The Gut Health Crisis: Why Americans Are Falling Behind with Dr. Tim Spector

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Dan Buettner Podcast
Episode: The Gut Health Crisis: Why Americans Are Falling Behind
Guest: Dr. Tim Spector
Date: February 5, 2026

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Overview

This episode of The Dan Buettner Podcast explores the growing crisis of gut health in America compared to other countries, guided by the expertise of Dr. Tim Spector—British epidemiologist, geneticist, gut microbiome authority, and cofounder of Zoe. Host Dan Buettner and Dr. Spector break down the signs of a healthy gut, why Americans’ guts lag behind, the central role of dietary diversity, how to foster good bacteria, pitfalls of processed foods, the science behind fermented foods, and actionable changes for listeners determined to support their microbiome. The conversation is lively, evidence-based, and peppered with candid recommendations, myth-busting, and practical tips.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The State of the American Gut

• U.S. Gut Health Lags

  • Spector opens by stating that "American poop is even shittier" than British poop, itself among the poorest in Europe (03:09).
  • Analysis of 300,000 stool samples from the U.K. and U.S. revealed that Americans have a gut health score 30-40% worse than Britons, largely due to a poorer ratio of good to bad microbes (03:25-04:37).

• Measuring Gut Health

  • Healthy stool is soft, smooth, and passed regularly (at least daily), with issues like constipation, diarrhea, bloating, heartburn, and allergies signaling an unhealthy gut (04:47-06:46).
  • Future of health monitoring may include regular microbiome (poop) testing, as it is "better than any blood test or DNA test I know" in capturing general health and immune status (06:47-07:13).

2. Feeding Your Microbiome: The Science of Dietary Diversity

• What to Eat

  • The core rule: Eat 30 different plants a week (13:05).
  • This includes vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, herbs, spices—even coffee counts as a plant (12:57-13:37).

• Why Variety Matters

  • Different bacteria need different fibers and polyphenols; “the wider the diversity, the better” for housing a thriving, resilient microbiome (10:23-11:40).
  • Study showed a particular microbe, Larcinibacter, only thrives in coffee drinkers—highlighting the specialization of gut bugs (11:40-12:56).

• Good Bugs in Action

  • Gut bacteria break down fiber and polyphenols to make vitamins, energize the immune system, and create short chain fatty acids that “dampen down inflammation” (15:11-17:03, 21:27-23:22).

“Each [microbe] is designed to eat a certain food and produce a certain series of chemicals. And we use these chemicals ... to manipulate our immune system and our nervous system and tell us exactly how our metabolism should be working.”
– Dr. Tim Spector (21:56)

3. The “Bad Guys”: Processed Foods & What to Avoid

• What Hurts the Microbiome

  • Ultra-processed foods with additives (emulsifiers, sweeteners, preservatives) “cause abnormalities in the microbiome”—increasing inflammation and metabolic issues (23:56-26:09).
  • Artificial sweeteners prompt microbes to generate chemicals that spike insulin/glucose, potentially increasing diabetes risk even without sugar intake (25:32-26:09).

• How Much Is Too Much?

  • Moderation is key; “eating these things once a month isn't going to hurt you. It’s when you’re eating it multiple times a day.” (26:16-26:30).

• Foods Rated for Gut Health ([28:36-29:47])

  • 10/10: Black beans, plain yogurt/Greek yogurt
  • 9: Quinoa
  • 4: Ribeye steak
  • 3: Brown rice
  • 2: Corn flakes, white rice
  • 1: Jelly beans, Doritos
  • 5: Soy milk, Dannon fruit yogurt
  • Note: Fermented plain dairy is outstanding; added sugars diminish benefits.

4. Fermented Foods: Secret Superstars

• Importance

  • Lost in English-speaking diets, staples elsewhere (kimchi, sauerkraut, miso, natto, real cheese, kefir, kombucha) (30:05-31:40).

• Supermarket Survival

  • Real (fermented) cheeses have live microbes, while processed slices like Kraft “couldn't get any microbes... at all. No microbes would go near it. Right. It's like too toxic for microbes.” (33:13).

• Actionable Choices

  • “Full fat Greek yogurt... sauerkraut or kimchi... coconut kefir (for vegans)” all easily boost fermented foods (34:26-35:19).
  • Three to five small portions of fermented foods daily may reduce inflammation and improve mood/energy, even among Americans unaccustomed to ferments (35:13-36:33).

