The Garden of the Gut: Cultivating Optimal GI Function Through Plant-Based Nutrition

Are you growing weeds or flowers in the garden of your gut?

Dr Michael Klaper is one of my favourite plant-based docs. A wonderfully gentle, humble and generous man, he epitomises the ideal of the old-style family doctor – someone with all the time in the world to truly listen to each of his patients, understand their suffering and struggles, and guide them towards healing.

I first encountered Dr Klaper through his video (yes, video – this was way back in the days of VCR!!) called A Diet for All Reasons, in which he recounted one of the primary turning points in his career:

He was completing his residency as an anaesthesiologist, and was assisting a cardiothoracic surgeon who was performing heart surgery. The operation was long and complex due to the patient’s obesity. Eventually the surgeon was able to locate one of the arteries that supplied the man’s heart with blood… at least it had been doing so, until it became completely clogged with thick, yellow, cholesterol-laden plaque. Dr Klaper watched on in fascinated horror as the surgeon pulled ropes of greasy plaque out of the diseased artery, as if he was squeezing toothpaste out of a tube!

After the operation had concluded, Dr Klaper joined his colleagues in the queue at the hospital cafeteria. He watched as the surgeon directed the server to load up his tray with a greasy cheeseburger, overflowing with cholesterol just like the stuff he had just reamed out of his patient’s atherosclerotic arteries. Dumbstruck, he asked himself

“Am I living in a Fellini movie?”

He dropped out of his anaethesiology training, realising he did not want to practise this locking-the-stable-door-after-the-horse-has-already-bolted style of medicine, and began to devote himself to the study of what made people fall ill, and how to help them get truly well again.

One of the main discoveries he made on this journey was the central role that a well-functioning digestive system plays in our health. His presentation at the International Plant-Based Nutrition Healthcare Conference went into fine detail on the structure and function of the human gut, the elements of our modern lifestyle that damage this crucial organ system, and how to repair that damage.

You can view my summary of Dr Klaper’s presentation in the International PBNHC Round-Up Webinar (1:44:02).

I love the analogy of the garden that Dr Klaper employs to describe the gut in both health and disease. A good gardener takes care of the soil in his garden, ensuring it’s supplied with plenty of organic matter which encourages beneficial soil microbes and earthworms. In turn, well-cared-for soil produces healthy, robust plants which have strong resistance to disease and pests, and can compete with the weeds that will inevitably sneak into the garden.

The lazy, neglectful gardener does not bother with the health of the soil in his garden. He pours on chemical fertilisers to stimulate rapid growth in his plants, and sprays them with pesticides if they become infested with bugs. His plants have little resistance to disease or pests, and can’t compete with weeds either.

Likewise, when we choose healthy food and eat it mindfully, our digestive tracts are supplied with ample nutrients; beneficial bacteria thrive in our intestines; and we have strong resistance to infections, autoimmune disease, and even heart disease (all of which have been linked to abnormal gut bacteria).

But when we eat highly processed, empty-calorie food, and turn to medication to ‘fix’ the symptoms that inevitably result from this self-neglect, we become more and more malnourished; have little to no resistance to disease; and disease-causing bacteria proliferate like weeds in our guts.

Interestingly, the types of bacteria that thrive on a junk food diet produce substances that are absorbed into our bloodstream, and which may cause us to crave more junk food, as a team of researchers funded by Nestle discovered. It’s likely that the converse is also true – the beneficial bacteria that thrive on a diet high in resistant starch and fibre may produce substances that make you increasingly desire and enjoy these foods, the more you eat them.

So what are you cultivating in your gut – vigorous and beautiful ‘flowers’ (beneficial probiotic bacteria that help you stay on track with healthy eating) or out-of-control ‘weeds’ (dysbiotic bacteria that cause disease and make you crave junk)? You are in complete control of what grows inside your gut, and the outcomes that flow from that!