficial bacteria preferentially! An example is  lactobacillus we mentioned earlier which needs manganese and will die off without it. With LActoB off duty, some of the pathogenic bacteria get out of control, Pseudomonas Aeruginosa for instance, use glyphosate as a food, and are unharmed by any anti biotic you can poke a stick at. So they breed up. What a mess! The gut becomes inflamed and corroded by the mechanism described above ( impairment of  enterocytes), and as our own immune cells do battle with pathogens by chemical warfare, collateral damage is done to further destroy our gut wall  until it can not absorb food to any degree. Surfactants in Round Up are the other active ingredient which are highly toxic and are agents which get the glyphosate the cells, they are burnt hydrocarbons and are corrosive to cell walls. This does nothing for our gut wall. Pigs subjected to GMO feed in  experiment by Dr Judy Carmen, got terribly inflamed stomachs. We also know from pig farmers in the US that their pigs became irritable and aggressive on GM feed. Lab technicians speak of mice and rats who started cowering in the corners of their cages and or biting each other and handlers after GM feed was introduced to the laboratory. Have you  noticed  friends or   family getting more and more difficult  and strange over the last 15 years? Let me know after.
Remember the harmed beneficial bacteria are no longer  making Tryptophan, Tyrosine and Phenylalanine which are so crucial to our well being. We can only get these aromatic amino acids via plants or microbes, we cannot make them. This is only one of the ways the glyphosate molecule messes us up the production of neuro transmitters.  It interferes with the production of Methionine as well. From methionine we get Sulphur and Sulphur is very important to the body. A deficiency of Methionine  leads to Sulphur deficiency and shortages again of serotonin, melatonin, dopamine, and melanin.

 Less Neuro transmitters


 Tryptophan is a precursor for Seratonin and Melatonin. Melatonin controls the sleep /wake cycle… take note all insomniacs or mothers of teenagers who seem to be most active at 2 am) . Seratonin deficiency  is linked to depression, obesity, Altzheimers, Autism, violent behavior,  all of which are on the rise.. Farmer suicide is rampant in this country  . A QLD study done  “by the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention has found the rate of suicide among farm workers, including farm owners and employees aged between 15 and 65, is more than double than that of the rest of the population.” Could the ubiquitous herbicide have anything to do with that figure?
Tyrosine is a precursor to Adrenaline, Melanin and Dopamine . Dopamine deficiency causes Parkinson’s disease, Skin is protected from UV rays by Melanin. It is also important to thyroid hormone…..
Other biological effects of Round Up include:
 Mitachondrial impairment ( these are the energy center for every cell in the body….chronic fatigue here we come )
Folic acid production. Lactobacilli Plantarum is a huge producer of B9 or folic acid along with a few bifdo species. Harmed by Round Up.
They grow biological ingredients for vaccines on agar plates made with gelatin from GM fed cattle. Some vaccines therefore contain Round Up and heavy metals and are very damaging.
Disruption to the endocrine system.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
 Impairment of critical liver enzymes ( cytochrome P450)  This makes our  liver unable to de toxify other harmful chemicals we are exposed to, one of its main functions!
Dr Stephanie Seneff says Round Up likely  impairs  synthesis of sulphate and sulphate transport.  Sulphur is a key nutrient and  we are all suffering from a deficiency. Many systems: Blood, brain, muscles all critically depend upon sulphate,
I could go on, but  time doesn’t allow.

Summary

 We are all in grave danger from the glyphosate molecule which wrecks fundamental systems in every living thing. Today many families have gut microbes in disarray and with each new generation  it gets worse. When beneficial species of gut microbe are knocked out by the effects of modern life, as we have seen,  other pathogenic opportunistic species take over. They are disease- causing because their waste products are very toxic. Without the beneficial bugs which digest food into nourishment for cells, new lining cells of the gut wall are malformed, and holes appear in the gut wall. A permeable  gut means  a river of toxicity in the blood stream leading to the brain coming from numerous sources. I believe we can fix our selves, our children,  our  soil and maybe be in time to  save  our beautiful Earth. It will take a lot of education, a lot of unlearning of misinformation and an openess to new ideas. 

The CURE for people !