Quote on Fermentation:

“If you can get three to five portions a day, you're going to get a real reduction in your blood markers of inflammation. And we've done a big study ... Half of [participants] noticed big improvements in mood, energy, and hunger.”
– Dr. Tim Spector (35:13)

Culinary Note:

• Heating fermented foods above 150°F kills live microbes, but even “dead” microbes (postbiotics) have documented benefits — “tickling” immune cells like a vaccine (36:47-39:19).

5. DIY Fermentation & Practical Kitchen Tips

• Dr. Spector shares a simple probiotic recipe: “peel 10 garlic cloves, put them in a jar of raw, unpasteurized honey, wait a week at room temp … after a week, you get a really tasty snack or salad dressing ingredient” (39:59-41:53).

6. The Science of Probiotics & Postbiotics

• Fermented food bacteria rarely colonize the gut; instead, they act as beneficial “messengers,” influencing the immune system in the gut’s upper regions (42:22-44:26).
• Regular, daily exposure matters more than occasional large doses.

7. The Zoe Daily 30: Whole Food “Supplement”

• Not a traditional supplement; made from 34 freeze-dried plants & 7 fungi—tastes like granola, delivers 5g fiber per scoop (46:40-48:26).
• Adds “insurance” for people struggling to reach plant diversity, acts as a broad-spectrum “prebiotic.”
• Study showed it increased gut bacteria diversity more than probiotics (49:58-50:49).

8. Spector’s Evidence-Based Food Philosophy:

• “The name of the game is diversity and quantity of plants. Not be stuck with labels. … You can be a very unhealthy vegan and a very healthy carnivore.” (58:11-58:41)
• Meat: Quality over quantity — “have it once a week, and pick the very best.” (56:26-57:41)
• Fish: Favors Mediterranean species like sardines/anchovies, rich in omega-3s, low in mercury (59:01-59:23).

9. Hot Questions: Red Wine and Smoothies

• Red wine (1 glass/day): Offers some gut and heart health benefit due to fermented grape skins (61:03-62:32).
• “There are so many worse things than drinking a glass of red wine a day.” (63:03)
• Smoothies: Prefer blended whole plants, minimal sweet fruits, avoid juicing and powders; “too much sugar and you lose the benefit” (54:33-55:52).

10. Final Takeaways and Action Steps

• Regularly eat a wide variety of whole plants (aim for 30+/week)
• Incorporate fermented foods daily (even 3-5 small portions)
• Eat minimally processed foods; limit additives and ultra-processed snacks
• Meat and fish: occasional, high quality, with a plant-rich context
• Consider novel “whole food” supplements for fiber/variety
• Don’t be dogmatic: Labels (vegan, carnivore, etc.) matter less than plant diversity.
• Red wine in moderation is fine, possibly beneficial when paired with a healthy diet and lifestyle

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On U.S. Gut Health:

  “American poop is even shittier. It's even less healthy than British poop … We've never seen such big differences before.”
  – Dr. Tim Spector (03:09)

• On Dietary Advice:

  “Eat 30 different plants a week … It’s a nut, it’s a seed, it’s an herb, it’s a spice. And coffee’s a plant.”
  – Dr. Tim Spector (13:05)

• On Red Wine:

  “Red wine is actually fine. … There are so many worse things than drinking a glass of red wine a day.”
  – Dr. Tim Spector (63:03)

• On Food Rules:

  “It's not so much this categorical religion … you can have any of those as long as you get enough plants on your plate.”
  – Dr. Tim Spector (57:42)

• On Fermented Foods:

  “If you can get three to five [fermented portions] a day, you're going to get a real reduction in your blood markers of inflammation.”
  – Dr. Tim Spector (35:13)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Topic | |-------------|--------------------------------------------------| | 03:09 | U.S. vs. British gut health | | 04:47 | Signs of a healthy/unhealthy gut | | 06:47-07:13 | Why poop beats blood/DNA for whole-body health | | 09:55 | What to feed your microbiome | | 13:05 | The “30 plants a week” rule | | 21:27 | Gut bacteria manufacturing vitamins | | 23:56 | What happens when we eat processed foods | | 28:36-29:47 | Gut scores: beans, yogurt, steak, snacks, etc. | | 30:05-33:13 | Fermented foods in traditional diets/cheese talk | | 34:26-35:19 | Simple fermented foods for families | | 35:13 | 3-5 fermented portions/day: benefits | | 46:40-48:26 | The Zoe “Daily 30” food supplement | | 54:33-55:52 | Smoothies—good or bad? | | 56:26-57:41 | How much meat? | | 58:11-58:41 | Labels vs. diversity | | 61:03-62:32 | Wine and gut health |

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Practical Recommendations – In the Speakers' (Original) Tone

• “Eat 30 different plants a week. … It's a nut, it's a seed, it's an herb, it's a spice. And coffee's a plant, it's a health food.” (13:05)
• “Moderation. In moderation. … There are so many worse things than drinking a glass of red wine a day.” (63:19)
• “If you can get three to five [fermented] portions a day, you're going to get a real reduction in your blood markers of inflammation.” (35:13)
• “Pick the very best meat and probably have it once a week. ... But make sure you're getting enough plants. That's your priority.” (56:34-57:41)

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Memorable, Personal Moments

• Spector sharing his simple fermented honey-garlic snack recipe: “That's the easiest one.” (41:53)
• On dead vs. live microbes: “They're called postbiotics, some people call them zombie biotics … I've seen really bonafide studies showing ... these dead microbes ... have a benefit.” (36:47)
• Dan Buettner describing his Sardinian minestrone, which Spector calls “absolutely perfect” for gut health (53:59-54:03).

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In summary:
Dr. Tim Spector makes a compelling case for a radically more diverse, minimally processed, plant-filled diet—rich in fiber and fermented foods—as the surest, simplest, science-backed way to heal America’s gut health crisis. Moderation, variety, and incorporating time-honored food traditions are the keys to supporting both the good bugs within us and our overall long-term well-being.

Transcript

[Julia Louis-Dreyfus]

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[Dan Buettner]

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[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

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[Dan Buettner]

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[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

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[Dan Buettner]

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[Dr. Tim Spector]

Lemonade. By knowing about your gut microbes, it's the best way of telling about your immune system. I can tell much more about someone's state of health and their likelihood of getting sick. We shouldn't think of the mind and the brain as separate from the body, because it's all connected. And this is something that we've got to relearn in medicine.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

What are the top three or five things you should never eat if you don't want to harm Your microbiome. All right, you guys are in for a treat today. One of my heroes, Dr. Tim Spector, an epidemiologist, British epidemiologist, geneticist, known for his work on the gut microbiome, which has become very hotline lately, and several books, a Zoe program he's going to tell us about. But I want to jump right in and ask you, Dr. Tim, what's the difference between British poop and American poop?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Well, they're both pretty shitty, but American poop is even shittier. It's even less healthy than British poop and I reckon British poop is probably the least healthy in Europe.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

How do you tell the difference between healthy poop and unhealthy poop?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Great question. It's not easy. And that's what we've been doing at Zoe, looking for the last year at 300,000 samples from both the US and the UK and trying to work out what is it about the microbes in there that classify someone's as healthy or unhealthy or average. And it turns out it's the ratio of good to bad bugs. So we've just had a paper come out in Nature showing this new scoring system. So rather than in the past, we used to say it's the diversity of the species you had in your gut that was important. We've now realized that that was a bit too crude. It sort of worked. But it's the ratio of how many good bugs that are promoting health, promoting your immune system you have compared to bad bugs that are associated with poor diets and poor health outcomes, that are promoting inflammation and irritation and nasty signals on metabolism. That's the ratio. And it turns out if you look at the average US one, it's way worse. It's like 30, 40% worse than the average British one. And this was a bit of a shock when we first saw it. We've never seen such, such big differences before.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Do you want your poop to sink or float?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

I. These are very intellectual questions, very ambivalent, actually.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Is one a sign better than the other?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

I mean, if it floats too much, it probably means you, you got all kinds of fats in it and things like this, but they should be nice and soft, they should be relatively smooth. They shouldn't be like rabbit droppings, but they shouldn't be like a cow pat either. So it's more the shape of them, I think. And it's all about having regular cedarship at least once a day, just once a week. Doesn't cut it. Although many people when we did a survey in the uk, thought that was very normal and very healthy. That's a sign that people are very deficient in fiber. So you can do a test like a gut microbiome test like Zoe's, if you want to really find out how healthy you are compared to other people. But people often ask me, if you can't afford a test, what signs are there? And it's often the health is the absence of problems. And the problems that are related to having a poor gut test would be you're constipated, you've got diarrhea, it alternates quite a lot, it's not very regular, you get bloating after meals, you might also get heartburn. And all these are signs that your gut is not healthy. Also, if you suffer from multiple allergies, food allergies, other immune problems or other diseases, that will also make it much more likely you've got an unhealthy gut. So they're the sort of very broad picture, but it is quite tough to tell how you are compared to other people without this new technology. That's why really, I think it's in the future, people will be testing their poop regularly. Like you have a blood pressure checkup. It may not be specific but particular diseases, but it's the most holistic view of how your body is responding to the environment and the signals it's putting out to your immune system, your nervous system, your metabolism. And so there's very little else that we can test that's like a single measure of your overall health and resilience. It's much better.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Better than a blood test?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

It's better than any blood test I know.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Wow.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

And it's better than any DNA test. And I, I was doing genetics for 20 years, so I can tell much more about someone's state of health and their likelihood of getting sick. I can't be very specific about it, but generally by knowing about your gut microbes, you. It's the best way of telling about your immune system at the moment because we don't have good blood markers for things like the immune system.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

So what kinds of things would a stool test reveal in a hurry that might surprise people?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

It would tell you that you've got lots of inflammatory microbes in there and very few good ones.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

So that might be reflective of system wide or body wide inflammation.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yeah. So that works two ways. So your microbes are often responding to your body and so if you have an inflammatory disease, then the microbes will sense that and you get more Pro inflammatory microbes who like that environment, so it's chicken and egg, and the microbes themselves can create the environment. So they, like the bad ones, like to live in an inflamed scenario which puts off good microbes living there. And when you change that environment, that changes everything else. So if you're having a, say, a junk food diet, then that is pro inflammatory. The microbes are just increasing that inflammation in the gut and making it very hard for any good microbes to live there.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Oh, interesting. So isn't it essentially the types of bacteria that thrive are the ones we feed with our food?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yes, exactly. And so now, as well as this overall test, what we call the Zoe score, we've also got subsets where we've got four clusters of health. So we know the microbes that are particularly associated with the immune system, with your metabolism, with your way you, you get rid of fat and your glucose. You can now sub score those to see how you're doing, which allows people, when they're changing their diet or they're exercising or they're doing something better or worse for the health to track those over time so you can focus on those sort of problems. This is where the microbiome is really good. And I think it's gonna be really useful for testing particularly interventions like probiotics and prebiotics or changes in diet, things that we've not been very good at doing before.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

I am a big fan of Zoe, a company that you co founded. The top executives are real scientists. You guys have fund tens of millions of dollars worth of real scientific research. I've heard of perhaps a paper in Nature coming out, but then it really created mostly diagnostic products to date that help us use what I believe is the most important organ in our body, our microbiome, which weighs six to eight pounds in some cases, to really be a leading indicator for our health. And I know you have a new supplement product coming out that helps feed our microbiome. But before we get deeper into Zoe, what do we want to feed our microbiome to make the healthy bacteria thrive? What do we want to be putting in our stomach so our guts are healthy?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

It's all about promoting the good guys and squeezing out the bad guys. So to promote the good guys, you feed a wide variety of healthy foods that will allow those guys to replicate faster than the bad guys. And basically they get squeezed out and the bad guys got nothing to eat at the moment. The bad guys, you know, are eating the junk food, the burgers, the fats, the, all the Food.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

And this is a complete different species of bacteria. But that lives in your gut.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yes. So we've all got some of them. Essentially, if you have a gut friendly diet, it will encourage the good guys to replicate, multiply, have sex, have fun, have an abundant, abundant feast every night. And the poor, you know, the guys who previously were on the junk food diet, they've got nothing to eat. They'll shrivel away and go. So that's what you're trying to do sort of mentally in your head. So that's why what we want to do at Zoe's, you know, and what I do in my books is to try and get people to think about food in a different way. It's very easy to have all these food rules. Very confusing. Everyone's got, you must exclude this, you must do this, you must do that. It actually gets very easy if you think from the point of view of your good microbes, what do they want to eat? And then it becomes actually quite easy. So one is to eat 30 different plants a week. Okay, Diversity of plants. Because your microbes are fussy, they're not all going to be happy with spinach or beans because some of them will be specialized to only have one particular type of food or even a subset of that food. So the wider that is, the greater the good guys you can promote.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

