Writing Exercise #5

Prompt: What choices do you make in terms of food/nutrition/product use and consumption that may have an impact on your microbial communities? Consider choices that are intentional, and choices that are perhaps non-intentional.

Response: The food choices I make that may have an impact on my microbial community that are intentional would be that I consume a vegan diet. I do not eat cheese, yogurt, or any type of meat. Specifically from the video, we learned that cheese and yogurt have probiotic organisms in them and thus I do not necessarily receive these organisms in that way. However, I do consume quite a bit of kombucha which is a probiotic drink. I think my microbial community might not be as diverse as others though, however. I think not eating dairy products contributes to this greatly, but hopefully drinking kombucha would promote some microbial diversity. Non-intentional choices would be that I consume a lot of bread, pasta, and grains. These have always been favorite foods of mine, but I’m not sure how this would contribute to my microbial community. The bread that I eat certainly has a type of yeast in it, but once again it probably isn’t enough to create a large diversity in my gut. Something that would be questionable though is my use of vitamins, as I take a B-complex vitamin. Perhaps this would somehow stimulate some diversity, so that would be interesting to test.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *