July 10, 2025 • 28 mins
ur guest this week is Dr. William Davis author of the new book Super Gut. We talk about the elements of the Standard American Diet that are contributing to a myriad of metabolic diseases, and how to rebuild your gut biome to help with everything from dementia to aging.
Follow up with Dr. Davis at his website.
Get the Adult version of the probiotic we discussed, BioGaia Gastrus, here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:08):
Gib, hello and welcome to another episode of
intelligence for your life. Thepodcast. I'm Gib Gerard. Our
guest this week is Dr WilliamDavis. He is author, most
famously of the internationalbest seller, Wheat Belly, but
we're gonna be talking about notonly what what we learned from
Wheat Belly, but also about hisnewest book, super gut, which is
(00:30):
all about the bacteria that wehave growing in our gut and and
the implications that that hason our whole body, from our
brain to our skin, everyeverything and everything in
between. You know, your mood,all of that, and how to rebuild
that gut bacteria. So here,without further ado, is my
interview with Dr William Davis.
Dr William Davis, author of,well, author of, like, the
(00:55):
International, world renownedbestseller, Wheat Belly, and, of
course, the new book, mostimportantly, super gut, a four
week plan to reprogram yourmicrobiome, restore health and
lose weight. Thank you so muchfor being with us today. We
really appreciate it. Oh,thrilled to be here. All right.
Well, let's, let's dive intothis. So your first book, Wheat
Belly, was sort of ahead of thepaleo and keto world. Like that,
that movement of cutting outgrains out of our diet, and kind
(01:21):
of change Turn, turn some, sometraditional like, literally turn
the food pyramid on its head.
Let's just start with, like, aquick primer on on kind of what
brought that, what brought thatup to prominence, and why Wheat
Belly was such a, was such a,why it was such a big success in
(01:42):
such a phenomenon?
Well, I think because it worked.
People, when they heard theactual rationale behind it and
they tried it, they sawphenomenal things happen. I And
there's several reasons for thatGib. One of the reasons is that
there's a protein in modernwheat. And I say modern wheat
because what we're being soldtoday is nothing like
traditional strains of wheat.
(02:03):
Sure, it doesn't look the same.
It's genetically different. It'sbiochemically unique. And so one
of the effects is this proteinthat they altered in numerous
experiments, called Gliadin, andhumans just don't have the
enzymes, the digestive enzymesthat break down the proteins in
seeds of grasses. That's whatwheat and grains are. And so
while we can break down theprotein, say, in an egg, into
(02:23):
its constituent amino acids, youcan't do that with the proteins
and grains, so we break themdown to fragments or peptides.
And some of these peptides fromthat protein, the glide in
protein, have opioid propertieson the human brain. They don't
make you high. They stimulateappetite. It makes a lot of
people become incessantlyhungry. These are the people,
(02:44):
for instance, who have a bigbowl of pasta. They're filled to
bursting and they're stillhungry. That is a very unnatural
response describing me at everyfamily dinner. But yeah,
so when you get rid of thatcollection of opioid peptides
that stimulate appetite. You aremiraculously freed of appetite.
(03:05):
You may have breakfast, say at7am maybe three eggs and some
sausage, and you probably won'twant to eat till no sooner than
three, maybe five, 6pm in otherwords, that hold every two hour
you're hungry is nonsense. It'sall due to the appetite
stimulating effects of the glidein protein. There's other
components that that have beenchanged. For instance, the wheat
(03:28):
germ agglutinin protein soundslike gluten, but it's unrelated.
Wheat germ agglutinin is a verytoxic compound to the human
gastrointestinal tract, but ithas been markedly enriched in
strains of wheat because itprovides pest resistance to the
farmer. It keeps insects andmolds away from the wheat plant,
so they enriched wheat Gerardgluten by selecting strains that
(03:51):
had higher content, notrecognizing they were
concentrating this very potentbowel toxin. And there's some
other factors in modern wheatand grains that when people
banish these things from theirlives, they are freed, not just
of appetite, but also weight,high blood sugars, many times,
autoimmune conditions,depression, anxiety, and that's
when I started to see theabsolute shift, the change in
(04:13):
Latin landscape of health, whenpeople banish this thing that is
recommended by all governmentagencies, doctors recommended to
be the majority of your diet. Imean, you look at you look at
the food pyramid. And that thebiggest, the biggest staple is,
is that wheat, that wheat andgrains staple and and we, we
repurpose it in a variety ofways. So there's, obviously,
there's bread, but, you know,cereal is just versions of that,
(04:36):
with certain exceptions beingoat based, like Cheerios, for
example. But, it's insane. It'sinsane how much we're supposed
to be eating that. And then inthe kind of metabolic stuff that
you're talking about, themetabolic disease that follows,
you know, if they got it right,Gib and they said, and they said
something like this, instead ofsaying, have healthy whole
grains at every meal, everysnack. And what if they instead
(04:57):
said, we're not sure. This stuffchanged by Agra.
Business and genetics researchis appropriate and safe for
human consumption, then you andI wouldn't have anything to talk
about, but they got it socolossally wrong by urging us to
pack our diet filled with thesethings. But then the great news
here is when people recognizethis blunder they made and take
it out of the human diet,spectacular things happen. So I
(05:21):
mean, should we be findingheirloom grains, or is the big
thesis of Wheat Belly that wejust need to cut out grain in
general for the foreseeablefuture? So they took something
that was somewhat harmful tohumans and made it much worse.
If we look back at what theanthropologists tell us and ask,
What happened to the firsthumans who consumed ancestral
(05:42):
forms of wheat, such as einkornwheat that's pre biblical times,
or Emmer wheat of the Bible.
There was an explosion in kneearthritis. There were multiple
deficiencies, especially ofiron, and there was other
diseases that emerged, includingrotting teeth, you know, before,
before people consumed grains,there was almost no such thing
as tooth decay. Interestingtime, of course, this was time
(06:04):
with no toothbrushes, right? Nodental frost, no floor, no
dentists, no doubney years.
That's, you know, no Novocaine.
But when grains were added tothe diet, and this was about
10,000 years ago in the MiddleEast, about 8000 4000 years ago
in the Central America, about8000 years ago in Sub Saharan
(06:26):
Africa, with millet. When thosegrains were added, the very
uncommon tooth decay, one to 3%of all teeth recovered. Exploded
to 16 to 49% of all teethshowing rot and misalignment, by
the way, and so that's why we'vebeen plagued with bad teeth. You
know, it's not uncommon for halfthe country to have lost their
(06:46):
teeth by age 75 Yeah, so it's abig problem that we have to
address with hygiene. And is itjust, is it just the, is it just
the the bacteria that gets fedby the by these proteins and
wheat? Is that? Is that the isthat the key? So it's actually
the amylopectin, a carbohydrateof wheat that is highly
(07:07):
digestible, more digestible thansucrose, table sugar.
Interesting. So if you put apiece of bread, for instance, in
your mouth and chew it, and ifyou were to check a finger stick
blood glucose, you would seethat even before you swallow,
your blood sugar has gone up.