So we're talking about lots of species of bacteria, each of which favor a slightly different food or fiber.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Exactly. And I mean, a real eye opener for me was when we did a study about a year ago and discovered that the strongest association of any one microbe with any one food was with coffee. And it's one bacteria called Larcinibacter that only eats coffee. Really, it is so fussy.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

There's a coffee bacteria, doesn't like tea.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Doesn'T like matcha, you know, it doesn't like chocolate. It's only coffee. So we see it in 10 times the level of coffee drinkers than non coffee drinkers. It's in most of us because we're surrounded. Even if you don't like coffee, you're surrounded by coffee drinkers. And so they'd be breathing those microbes around in the air. And everywhere you're surrounded by microbes, so you got a little bit of it, but they're just waiting for you to actually have some coffee to expand and replicate. So that gives you a mental picture of how specialized our gut microbes are when they're waiting for the food to come in. So that's why it's so important to grasp this concept of diversity, of adding more to your plate. And people get worried when I say 30 plants. Anyone listening? So, gosh, I can't do 30 plants. Well, it's. It's a nut, it's a seed, it's an herb, it's a spice.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

And coffee counts too.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

And coffee's a plant, it's a health food. And people forget.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Did you hear that? Coffee is a health food. That. Right.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

People have got it all turned around. Right. So we think of orange juice and we're in Florida, the land of orange juice. Right? Yeah, yeah. That is absolutely a non health drink. Right. This should be with the sodas and everything else. Because of it, it's just sugar, basically. But coffee is a fermented bean. It's got no sugar in it, it's really healthy, has all these polyphenols and it's got fiber in it. That's just an example of why my number one rule is this, 30 plants a week for everybody.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

And I think you've kind of made that famous, made it, put it in our brains. And it's certainly something I advocate.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yeah. And it resonates with the public and certainly it's very big in the UK now. And that's why in the Zoe app, we've got a feature now that allows you to keep a count of your plants. That's the thing I really use about the app more than anything is just checking by the end of the week, you know, and I checked it earlier and I'm. I'm at 33 plants, so I've done pretty well this week.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

By the way, I downloaded the Zoe app last night and you can take a picture of your meal and it knows what you're about to eat and it can keep track. It's such an easy assistant, I guess, to help us.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yeah, well, I think that's what we need. We need these tools to make the right choices when we're faced with, you know, big food and the best marketing, and the fact you can't read a packet in a store and really know what's in it.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

By the way, the Zoe app is free. So for now, you know, hurry up and download it before things change. But just to help people understand, I think the microbiome is so misunderstood and you're better than anybody else at understanding how it works. I want to talk about the good bacteria, the good bugs and the bad bugs. But first, the good bugs. We have a variety of good bugs, hundreds of species probably, and most of them like their own type of food. But what happens when we feed our microbiome these good bugs, when we feed them fiber rich diversity of fiber rich food? What, what do they do that helps create health?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

So most of the microbes are in the lower part of the intestine. So you have to have fiber that isn't easily digested. It's one of the definitions of fiber is it's a form of carbohydrate that's really hard to digest so that it doesn't get absorbed in the upper part of the intestine, the small intestine, and go straight into the bloodstream. Like if you have white rice or white bread or sugar, it just goes straight into the system. So your microbes don't get it. So it's foods that have some fiber in it. They then go down to the large intestine where the microbes will break the fiber down into smaller particles and its intrinsic parts. And they break it down into multiple things, like they'll separate the polyphenols from it, which are these antioxidant chemicals that then provide them with energy source. So they sort of suck out defense chemicals of plants and they use it for themselves. And the other thing they do is to often they will. Certain ones then produce things like short chain fatty acids. They're called SCFAs. These fatty acids are little short messenger things that actually go into our gut lining and help our immune system. So they're the messengers sending really positive health signals to our body through the immune cells. And that dampens down things like inflammation and just tells the whole body to calm down. So you've got these energy source and a source of saying I'm gonna regulate the immune system absolutely correctly for my environment.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

How does this short chain fatty acid regulate the immune system? How does it know when to ramp up if I'm sick or back off, if there's sort of an autoimmune thing going on?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

You've got immune cells that are on the lining of the gut and they have these receptors there. And there's various mechanisms of how these receptors work. But the short chain fatty acids are basically there to dampen it down. And if they're not being produced, then the immune system will get agitated, get overstimulated. And that's what we think is the cause of low level inflammation in many populations. It's why we get food allergies. It's just inappropriate response to our environment. So in a way, all these immune cells are waiting for the microbes to give them signals about what's happening in the outside world. So we've got to think about it.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Almost like a brain, isn't it? It is like so much more complicated than we thought.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Well, the second brain of us is in our gut. So if you joined up, all the nerve endings in the gut is the same size as a cat's brain. So just what's happening in our immune system, you're also getting chemicals that are being broken down from our foods and our microbes that are telling the nervous system what to do. And those signals again go through the vagus to the brain, the big nerve that connects the two and they tell the brain what's going on. And this is why we have this sort of gut brain axis is it called, and why we shouldn't think of the mind and the brain as separate from the body. Because it's all one system, it's all connected. And this is something that we've got to relearn in medicine because we've gone too far down. This root is absolutely all connected. And so we're looking now at a lot of gut interventions. Whenever we do a study, say one of these Zoe, citizen science studies which have hundreds of thousands of people, whether it's fasting, whether it's adding fermented foods, whether it's taking the daily 30 prebiotic, the first things people notice is their mood and their energy change. Mood, energy and hunger. They're the first things that change.

[Dan Buettner]

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[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

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[Dan Buettner]

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[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

You're a great writer. You've written the Diet Myth Spoon Fed. And now we have this new book, Ferment. I'm one of the first to receive it here. Maybe it's a metaphor, but maybe it's actual. But you assert that the microbiome actually manufactures vitamins. How does that work?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Well, we have 200 times more genes in our microbes than we do in our bodies. And genes are basically programming units for proteins. So through evolution, we've evolved a system to have all these other bugs inside us that are doing the job that we can't do. So they produce all kinds of vitamins from most of the B vitamins, including B12, actually.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Wow.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Vitamin K and many other ones, as well as neurotransmitter chemicals like serotonin and gaba, really essential for our health. Plus many thousands we don't yet understand. So you gotta think of the microbiome not as just these creatures that are running around attacking each other, but as chemical factories. So each of them is designed to eat a certain food and produce a certain series of chemicals. And we use these chemicals in our body to manipulate our immune system and our nervous system and tell us exactly how our metabolism should be working. So this is why the more chemicals you've got in your system, that is the healthier your gut, the more you can be flexible and more you can deal with problems and illness and aging, et cetera. So this is why gut health, in my view, is now absolutely central to our health. And that's what Chinese traditional medicine has been saying for thousands of years. They didn't know about microbes, but they knew that there was something here that was driving, magical. You've got to think we house and feed these microbes, give them a nice place, a safe place, and in return, they offer us these chemicals. These Vitamins to keep us functioning normally. And this is an evolutionary marriage, really. It's just common convenience. It works very well. We can't live without microbes.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

The good guys, they're eating 30, at least 30 types of plants, mostly fiber. And if you feed them, they love it. And they reward us with these manufactured vitamins, these short chain fatty acids, a better immune system, less inflammation, the hormones that help us feel good. Now over on the other side, what happens if we feed the unhealthy bacteria, the meaty, cheesy, ultra processed, sugary foods? What happens then?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Well, you suddenly get like fat loving and meat loving bacteria that will still break down those products into other ones. But generally the byproducts are inflammatory messengers, chemicals that sort of irritate the immune system. So they have the sort of opposite effect and it's a whole cocktail that is really bad. And in addition to just eating, say lots of meat and cheese, you're eating a lot of chemicals. And these additives in our, these processed foods have a particular effect on the gut microbes as well. So if you most, if you look in the back of packets, you'll see things like emulsifiers, preservatives, sugar, alcohols, gums and glues, and colorants and flavorings. And we know that many of these have been shown in studies in humans to cause abnormalities in the microbiome as well. So they make them stick together, for example, these emulsifiers that stick food together. You know, evolution hasn't given, you know, these aren't natural things, apart from a very few. And so them and the artificial sweeteners have a negative effect on the microbes, making them react in funny ways and producing strange chemicals. So they've found that if you have a lot of artificial sweeteners, which many people think are safe, your microbes will respond by producing chemicals that are more likely to put your insulin and glucose levels up and tip you towards type 2 diabetes.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

