When our colleague Rob Stein got his microbiome analyzed recently in the name of science journalism, we were totally fascinated.
As Stein noted, it may be possible to cultivate a healthier community of bacteria on and inside us by modifying our diets.
Stein was advised to eat more garlic and leeks for his. But we wondered: Are there other foods that promote a healthy microbiome in most people?
The answer, we found out, is fairly complicated. Microbiome research is still in the very early stages.
“We know quite a lot about associations between food and health, we know a bunch of associations between food and microbes, and we know a bunch about associations between microbes and health,” says microbiome researcher Rob Knight.
What researchers don’t yet know is how to put the whole picture together.
Are certain vegetables good because they have a positive effect on our microbiome? Or do they have a more direct effect on our metabolism? “That’s still very much an emerging area of research,” Knight tells The Salt.