But that release of sugar fromthe amylopectin a also feeds the
unhealthy microbes in yourmouth, and that's why you get a
lot ofthe plaque in between your
(07:29):
teeth, and you get tooth decay,and all the problems that come
with tooth decay. So you've seenthis from, you know, from the
studies that you've done, andalso from from, from your
practice. But almost every,every societal change you know,
every, every,like big empire level society
has had with it on its rise, astaple crop that that rises with
(07:55):
it, right, like that's, that'sthe way that these, these large
civilizations have risen, andwheat in Egypt was, was one of
them.
Could it possibly be that, like,there's just this is a nature of
civilized life, and that thegrain itself is not the problem
(08:16):
or or is thatit? Can we really identify that
it is these, these elements aregreat. You make an excellent
point. That is, the growth ofempires, expansion of human
population is dependent largelyon cheap, available staples,
yeah, such that the governmentcan control the flow of food.
But it was a mistake. You know?
(08:36):
It's a mistake that we're seeingnow only in light of having had
government advice that got iteven further, even more wrong,
right, right, telling us to loadour dice with this stuff, and
now we realize, holy crap, wemade a big mistake. Sure, stuff
never belonged in the human dietin the first place. Yet we have
7 billion lives on this planetnow, largely dependent on this
thing that should not have beenfood in the first place. Yeah,
(09:00):
but I mean, but would I guess wewouldn't have civilization
without it. That's it would lookvery different. Yeah, right. So
we would, maybe we would havethese sort of hunter gatherer
tribes still that may have, mayor may not have grown larger
than they currently, than theyused to be, or something like
that. So, you're right, theadvent of agriculture, many
1000s of years ago, allowed suchthings as specialization and
(09:23):
occupation, yep, or else you andI'd be farmers, right? I mean,
yeah, you're even in, you, evenin, like, recent history, over
the last 100 years in Westernsociety, you see 80%
70% of of the workforce beingagrarian, moving into now, you
know it's, I think it's, it'sless than 10%
that that transition is becauseof the kind of modifications
(09:47):
that you're talking about, butthat ultimately hurt our health.
You know, from where I said Gib,where I see people's lives,
their weight, their healthtransformed by managing this
stuff from their lives, but itdoes.
Has opened the question, well,how do we feed the planet? So,
right? This is my point, thatthis is kind of how I'm
circumventing that questiondirectly. But yes, yeah, you
(10:07):
can't, you can't have the numberof people we have. I mean,
you're talking about a massstarvation event in order to
transition away from them,right? So we're not talking you.
And I can't propose that welegislate the diet, right? But I
think those of us who are awareand understand that all the
modern diseases of modernhumans, that is tooth decay,
type two diabetes, obesity,anxiety, ulcerative colitis,
(10:28):
Crohn's disease, etc, arelargely caused by consumption of
wheat and grains. Interesting,once, those of us who can afford
to do so can banish wheat andgrains, and by the way, you can
still have pizza and you canstill have muffins and cookies,
but we're going to recreate themwithout wheat and grains. We'll
pick and choose healthierreplacement products. Don't mess
with your blood sugar, don'tcause opioid activation of the
(10:50):
of the appetite, and don't haveall those other adverse effects.
And you can enjoy all kinds ofwonderful things, even in social
events. I want to transition tothe new book in a second here,
but, but you talk aboutreplacing those traditional
confections, right?
Very popular, specifically, likein, you know, in certain cities,
the gluten free revolution,right? And you're talking about
(11:11):
different proteins in wheat fromgluten. The
gluten itself is not the enemy,but it's these other, these
other proteins and sugars thatour body treats. People go for
these gluten free baked goods.
They go for these gluten free,you know, confections, processed
food. It seems to me thatthey're trading wheat gluten.
And sometimes it's wheat withoutthe gluten, but it's still, it's
(11:34):
you're still getting the wheat.
And sometimes they just replaceit with a lot of sugar to make
it more palatable, or some otherkind of starch to hold it all
together, but sugar to make ittaste better. That can't be the
right solution. Can it? No,absolutely not. It's sad Gib
that a gluten free industry hasemerged and is growing like
(11:56):
crazy, and they're choosingawful replacement ingredients,
typically cornstarch, riceflour, tapioca starch and potato
flour. These are awful becausethey raise blood sugar sky high,
more so than even wheat. Veryfew things, very few foods,
raise blood sugar higher thanwheat, the amylopectin, a wheat
among the very few corn starch,rice flour.
(12:18):
It's like a cruel joke, right,right? So I see these people who
pretend that they're beinghealthy by eating gluten free,
but they're just really eating ahigh sugar, weird, like new
starch diet. Exactly. That's whyit causes heart disease,
dementia, cancer, high bloodpressure, many of the same
diseases that wheat causes. Andso that's a what we do, and what
I advocate is avoiding all thoseprocessed gluten free foods. You
(12:42):
know, an avocado is gluten free,naturally gluten free, that's
okay. Yeah, grapefruit isnaturally a piece of lamb or
pork that's naturally glutenfree. That's okay. That's where
the confusion comes. So what doyou replace this stuff with? So
let's say you want to make apizza crust, or maybe want to
make a muffin. We use suchthings is almond flour, ground
golden flax seed, coconut flour.
Cheeses in various forms makegood replacement ingredients,
(13:06):
believe it or not. And forsweeteners, we use the natural,
mostly non caloric sweeteners,like various forms of stevia,
yeah, monk fruit, allulose anderythritol. Do you think that
the rise in childhood allergiesto things, I mean, I, you know,
do things like gluten andpeanuts have anything to do with
this genetically modified foodthat we're getting. I think it's
more due to the disruption ofthe microbiome, and that leads
(13:28):
us down. The reason I wrote thesuper gut purpose, I saw smooth
transition. There's real smooth.
So I saw spectaculartransformations in health, just
with the wheat grain eliminationand, by the way, also addressing
the handful of commondeficiencies, not because of the
diet, but because the habits ofmodern life, right? Like living
(13:49):
indoors, not getting vitamin D,right, drinking filtered water
because you don't want sewage inyour water, and that takes out
all magnesium. So addressingthose handful of nutrients also.
But then I saw people, this isthat give and take with like
civilization, right? You got tofeed a lot more people. You got
to have, you have to have treat,you have to treat your water,
because we don't have theseamazing fresh water sources
everywhere we go anymore. But atthe same time that you're
missing some stuff. You don'twant skin cancer, but you still
(14:12):
need your vitamin D, right,exactly. But then I saw some
issues that were persistent forsome for many people. For
instance, food intolerances,like the ones you're talking
about, could be the peanuts, orit could be night shades. Could
be tomatoes, tomatoes andeggplants, yeah. Could be
histamine containing foods. Itcould be FODMAPs, fibers and
(14:32):
sugars. And so they persisted.
Despite doing all this and othersome other issues persisted.
People say something like this,I did the Wheat Belly lifestyle.
