Jillian Michaels: How antibiotics used in factory farming destroy our microbiomes | Big Think

More and more these days we’re hearing how important microbiome is, good gut flora, healthy gut bacteria so to speak. And then you’ve got probiotics, good bacteria, and prebiotics, which are essentially the nutrients for the probiotics.

I have heard and I have read many studies linking healthy gut flora to everything from the inhibition of Alzheimer’s to it being linked to autism in children, to a healthy fast metabolism and on and on and on.

And I remember years ago when I wrote my book Master Your Metabolism, by the time we die, I’m trying to remember the exact number but I believe that like only one out of every ten cells in our body is even human anymore, like we have so much bacteria in our system.

And this should be a good thing, but because we’re over prescribed antibiotics and because so much of the animal products we consume that are non-organic, the animals have been fed antibiotics because they’re in horrendous feed lot conditions that make them sick and unhealthy.

Plus, the antibiotics and their excrement runs off into our water supply so essentially we are being inundated with antibiotics from all different directions on a consistent basis and our diets are not well-rounded enough that we’re replenishing.

So yet another reason where, oh I don’t do dairy. We can’t make these unilateral statements. I do dairy.

I do it if I’m following a calorie allowance and I’m having an equally balanced macronutrient ratio, how many calories of animal protein am I getting a day? At the most 600.

So the dairy I choose is organic and it’s fermented and I have a diet that’s also very rich in soluble and insoluble fiber.

So I’m getting my enzymes, I’m getting my probiotics and I’m getting the prebiotics to help keep the probiotics flourishing.