Having spent time in the past studying probiotics and the gut microbiome, as well as being a student in the dietetics program, I certainly do choose pro/prebiotic foods as opposed to other, less microbially healthy choices. I have tried my best to incorporate probiotics into my regular diet. For example, instead of using milk in a smoothie, I will choose kefir because it has benefits as a probiotic (it does help that I vastly prefer the taste of kefir to milk; the tartness of fermented foods tastes very good to me). Additionally, whenever I want to include probiotics in a meal, I am careful not to kill them by cooking or adding food products that may negatively impact the microbes.
One concerning unintentional alteration to my microbiome is the microbiomes of the people that I live with. During the Coronavirus pandemic, I moved to live with my parents, and recently will be going back to Corvallis and living with a group of roommates. It is somewhat gross to think about, but the changes that they make to their microbiomes will have an impact on my microbiome.
You know how they say that there’s a thin layer of fecal matter on pretty much everything in your house? That fecal matter has microbes that were previously living in someone, and so it only stands to reason that as you live in a house with people, your microbiomes begin to converge. On the flip side, I could look at it from the opposite direction. Instead of them making my microbiome less healthy, maybe I am making their microbiomes healthier!
I think that there are very few intentional decisions that you could make in terms of food and nutrition. It basically boils down to whether you decide to purchase and eat them or not. I do think that more people should be educated on the topic of probiotics so that they can make a more informed decision when faced with one, but past that, there is not much else to do.