My rheumatoid arthritis is 70%better. I'm off the biologic it
was cost me 1000s of dollars amonth in co pays. I'm off the
prednisone, but I still have totake naproxen now and then for
(14:53):
flare ups. Why? So I looked forbetter answers, and I found them
in the microbiome. But the greatthing about the micro.
I'm one. The bad thing is thatvirtually all of us have
massively disrupted microbiome,our GI microbiome, because of
exposure to antibiotics,glyphosate and Roundup
herbicide, which is ubiquitous.
It's a herbicide, yes, but it'salso an antibiotic. I mean,
other herbicide, and the factthat, the fact that they carved
(15:15):
them out specifically in thelaws about what you're allowed
to put in your food, that theyare an exception, even though
the chemical class that they'rein are not allowed is insane to
me. Yeah, it's everywhere,though. Gib it's chlorinated
drinking water, on and on andon. All the things, non sternal,
anti inflammatory drugs, stomachacid blocking drugs, statin
cholesterol, drink. All thesethings disrupt the human
(15:36):
microbiome, and as a result,we've lost literally hundreds of
species, including veryimportant species. And when you
lose those species that werecompeting with the unhealthy,
mostly fecal microbes, right?
Those fecal microbes win,proliferate. Yes, they won. And
the curious thing is thissurprised me, is that many
(15:59):
people, by my estimation, 50% ofAmericans have these fecal
microbes, E coli, Klebsiella,citrabacter, et cetera, climb up
into the 24 feet of small bowel,so called small intestinal
bacterial overgrowth. And what'sremarkable about that is, once
you had this 30 feet, so 24 feetof small bowel, four to five
feet of colon filled with fecalmicrobes, some of the breakdown
(16:22):
products. These these creatureslive only for hours, not for
years. Mm, hmm. When they die,they release some of their
breakdown products into thebloodstream. And that is a
process finally validated by aFrench, now Belgian group in
2007 that process calledendotoxemia, but it explains how
microbes in the GI tract can beexperienced in the brain. Yeah,
(16:43):
I've heard more about this,yeah, yeah, that some cultures
recognize it a little bit betterand say that the gut is the
second brain, right? That thatthese that neurotransmitters are
created in the gut. Yes,absolutely, you get dementia, or
you can experience this processas joint pains or muscle pains
like fibromyalgia or rheumatoidarthritis, or as metabolic
(17:07):
diseases like high bloodpressure or type two diabetes or
obesity. In other words,virtually all modern diseases
have to be re examined in lightof this process, because the
gastrointestinal microbiome, viaendotoxemia, participates in so
if all the doctor does, forinstance, is give you an anti
inflammatory drug for yourfibromyalgia, your rheumatoid
(17:28):
arthritis, he has done nothingto address the cause. Now know
with confidence that many ofthese diseases are either caused
or at least worsened by thisprocess of
you treat the symptom, butyou're actually making the
underlying cause worse in doingso, or at least just failing to
address right process, right?
Because these drugs, like thesebiologics, that cost up to
(17:51):
$12,000 a month, Gib, yeah, amonth, yeah, all they do is
interfere with one step ininflammatory pathway. They do
nothing for the actual rootcause. Yeah. Okay, so
this is some real doom and gloomstuff. So I mean, my assumption
is based on extrapolating, is wewant to cut out a lot of these
(18:14):
processed foods, particularlythe foods that are treated with
the pesticides and herbicidesthat you're talking about.
That's gonna be organic. WholeFoods is gonna be the first
step, right? And then how do webegin to rebuild that healthy
gut bacteria? I mean, I take, Ido psyllium Hus powder every
morning, and I have to say, Ifelt a huge difference in my
mood and all kinds of otherthings. And that's, oh, great.
That's supposed to it's supposedto be the
(18:37):
building block from which mygood bacteria comes. Is it
beyond that? Is there more weshould be doing? Yeah, two big
things people can do. One isreintroduce fermented foods and
Oh, good. Okay, so these arethings that many people kind of
recognize, like kefir andyogurt, kombucha, kimchi is at
the top of the list for veryhelpful fermented foods. It's
(19:00):
inexpensive. It's very easy todo once you do it, once you see
how it's done, do it on yourkitchen counter. Takes a few
days to ferment something, andit's delicious and it makes food
taste better. But with theavailability of home
refrigeration in the late 1920sAmericans forgot
fermented foods. Yeah, the otherthing I do, beer is fermented.
(19:21):
Does that count? Beer isfermented, but really not that
rich in the right microbes youwant. Fine, fine, fine. I was
getting happy there for asecond, but that's
fine. The other thing we do iswe identify lost what are called
Keystone microbes, veryimportant microbes that like
plankton in the ocean, thatwhales and jellyfish depend on
you lose plankton, you losewhales. Same thing here in the
(19:44):
GI microbiome, and one of myfavorite microbe of all is
Lactobacillus reuteri thatalmost all of us are E, U, T, E,
R, I, by the way, named afterthe German microbiologist Dr
Gerard Reuter Well, we lost thatmicrobe even though squirrels
have.
Possums have it. Dogs have it.
Indigenous hunter gathererhumans all have it, but we've
lost it because we get it back,or do we have to? How do we get
(20:07):
can we get it back so we can getit back? And what happens when
you restore this microbe? Whatdoes two things. One, it sends a
signal to your brain so it takesup residence in the GI tract
sends a signal to the brain torelease the hormone oxytocin,
great, the hormone of love andempathy. Yeah, people will say
things like, I like my partnerbetter. I like my co workers
(20:29):
better, hmm, I'm more generous.
Sure. I accept the opinions ofother people more readily. My
favorite, yeah, but the ladieslove it because it smooths their
skin. They start to lose skinwrinkles from an explosion
dermal collagen. Guys love itbecause it restores youthful
muscle and strength. It alsodeepens sleep, extends the
(20:51):
period of REM sleep, accelerateshealing. So a whole huge by the
way. Gib, so if we're talkingabout acceleration of healing,
greater muscle and strengthsfound in youth, is what you're
describing. Yes, that's what'shappening. We're seeing people
not, not back to age 15. No, no.
But you're talking about the thelike the stress related, you
know, we acknowledge thatthere's a certain stress of
(21:13):
modern life and stress relatedaging that goes with it. But
what you're talking about is isbasically a an effective blocker
on some of those stress relatedbreakdowns that we go through.
Yeah, and you can see it onpeople's faces when they share
their selfies at two months, forinstance, ladies will see a
reduction skin wrinkles,smoothing of the skin more. So
how do we I I'm Salt, salt. I'min. How do we get it back? What
(21:36):
do we do to begin to build thatback up? So now we're
conducting, there's two strainsof Rotary. So this is kind of
dull stuff. Gib, I apologize,but when you play with microbes,
you got to pay attention tostrain. To illustrate, you and I
and your listeners all have EColi in our guts. Sure? What if
you ate lettuce contaminated bycow manure with E coli? Well,
(21:57):
you can die of that E coli.
Right? Right? Species, differentstrengths. So we must be mindful
of strain. So we know withconfidence there are two strains
that do this, and those are inthe Super gut book. It's there.
There these strain designationsare a pain. DSM, 17938, and
ATCC, PTA, 6475, of course.
Yeah, everybody knows that. Allin the book. We got that in
elementary school. I don't knowwhat you were learning in
(22:19):
kindergarten, but yeah, ofcourse. So we get it from a
commercial product calledgastros bio Gaia gastros, J, S,
T, i, o, s. Now I'll tell youthough, we're currently
conducting some clinical trials,and we're testing other strains
to see if there are strains thatare better at it than those two
strains that we know have thoseeffects. But until I have those
data in my hands from our mousetrials and our human trials,
(22:41):
human trials. What I would do isget those strains from bio guy,
gastrous, and we do somethingcrazy with them. You can take
those tablets, but you'll seethose tablets are made for
infants, so the doses are verylow. So what I did is I took
those tablets and I made ayogurt out of it, not like store
bought yogurt. I used prolongedfermentation, so we get really
big numbers. So we use 36 hoursof fermentation, Rotary doubles,
(23:06):
Buck back two. Don't have Mommyand Daddy,
no sexual, right? Yeah. So theyjust double. One becomes two,
two becomes four. Well, Rotarydoubles every three hours at 100
degrees Fahrenheit. So I allowedit to double for 36 hours, 12
doublings. I performed somethingcalled Flow cytometry on the
(23:26):
yogurt to count the microbes.
We're getting between 250 and300 billion microbes per half
cup serving. Okay, consume theyogurt and we get these
spectacular effects. And not,not Gib, that's one micro, okay,
but that's, that's one microbe,and that's you a scientist who
is able to do this stuff. Imean, I don't trust myself or my
kids not to touch for somethingthat's at 100 degrees for 36
(23:49):
hours. I have a, I have a I havea an instant pot, and I know you
can ferment yogurt in thatinstant pot, and I know I can do
all that stuff with it, but Iwouldn't trust myself to do this
experiment on my own, or this,this development on my own. So
what? What are, what are thethose of us without access to
labs supposed to do?
(24:10):
Well, it's actually very easy.
You can do it with your instantpot. You can do it with yogurt
makers. I do it with a sous videdevice, a stick sous vide base
and sous vide device. So you doneed some means of keeping it
100 degrees Fahrenheit, becausethese might because these might
most lactobacillus species like100 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly
human body temperature. So it'sit's much easier than you think.
The I laid out the recipes, andI also, by the way, laid out
(24:32):
recipes for other microbes.
Let's say you want to reduceknee arthritis pain. Well, let's
ferment bacillus coagulants,very easy. Let's say you want to
shrink your waist and reduceinflammation. Let's ferment
lactobacillus gas, right? Whatif you want a healthier baby
that's more likely to sleepthrough the night have 50% fewer
(24:52):
everybody wants that. Everybodywants that. Go, go, go. And what
do we do for that? Then youferment Bifidobacterium fantas
and your child.
Is less likely to become obese atype two diabetic and has a
higher IQ. So it's like going toa restaurant. Gib. You know,
when you go to a restaurant andthe waitress hand you a men, you
don't freak out and say, I can'torder all these appetizers and
dish you pick and choose theones you want. That's what we're
(25:15):
doing. We're picking andchoosing the microbes we want
for the effect we want, and whenyou cultivate them to high
numbers as you're doing this.
And by the way, it doesn't haveto be dairy. It could be coconut
milk, it could be salsa, couldbe hummus. You can ferment all
kinds of things and get thesehigh microbial counts. And you
obtain these over the topbenefits. The book is super gut,
a four week plan to reprogramyour microbiome, restore health
(25:38):
and lose weight. Link to whereyou can buy that in the show
notes, as well as to bio Gaiagastrous supplement, for which
is the main bacteria that we'vebeen talking about in the second
half of today's show you cancheck those out in the show
notes. Guys, two last questions,Dr Davis, because I know your
time is valuable, and we got togo first and foremost, aside
(25:58):
from buying the book again, linkin the show notes. How come?
You'll follow up with you. Sowe're on social media. My main
website, I just last year, haveshifted everything over to Dr
Davis, infinite health.com,there's a very busy discussion
forum. There's my blog. It hasover 2000 articles. There's also
something called my innercircle, where we have two way
zoom conferences once a week fora few hours, and we talk at
(26:22):
length about these kinds ofthings you're talking about.
Unbelievable. Okay, so folks,link to Dr Davis, infinite
health.com in the show notes aswell. One last question, Dr
Davis and I ask it to everybody,what is one thing we can all
start doing today that will makeour lives a whole lot better?
Add back fermented foods. It isfar bigger than you think.
That's amazing. And again, youknow, you talked about kombucha,
(26:44):
and you talk about, you know,fermenting this yourself. Can
you, can we make it easier forpeople? Can you just buy the
kombucha at the store, which hasa lot of sugar in it, and a lot
of the stuff, you know, hassugar in it? But does that work
or or do you really need to bedoing this yourself? No, you're
right. Gib that you can buy now,commercially produced fermented
foods, like kombucha, kefirs,yogurt. Of course, the problem
(27:05):
is commercial production. Theytry to go as fast as possible to
make as much product sure asshort a time as possible. So
let's say I buy some fermentedsauerkraut, not sauerkraut and
brine and vinegar, but fermentedsauerkraut, or let's say kimchi
I leave on my counter for aminimum of 48 hours to let it
proceed further and fermentationincrease. Open it and leave it
(27:25):
on your counter because, becauseyou gotta, if they're sealed,
you know, you gotta let it, yougotta open it, right? Otherwise,
the process isn't gonna, isn'tgonna happen. So you loosen the
top, but leave it on, okay,yeah. That allows the gasses to
escape. You want to get thepump. You want to get the pop,
but then, but yeah, top on,yeah, that's right. Some
fermenting micros produce somuch gas, like carbon dioxide,
that you could actually have anexplosion if you don't do that,
(27:47):
right, yeah? All right, well,all right, so I hear what you're
saying. There's a couple thingsthat I'm going to start
incorporating into my life,including these additional
fermented foods. More often it'sand again, it's hard to find the
real stuff. Like a lot of timesyou have sauerkraut in brine
that masquerades as the realsauerkraut we're talking about,
and you got to find thefermented version exactly it
should say something like,contains live cultures or
(28:10):
fermented or some wording tothat effect. Dr Davis, we really
appreciate your time that you'vegiven me personally, a lot to
chew on, pun intended, andhopefully we can have you back
at some point. But thank you somuch anytime. Be glad to that's
it for the show today. Thank youguys so much for listening. If
you like the show, please rate,comment and subscribe on Apple
podcast. Stitcher, Spotify,wherever you get your podcast.
(28:32):
Helps us out a lot. Follow upwith John at facebook.com/john
Tesh. He's also on Instagram atJohn Tesh, underscore, ifyl, I'm
Gib Gerard. You find mefacebook.com/gib, Gerard, or at
Gib Gerard on Instagram andTwitter, I try to respond to
every DM, every mention of theshow, because ultimately, I do
the show for you guys. So thankyou so much for listening. You.
Gib, hello and welcome to another episode of
intelligence for your life. Thepodcast. I'm Gib Gerard. Our
guest this week is Dr WilliamDavis. He is author, most
famously of the internationalbest seller, Wheat Belly, but
we're gonna be talking about notonly what what we learned from
Wheat Belly, but also about hisnewest book, super gut, which is
(00:30):
all about the bacteria that wehave growing in our gut and and
the implications that that hason our whole body, from our
brain to our skin, everyeverything and everything in
between. You know, your mood,all of that, and how to rebuild
that gut bacteria. So here,without further ado, is my
interview with Dr William Davis.
Dr William Davis, author of,well, author of, like, the
(00:55):
International, world renownedbestseller, Wheat Belly, and, of
course, the new book, mostimportantly, super gut, a four
week plan to reprogram yourmicrobiome, restore health and
lose weight. Thank you so muchfor being with us today. We
really appreciate it. Oh,thrilled to be here. All right.
Well, let's, let's dive intothis. So your first book, Wheat
Belly, was sort of ahead of thepaleo and keto world. Like that,
that movement of cutting outgrains out of our diet, and kind
(01:21):
of change Turn, turn some, sometraditional like, literally turn
the food pyramid on its head.
Let's just start with, like, aquick primer on on kind of what
brought that, what brought thatup to prominence, and why Wheat
Belly was such a, was such a,why it was such a big success in
(01:42):
such a phenomenon?
Well, I think because it worked.
People, when they heard theactual rationale behind it and
they tried it, they sawphenomenal things happen. I And
there's several reasons for thatGib. One of the reasons is that
there's a protein in modernwheat. And I say modern wheat
because what we're being soldtoday is nothing like
traditional strains of wheat.
(02:03):
Sure, it doesn't look the same.
It's genetically different. It'sbiochemically unique. And so one
of the effects is this proteinthat they altered in numerous
experiments, called Gliadin, andhumans just don't have the
enzymes, the digestive enzymesthat break down the proteins in
seeds of grasses. That's whatwheat and grains are. And so
while we can break down theprotein, say, in an egg, into
(02:23):
its constituent amino acids, youcan't do that with the proteins
and grains, so we break themdown to fragments or peptides.
And some of these peptides fromthat protein, the glide in
protein, have opioid propertieson the human brain. They don't
make you high. They stimulateappetite. It makes a lot of
people become incessantlyhungry. These are the people,
(02:44):
for instance, who have a bigbowl of pasta. They're filled to
bursting and they're stillhungry. That is a very unnatural
response describing me at everyfamily dinner. But yeah,
so when you get rid of thatcollection of opioid peptides
that stimulate appetite. You aremiraculously freed of appetite.
(03:05):
You may have breakfast, say at7am maybe three eggs and some
sausage, and you probably won'twant to eat till no sooner than
three, maybe five, 6pm in otherwords, that hold every two hour
you're hungry is nonsense. It'sall due to the appetite
stimulating effects of the glidein protein. There's other
components that that have beenchanged. For instance, the wheat
(03:28):
germ agglutinin protein soundslike gluten, but it's unrelated.
Wheat germ agglutinin is a verytoxic compound to the human
gastrointestinal tract, but ithas been markedly enriched in
strains of wheat because itprovides pest resistance to the
farmer. It keeps insects andmolds away from the wheat plant,
so they enriched wheat Gerardgluten by selecting strains that
(03:51):
had higher content, notrecognizing they were
concentrating this very potentbowel toxin. And there's some
other factors in modern wheatand grains that when people
banish these things from theirlives, they are freed, not just
of appetite, but also weight,high blood sugars, many times,
autoimmune conditions,depression, anxiety, and that's
when I started to see theabsolute shift, the change in
(04:13):
Latin landscape of health, whenpeople banish this thing that is
recommended by all governmentagencies, doctors recommended to
be the majority of your diet. Imean, you look at you look at
the food pyramid. And that thebiggest, the biggest staple is,
is that wheat, that wheat andgrains staple and and we, we
repurpose it in a variety ofways. So there's, obviously,
there's bread, but, you know,cereal is just versions of that,
(04:36):
with certain exceptions beingoat based, like Cheerios, for
example. But, it's insane. It'sinsane how much we're supposed
to be eating that. And then inthe kind of metabolic stuff that
you're talking about, themetabolic disease that follows,
you know, if they got it right,Gib and they said, and they said
something like this, instead ofsaying, have healthy whole
grains at every meal, everysnack. And what if they instead
(04:57):
said, we're not sure. This stuffchanged by Agra.
Business and genetics researchis appropriate and safe for
human consumption, then you andI wouldn't have anything to talk
about, but they got it socolossally wrong by urging us to
pack our diet filled with thesethings. But then the great news
here is when people recognizethis blunder they made and take
it out of the human diet,spectacular things happen. So I
(05:21):
mean, should we be findingheirloom grains, or is the big
thesis of Wheat Belly that wejust need to cut out grain in
general for the foreseeablefuture? So they took something
that was somewhat harmful tohumans and made it much worse.
If we look back at what theanthropologists tell us and ask,
What happened to the firsthumans who consumed ancestral
(05:42):
forms of wheat, such as einkornwheat that's pre biblical times,
or Emmer wheat of the Bible.
There was an explosion in kneearthritis. There were multiple
deficiencies, especially ofiron, and there was other
diseases that emerged, includingrotting teeth, you know, before,
before people consumed grains,there was almost no such thing
as tooth decay. Interestingtime, of course, this was time
(06:04):
with no toothbrushes, right? Nodental frost, no floor, no
dentists, no doubney years.
That's, you know, no Novocaine.
But when grains were added tothe diet, and this was about
10,000 years ago in the MiddleEast, about 8000 4000 years ago
in the Central America, about8000 years ago in Sub Saharan
(06:26):
Africa, with millet. When thosegrains were added, the very
uncommon tooth decay, one to 3%of all teeth recovered. Exploded
to 16 to 49% of all teethshowing rot and misalignment, by
the way, and so that's why we'vebeen plagued with bad teeth. You
know, it's not uncommon for halfthe country to have lost their
(06:46):
teeth by age 75 Yeah, so it's abig problem that we have to
address with hygiene. And is itjust, is it just the, is it just
the the bacteria that gets fedby the by these proteins and
wheat? Is that? Is that the isthat the key? So it's actually
the amylopectin, a carbohydrateof wheat that is highly
(07:07):
digestible, more digestible thansucrose, table sugar.
Interesting. So if you put apiece of bread, for instance, in
your mouth and chew it, and ifyou were to check a finger stick
blood glucose, you would seethat even before you swallow,
your blood sugar has gone up.
