ow much is a trillion? Can you even hope to visualize how much it is? Well, for one thing, if you spent a million dollars each and every single day—that's a million dollars, EVERY DAY—since Jesus was born, two thousand years ago—that's 730,000 days—you still would not have come close to spending a trillion dollars.Here, how's this . . . imagine that this little grey thing on the tip of my finger is ONE UNIT.
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| This is one of our units—a little larger than a grain of sand. |
Now, what if we took ONE TRILLION of these little blocks, and stacked them neatly, and then smacked them down into the middle of a busy street in Manhattan. What would a trillion of these little blocks look like?
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| A trillion grains of sand, all stacked and arranged into a nice grey cube. I did it myself. |
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| Open this image in a new window and look at it. The poliovirus makes the bacteria look like the Hindenburg to a mouse. |
So.
In our guts—that's the stomach and the upper and lower intestines, there are approximately 39 trillion bacteria, give or take a hundred billion here and there.
There are approximately 10,000 separate species of bacteria in our guts . . . imagine them to be different tribes living on an island, and you can kind of get a picture of the whole MicroBiome universe.
Science today has only just begun to understand the complexities of the MicroBiome; indeed, it's only since we've been able to sequence the DNA of all these bacteria that we've truly been able to understand just how many of these things live inside us, and what they do.
Some believe that the MicroBiome is some kind of a Second Brain, and indeed, in a lot of ways, it is: it issues many hormones that affect our moods, regulate hunger and so on. The list is long.
But if you want all the information I've accumulated before now about the MicroBiome you must visit BiomeMechanic I, which took place *gasp* going on three and a half years ago.So without further ado, I outline the following basic plan for this project:
Phase One: Fourteen Days
Begins tomorrow, Monday, November 4th
Ends Sunday, November 17th
Outline: I will eat higher-than-normal levels of sugary/fatty foods, meaning lots of dairy, white flour and sugary treats, such as lemon meringue pies, ice cream, chocolates, pasta—that sort of thing.
Then I will do a "gut output" test, courtesy of Viome.com.
I will document the progress of this phase lovingly, with photographs and musings.
Phase Two: Fourteen Days
Begins, Monday, November 18th
Ends, Sunday, December 1st
Outline: I will eliminate sugar from my diet as much as possible. This means elimination of sweets, refined carbs etc. etc. with a target of less than 100 grammes of carbohydrates and glucose per day.
Needless to say, this phase will be exceedingly difficult, not just because I have to maneuver through minefields of potential diet-busters and glucose bombs.
My whole gastrointestinal tract will be undergoing a reconstruction of monumental proportions. Those trillions of microbes are not going to be happy.
Then I will do a "gut output" test, courtesy of Viome.com.
Phase Three: Fourteen Days
Begins, Monday, December 2nd
Ends, Sunday, December 15th
Outline: I will go back to a modified "healthy" diet of low carbs and sugars, high fibre and no refined, processed junk.
This will hopefully be continued for the rest of my life, with no more need for BiomeMechanic Projects.
Then I will do a final "gut output" test, courtesy of Viome.com.
Conclusion
Monday, December 16th to ?
I will finalise and summarize any conclusions I can deduce from the three gut tests, with all the ramifications gleaned from the project, and decide how best to conduct the rest of my life based on these conclusions. Wish me luck!
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