 The GAPS book by Dr Natasha Cambell McBride is a very detailed self help book for GAPS families and individuals. GAPS stands not only for gut and psychology syndrome but gut and physiology syndrome , so really there would not be many people alive today who would not benefit from reading this book  and adopting the protocol. Here in brief is the sort of measures which will help a GAPS child or adult improve if not fully recover. The body has amazing capacity to heal and the younger a child is, the higher the chance of full recovery. Tragically,  some drugs ( pharmaceutical and recreational ) do irreversible damage to the gut microbiome and there is little chance of improvement if these have been taken for a long while.
Remove the toxins from our diets, our air , our water, oceans and soil.  Get mercury out of your teeth by a biological dentist. Get yourself a rainwater tank or very good filter , get yourself a garden bed, get out into the fresh air if you can find some, ( we are lucky we live on the coast with a prevailing breeze coming off a very big ocean, pity people up wind of Perth and Wagerup), and begin to heal and seal the gut with a bone broth fast for 3 days.
De toxify slowly: Swim in the sea or at least paddle your feet for at least 2o mins once a week, or have a salt bath with a cupful of Epsom salts and a cup full of bicarbonate of soda. A mixture of Activated charcoal, bentonite clay and sauerkraut juice removed glyphosate from the bodies of cattle in an experiment, this could be useful to us  . Liposomal Vit C is excellent to help de- toxify any poison from heavy metals like lead and mercury to snake bite. Exercising and saunas are great.
Religiously avoid all processed food and  drinks as they all contain GMOS and Round Up residues . Wheat, sugar and potatoes, unless certified organic, are dessicated right before harvest with Round Up.
Cook from scratch at home. Use organic ingredients and real salt as in Celtic or pink Himalayan salt. Fry in organic grass fed animal fat or coconut oil. Never buy  vegetable oils unless it is olive or avocado and then use only raw on salads, not heated. Good fats should be abundant in the diet. These include organic and therefore grass fed animal fats ( butter, goose, duck, chicken, lard, suet ,tallow) organic fresh nuts, olive oil  and avocadoes.
85% of all food you eat should be savoury. Bone broth should feature in meals daily as stews, soups casseroles.
Introduce fermented foods gradually. They are essential. Organic, Raw dairy keiffer, sour cream , ghee, butter, yogurt and cheese are fantastic. Also home made sauerkraut and kimchee, beet kvass  and well fermented  keiffer water and kombucha are good. Recipes appear in the GAPS book.
Eat organ meats such as liver 3 times a week. Organic eggs, meat and poultry are great. Look for logo or know your organic grower is genuine. Insist on seeing tax invoices and inspect the farm.
After a 3 day fast on bone broth only, a cup full every hour, if you have normal digestion you can add sourdough whole grain bread, potatoes and whole grains eaten with plenty of good fats. If you have digestion issues like diarrhea, irritable bowel etc keep to the following vegetables , avoiding starchy ones : pumpkin, carrot, celery ,beets, chard, choko , zucchini, garlic in small amounts, capsicum, celery, cabbage, broccoli, cauli, kale, herbs.
Small oily fish are important and cod liver oil should be taken daily at maintenance level
A probiotic ( orthoplex I am told is good and also biokult) could be a good idea for a while.
Avoid all home and  personal care products unless certified organic ( with reputable logo) , use bicarb of soda as a deodorant….it works!
Drink pure water and Freshly made juices before breakfast which should be at 10 am. Cleansing is done by the body between 4 am and 10 am during which time ripe organic fruit and water and vegetable juices will help you cleanse.
Go for walks and or garden daily. Early morning starts and early nights are ideal , keeping rhythm with the sun. Sunshine very important to vitamin D production whch protects you from skin cancer. Avoid sunscreen unless certified organic.
Avoid  EMR ( all screens, mobile phones, high voltage towers baby alarms, remote controls.)
Avoid eating out!  
The National Toxics Network has a phone app which helps you make buying choices.
Lastly avoid the company of people who make you feel inadequate, guilty or sad. Seek out healthy people who make you feel happy!
Please write down these names of people I trust: Dr Joseph Mercola, Dr Stephanie Seneff,  Dr Natasha Cambell McBride, Prof Don Huber, DR Suzanne Humphries. ( vaccination, vitamin C ) and Dr Elaine Ingham (Soil ). They are all over you tube, start listening to what they are saying about Round Up. It is just fantastic that we have access to these people and their research.

The Cure for Soil

Please sign up for Soils for Life October 7th and 8th , 2017.  I hope you will also share this post and bring a friend to Soils for Life.

Two  days which will revolutionise  your garden and your life, if applied. Receive our 75 page manual on sign up at soils for life tickets 

We are being poisoned by lots of things but the worst is Round Up.Just as the plants die slowly of starvation when they are sprayed, so our good gut bacteria on which we depend (to protect us from cancer, parasites, bad bacteria, viruses and pathogenic fungi, plus maintain gut wall and digest our food) are slowly wiped out by Round UP. One of most important group of beneficial bacteria , lactobacillus, uniquley need manganese which they use as a de toxifying element. Glyphosate chelates manganese in the soil in which Round Up ready crops are grown. So our beneficial bugs are slowly lost, which allows the overgrowth of pathogens . We can take small amounts of healthy soil from ancient forests and grasslands and breed them up, we can re inoculate our farms with these beneficial microbes and the land can become a carbon sink, sucking down carbon through plants once more. Please support those who are doing this and grow as much as you can as well. Happy gardening.