But that release of sugar fromthe amylopectin a also feeds the
unhealthy microbes in yourmouth, and that's why you get a
lot ofthe plaque in between your
(07:29):
teeth, and you get tooth decay,and all the problems that come
with tooth decay. So you've seenthis from, you know, from the
studies that you've done, andalso from from, from your
practice. But almost every,every societal change you know,
every, every,like big empire level society
has had with it on its rise, astaple crop that that rises with
(07:55):
it, right, like that's, that'sthe way that these, these large
civilizations have risen, andwheat in Egypt was, was one of
them.
Could it possibly be that, like,there's just this is a nature of
civilized life, and that thegrain itself is not the problem
(08:16):
or or is thatit? Can we really identify that
it is these, these elements aregreat. You make an excellent
point. That is, the growth ofempires, expansion of human
population is dependent largelyon cheap, available staples,
yeah, such that the governmentcan control the flow of food.
But it was a mistake. You know?
(08:36):
It's a mistake that we're seeingnow only in light of having had
government advice that got iteven further, even more wrong,
right, right, telling us to loadour dice with this stuff, and
now we realize, holy crap, wemade a big mistake. Sure, stuff
never belonged in the human dietin the first place. Yet we have
7 billion lives on this planetnow, largely dependent on this
thing that should not have beenfood in the first place. Yeah,
(09:00):
but I mean, but would I guess wewouldn't have civilization
without it. That's it would lookvery different. Yeah, right. So
we would, maybe we would havethese sort of hunter gatherer
tribes still that may have, mayor may not have grown larger
than they currently, than theyused to be, or something like
that. So, you're right, theadvent of agriculture, many
1000s of years ago, allowed suchthings as specialization and
(09:23):
occupation, yep, or else you andI'd be farmers, right? I mean,
yeah, you're even in, you, evenin, like, recent history, over
the last 100 years in Westernsociety, you see 80%
70% of of the workforce beingagrarian, moving into now, you
know it's, I think it's, it'sless than 10%
that that transition is becauseof the kind of modifications
(09:47):
that you're talking about, butthat ultimately hurt our health.
You know, from where I said Gib,where I see people's lives,
their weight, their healthtransformed by managing this
stuff from their lives, but itdoes.
Has opened the question, well,how do we feed the planet? So,
right? This is my point, thatthis is kind of how I'm
circumventing that questiondirectly. But yes, yeah, you
(10:07):
can't, you can't have the numberof people we have. I mean,
you're talking about a massstarvation event in order to
transition away from them,right? So we're not talking you.
And I can't propose that welegislate the diet, right? But I
think those of us who are awareand understand that all the
modern diseases of modernhumans, that is tooth decay,
type two diabetes, obesity,anxiety, ulcerative colitis,
(10:28):
Crohn's disease, etc, arelargely caused by consumption of
wheat and grains. Interesting,once, those of us who can afford
to do so can banish wheat andgrains, and by the way, you can
still have pizza and you canstill have muffins and cookies,
but we're going to recreate themwithout wheat and grains. We'll
pick and choose healthierreplacement products. Don't mess
with your blood sugar, don'tcause opioid activation of the
(10:50):
of the appetite, and don't haveall those other adverse effects.
And you can enjoy all kinds ofwonderful things, even in social
events. I want to transition tothe new book in a second here,
but, but you talk aboutreplacing those traditional
confections, right?
Very popular, specifically, likein, you know, in certain cities,
the gluten free revolution,right? And you're talking about
(11:11):
different proteins in wheat fromgluten. The
gluten itself is not the enemy,but it's these other, these
other proteins and sugars thatour body treats. People go for
these gluten free baked goods.
They go for these gluten free,you know, confections, processed
food. It seems to me thatthey're trading wheat gluten.
And sometimes it's wheat withoutthe gluten, but it's still, it's
(11:34):
you're still getting the wheat.
And sometimes they just replaceit with a lot of sugar to make
it more palatable, or some otherkind of starch to hold it all
together, but sugar to make ittaste better. That can't be the
right solution. Can it? No,absolutely not. It's sad Gib
that a gluten free industry hasemerged and is growing like
(11:56):
crazy, and they're choosingawful replacement ingredients,
typically cornstarch, riceflour, tapioca starch and potato
flour. These are awful becausethey raise blood sugar sky high,
more so than even wheat. Veryfew things, very few foods,
raise blood sugar higher thanwheat, the amylopectin, a wheat
among the very few corn starch,rice flour.
(12:18):
It's like a cruel joke, right,right? So I see these people who
pretend that they're beinghealthy by eating gluten free,
but they're just really eating ahigh sugar, weird, like new
starch diet. Exactly. That's whyit causes heart disease,
dementia, cancer, high bloodpressure, many of the same
diseases that wheat causes. Andso that's a what we do, and what
I advocate is avoiding all thoseprocessed gluten free foods. You
(12:42):
know, an avocado is gluten free,naturally gluten free, that's
okay. Yeah, grapefruit isnaturally a piece of lamb or
pork that's naturally glutenfree. That's okay. That's where
the confusion comes. So what doyou replace this stuff with? So
let's say you want to make apizza crust, or maybe want to
make a muffin. We use suchthings is almond flour, ground
golden flax seed, coconut flour.
Cheeses in various forms makegood replacement ingredients,
(13:06):
believe it or not. And forsweeteners, we use the natural,
mostly non caloric sweeteners,like various forms of stevia,
yeah, monk fruit, allulose anderythritol. Do you think that
the rise in childhood allergiesto things, I mean, I, you know,
do things like gluten andpeanuts have anything to do with
this genetically modified foodthat we're getting. I think it's
more due to the disruption ofthe microbiome, and that leads
(13:28):
us down. The reason I wrote thesuper gut purpose, I saw smooth
transition. There's real smooth.
So I saw spectaculartransformations in health, just
with the wheat grain eliminationand, by the way, also addressing
the handful of commondeficiencies, not because of the
diet, but because the habits ofmodern life, right? Like living
(13:49):
indoors, not getting vitamin D,right, drinking filtered water
because you don't want sewage inyour water, and that takes out
all magnesium. So addressingthose handful of nutrients also.
But then I saw people, this isthat give and take with like
civilization, right? You got tofeed a lot more people. You got
to have, you have to have treat,you have to treat your water,
because we don't have theseamazing fresh water sources
everywhere we go anymore. But atthe same time that you're
missing some stuff. You don'twant skin cancer, but you still
(14:12):
need your vitamin D, right,exactly. But then I saw some
issues that were persistent forsome for many people. For
instance, food intolerances,like the ones you're talking
about, could be the peanuts, orit could be night shades. Could
be tomatoes, tomatoes andeggplants, yeah. Could be
histamine containing foods. Itcould be FODMAPs, fibers and
(14:32):
sugars. And so they persisted.
Despite doing all this and othersome other issues persisted.
People say something like this,I did the Wheat Belly lifestyle.
My rheumatoid arthritis is 70%better. I'm off the biologic it
was cost me 1000s of dollars amonth in co pays. I'm off the
prednisone, but I still have totake naproxen now and then for
(14:53):
flare ups. Why? So I looked forbetter answers, and I found them
in the microbiome. But the greatthing about the micro.
I'm one. The bad thing is thatvirtually all of us have
massively disrupted microbiome,our GI microbiome, because of
exposure to antibiotics,glyphosate and Roundup
herbicide, which is ubiquitous.
It's a herbicide, yes, but it'salso an antibiotic. I mean,
other herbicide, and the factthat, the fact that they carved
(15:15):
them out specifically in thelaws about what you're allowed
to put in your food, that theyare an exception, even though
the chemical class that they'rein are not allowed is insane to
me. Yeah, it's everywhere,though. Gib it's chlorinated
drinking water, on and on andon. All the things, non sternal,
anti inflammatory drugs, stomachacid blocking drugs, statin
cholesterol, drink. All thesethings disrupt the human
(15:36):
microbiome, and as a result,we've lost literally hundreds of
species, including veryimportant species. And when you
lose those species that werecompeting with the unhealthy,
mostly fecal microbes, right?
Those fecal microbes win,proliferate. Yes, they won. And
the curious thing is thissurprised me, is that many
(15:59):
people, by my estimation, 50% ofAmericans have these fecal
microbes, E coli, Klebsiella,citrabacter, et cetera, climb up
into the 24 feet of small bowel,so called small intestinal
bacterial overgrowth. And what'sremarkable about that is, once
you had this 30 feet, so 24 feetof small bowel, four to five
feet of colon filled with fecalmicrobes, some of the breakdown
(16:22):
products. These these creatureslive only for hours, not for
years. Mm, hmm. When they die,they release some of their
breakdown products into thebloodstream. And that is a
process finally validated by aFrench, now Belgian group in
2007 that process calledendotoxemia, but it explains how
microbes in the GI tract can beexperienced in the brain. Yeah,
(16:43):
I've heard more about this,yeah, yeah, that some cultures
recognize it a little bit betterand say that the gut is the
second brain, right? That thatthese that neurotransmitters are
created in the gut. Yes,absolutely, you get dementia, or
you can experience this processas joint pains or muscle pains
like fibromyalgia or rheumatoidarthritis, or as metabolic
(17:07):
diseases like high bloodpressure or type two diabetes or
obesity. In other words,virtually all modern diseases
have to be re examined in lightof this process, because the
gastrointestinal microbiome, viaendotoxemia, participates in so
if all the doctor does, forinstance, is give you an anti
inflammatory drug for yourfibromyalgia, your rheumatoid
(17:28):
arthritis, he has done nothingto address the cause. Now know
with confidence that many ofthese diseases are either caused
or at least worsened by thisprocess of
you treat the symptom, butyou're actually making the
underlying cause worse in doingso, or at least just failing to
address right process, right?
Because these drugs, like thesebiologics, that cost up to
(17:51):
$12,000 a month, Gib, yeah, amonth, yeah, all they do is
interfere with one step ininflammatory pathway. They do
nothing for the actual rootcause. Yeah. Okay, so
this is some real doom and gloomstuff. So I mean, my assumption
is based on extrapolating, is wewant to cut out a lot of these
(18:14):
processed foods, particularlythe foods that are treated with
the pesticides and herbicidesthat you're talking about.
That's gonna be organic. WholeFoods is gonna be the first
step, right? And then how do webegin to rebuild that healthy
gut bacteria? I mean, I take, Ido psyllium Hus powder every
morning, and I have to say, Ifelt a huge difference in my
mood and all kinds of otherthings. And that's, oh, great.
That's supposed to it's supposedto be the
(18:37):
building block from which mygood bacteria comes. Is it
beyond that? Is there more weshould be doing? Yeah, two big
things people can do. One isreintroduce fermented foods and
Oh, good. Okay, so these arethings that many people kind of
recognize, like kefir andyogurt, kombucha, kimchi is at
the top of the list for veryhelpful fermented foods. It's
(19:00):
inexpensive. It's very easy todo once you do it, once you see
how it's done, do it on yourkitchen counter. Takes a few
days to ferment something, andit's delicious and it makes food
taste better. But with theavailability of home
refrigeration in the late 1920sAmericans forgot
fermented foods. Yeah, the otherthing I do, beer is fermented.
(19:21):
Does that count? Beer isfermented, but really not that
rich in the right microbes youwant. Fine, fine, fine. I was
getting happy there for asecond, but that's
fine. The other thing we do iswe identify lost what are called
Keystone microbes, veryimportant microbes that like
plankton in the ocean, thatwhales and jellyfish depend on
you lose plankton, you losewhales. Same thing here in the
(19:44):
GI microbiome, and one of myfavorite microbe of all is
Lactobacillus reuteri thatalmost all of us are E, U, T, E,
R, I, by the way, named afterthe German microbiologist Dr
Gerard Reuter Well, we lost thatmicrobe even though squirrels
have.
Possums have it. Dogs have it.
Indigenous hunter gathererhumans all have it, but we've
lost it because we get it back,or do we have to? How do we get
(20:07):
can we get it back so we can getit back? And what happens when
you restore this microbe? Whatdoes two things. One, it sends a
signal to your brain so it takesup residence in the GI tract
sends a signal to the brain torelease the hormone oxytocin,
great, the hormone of love andempathy. Yeah, people will say
things like, I like my partnerbetter. I like my co workers
(20:29):
better, hmm, I'm more generous.
Sure. I accept the opinions ofother people more readily. My
favorite, yeah, but the ladieslove it because it smooths their
skin. They start to lose skinwrinkles from an explosion
dermal collagen. Guys love itbecause it restores youthful
muscle and strength. It alsodeepens sleep, extends the
(20:51):
period of REM sleep, accelerateshealing. So a whole huge by the
way. Gib, so if we're talkingabout acceleration of healing,
greater muscle and strengthsfound in youth, is what you're
describing. Yes, that's what'shappening. We're seeing people
not, not back to age 15. No, no.
But you're talking about the thelike the stress related, you
know, we acknowledge thatthere's a certain stress of
(21:13):
modern life and stress relatedaging that goes with it. But
what you're talking about is isbasically a an effective blocker
on some of those stress relatedbreakdowns that we go through.
Yeah, and you can see it onpeople's faces when they share
their selfies at two months, forinstance, ladies will see a
reduction skin wrinkles,smoothing of the skin more. So
how do we I I'm Salt, salt. I'min. How do we get it back? What
(21:36):
do we do to begin to build thatback up? So now we're
conducting, there's two strainsof Rotary. So this is kind of
dull stuff. Gib, I apologize,but when you play with microbes,
you got to pay attention tostrain. To illustrate, you and I
and your listeners all have EColi in our guts. Sure? What if
you ate lettuce contaminated bycow manure with E coli? Well,
(21:57):
you can die of that E coli.
Right? Right? Species, differentstrengths. So we must be mindful
of strain. So we know withconfidence there are two strains
that do this, and those are inthe Super gut book. It's there.
There these strain designationsare a pain. DSM, 17938, and
ATCC, PTA, 6475, of course.
Yeah, everybody knows that. Allin the book. We got that in
elementary school. I don't knowwhat you were learning in
(22:19):
kindergarten, but yeah, ofcourse. So we get it from a
commercial product calledgastros bio Gaia gastros, J, S,
T, i, o, s. Now I'll tell youthough, we're currently
conducting some clinical trials,and we're testing other strains
to see if there are strains thatare better at it than those two
strains that we know have thoseeffects. But until I have those
data in my hands from our mousetrials and our human trials,
(22:41):
human trials. What I would do isget those strains from bio guy,
gastrous, and we do somethingcrazy with them. You can take
those tablets, but you'll seethose tablets are made for
infants, so the doses are verylow. So what I did is I took
those tablets and I made ayogurt out of it, not like store
bought yogurt. I used prolongedfermentation, so we get really
big numbers. So we use 36 hoursof fermentation, Rotary doubles,
(23:06):
Buck back two. Don't have Mommyand Daddy,
no sexual, right? Yeah. So theyjust double. One becomes two,
two becomes four. Well, Rotarydoubles every three hours at 100
degrees Fahrenheit. So I allowedit to double for 36 hours, 12
doublings. I performed somethingcalled Flow cytometry on the
(23:26):
yogurt to count the microbes.
We're getting between 250 and300 billion microbes per half
cup serving. Okay, consume theyogurt and we get these
spectacular effects. And not,not Gib, that's one micro, okay,
but that's, that's one microbe,and that's you a scientist who
is able to do this stuff. Imean, I don't trust myself or my
kids not to touch for somethingthat's at 100 degrees for 36
(23:49):
hours. I have a, I have a I havea an instant pot, and I know you
can ferment yogurt in thatinstant pot, and I know I can do
all that stuff with it, but Iwouldn't trust myself to do this
experiment on my own, or this,this development on my own. So
what? What are, what are thethose of us without access to
labs supposed to do?
(24:10):
Well, it's actually very easy.
You can do it with your instantpot. You can do it with yogurt
makers. I do it with a sous videdevice, a stick sous vide base
and sous vide device. So you doneed some means of keeping it
100 degrees Fahrenheit, becausethese might because these might
most lactobacillus species like100 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly
human body temperature. So it'sit's much easier than you think.
The I laid out the recipes, andI also, by the way, laid out
(24:32):
recipes for other microbes.
Let's say you want to reduceknee arthritis pain. Well, let's
ferment bacillus coagulants,very easy. Let's say you want to
shrink your waist and reduceinflammation. Let's ferment
lactobacillus gas, right? Whatif you want a healthier baby
that's more likely to sleepthrough the night have 50% fewer
(24:52):
everybody wants that. Everybodywants that. Go, go, go. And what
do we do for that? Then youferment Bifidobacterium fantas
and your child.
Is less likely to become obese atype two diabetic and has a
higher IQ. So it's like going toa restaurant. Gib. You know,
when you go to a restaurant andthe waitress hand you a men, you
don't freak out and say, I can'torder all these appetizers and
dish you pick and choose theones you want. That's what we're
(25:15):
doing. We're picking andchoosing the microbes we want
for the effect we want, and whenyou cultivate them to high
numbers as you're doing this.
And by the way, it doesn't haveto be dairy. It could be coconut
milk, it could be salsa, couldbe hummus. You can ferment all
kinds of things and get thesehigh microbial counts. And you
obtain these over the topbenefits. The book is super gut,
a four week plan to reprogramyour microbiome, restore health
(25:38):
and lose weight. Link to whereyou can buy that in the show
notes, as well as to bio Gaiagastrous supplement, for which
is the main bacteria that we'vebeen talking about in the second
half of today's show you cancheck those out in the show
notes. Guys, two last questions,Dr Davis, because I know your
time is valuable, and we got togo first and foremost, aside
(25:58):
from buying the book again, linkin the show notes. How come?
You'll follow up with you. Sowe're on social media. My main
website, I just last year, haveshifted everything over to Dr
Davis, infinite health.com,there's a very busy discussion
forum. There's my blog. It hasover 2000 articles. There's also
something called my innercircle, where we have two way
zoom conferences once a week fora few hours, and we talk at
(26:22):
length about these kinds ofthings you're talking about.
Unbelievable. Okay, so folks,link to Dr Davis, infinite
health.com in the show notes aswell. One last question, Dr
Davis and I ask it to everybody,what is one thing we can all
start doing today that will makeour lives a whole lot better?
Add back fermented foods. It isfar bigger than you think.
That's amazing. And again, youknow, you talked about kombucha,
(26:44):
and you talk about, you know,fermenting this yourself. Can
you, can we make it easier forpeople? Can you just buy the
kombucha at the store, which hasa lot of sugar in it, and a lot
of the stuff, you know, hassugar in it? But does that work
or or do you really need to bedoing this yourself? No, you're
right. Gib that you can buy now,commercially produced fermented
foods, like kombucha, kefirs,yogurt. Of course, the problem
(27:05):
is commercial production. Theytry to go as fast as possible to
make as much product sure asshort a time as possible. So
let's say I buy some fermentedsauerkraut, not sauerkraut and
brine and vinegar, but fermentedsauerkraut, or let's say kimchi
I leave on my counter for aminimum of 48 hours to let it
proceed further and fermentationincrease. Open it and leave it
(27:25):
on your counter because, becauseyou gotta, if they're sealed,
you know, you gotta let it, yougotta open it, right? Otherwise,
the process isn't gonna, isn'tgonna happen. So you loosen the
top, but leave it on, okay,yeah. That allows the gasses to
escape. You want to get thepump. You want to get the pop,
but then, but yeah, top on,yeah, that's right. Some
fermenting micros produce somuch gas, like carbon dioxide,
that you could actually have anexplosion if you don't do that,
(27:47):
right, yeah? All right, well,all right, so I hear what you're
saying. There's a couple thingsthat I'm going to start
incorporating into my life,including these additional
fermented foods. More often it'sand again, it's hard to find the
real stuff. Like a lot of timesyou have sauerkraut in brine
that masquerades as the realsauerkraut we're talking about,
and you got to find thefermented version exactly it
should say something like,contains live cultures or
(28:10):
fermented or some wording tothat effect. Dr Davis, we really
appreciate your time that you'vegiven me personally, a lot to
chew on, pun intended, andhopefully we can have you back
at some point. But thank you somuch anytime. Be glad to that's
it for the show today. Thank youguys so much for listening. If
you like the show, please rate,comment and subscribe on Apple
podcast. Stitcher, Spotify,wherever you get your podcast.
(28:32):
Helps us out a lot. Follow upwith John at facebook.com/john
Tesh. He's also on Instagram atJohn Tesh, underscore, ifyl, I'm
Gib Gerard. You find mefacebook.com/gib, Gerard, or at
Gib Gerard on Instagram andTwitter, I try to respond to
every DM, every mention of theshow, because ultimately, I do
the show for you guys. So thankyou so much for listening. You.
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