So really, even though you're not drinking sugar?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

That's right. And this is why none of these foods are ever tested for the gut microbiome. They're tested, you know, does it give rats cancer? You know, that's, or, or you know, some very basic test. But no foods are ever tested for its effect on the gut microbiome. And you can talk also about pesticides and herbicides that might be okay for humans, but actually they mess up your gut microbes as well. So lots of things can affect our gut microbes that are perhaps more sensitive particularly to modern things that they haven't evolved to deal with.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

So what are the top three or five things you should never eat if you don't want to harm your microbiome?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

I never say never. And you know, I'm someone that will, you know, occasionally stray because I don't think eating these things once a month is really going to hurt you. It's when you're eating it multiple times a day.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Very good point.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

So we mustn't get so phobic about this stuff. Right it otherwise we would have seen massive levels of cancer and heart disease, you know, very clearly. So they have subtle accumulating effects. And if you've got a good gut microbiome, you can have this stuff occasionally. You know, I think and when you're traveling, you're living in the real world, you know, it's best to not be too obsessional. But things to avoid eating on a regular basis are what we call high risk processed foods. And another part of the the Free Zoe app is that there is a we've got a new ultra process risk score that looks at foods and allows you to scan scan them. And we've got them into four categories of zero, mild, medium and high risk, depending on what the food companies have done to that food to make it bad for you. And the worst ones have all of these categories. They have additives that we know are risky and have been shown to cause problems in humans, like some of the ones I've listed, but others might be carcinogens. Then you've got the second category is hyperpalatability. They are super delicious, make you overeat because they have a blend of sugar, salts and fats that are hit that bliss point. Yeah.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Doritos are often cited as the perfect.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yeah, they're the perfect example. And the third thing is also that affects your gut microbes is the energy density and the speed of which you eat that food. It disintegrates in your mouth. Right. So you don't need to chew it. There's no fiber in it. And you're essentially on the one hand starving your microbes because there's no fiber. And then you're hitting them with all these chemicals that are coming down Skittles or something. Yes. It's a sort of double whammy when you're doing that. So they're the sort of foods to avoid the ones that have all those components in it, the really high risk ones. And that's about 25% of all foods.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

You know, with the Dan Buettner podcast, we like to be as specific and actionable as possible. So on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being really bad for your gut, 10 being really great for your gut, I'm going to ask you to rate the. We'll just do it kind of quick.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Some of your favorites.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Yeah. Okay. Black beans, they would be one to ten. You just be ten is good.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Ten. Ten quinoa, that would be nine.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Corn flakes.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

They would be two jelly beans, one.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Soy milk, five Doritos.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Doritos would be one.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

A ribeye steak.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yeah, it's about four.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

A bowl of spaghetti.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Five white rice, two brown rice. Three.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

How about like Dannon yogurt, which has a bunch of fruit and sugar in there.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

But there's some fermented food in it. So I would score that. If it's a flavored one, I'd score it about a five, I guess.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Five. And how about up? Just plain yogurt? Greek yogurt.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

That's as good as it gets.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

A 10.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

So I'm sure you go through a lot of this in your new book ferment, but let's talk about fermented foods. And I mean, it's sort of a marketing thing. Whenever I see active cultures and so forth, I kind of have to dismiss it. But you assert that fermented foods are probably more important than we realize.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yeah, much more important. Particularly in the English speaking world where we've given up fermented foods, whereas the rest of the world hasn't. And it's. They're seen as alien and strange to us and, you know, nobody knows how to make them and you have to go to strange stores to buy them and they have funny names. And it's very strange because you go to other countries, you go to Scandinavia, you go to central Eastern Europe, you go to the Mediterranean, you go to India, you go to Africa, you go to Asia, Korea.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Biome, what are some of these fermented foods you find in other countries?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Well, kimchi for example. Korea from Korea, which they have three times a day and you know, they feed babies and we'd say, oh, that's a bit strange for us.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

But you know, it's sort of a fermented cabbage. Right? Kind of.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

It's fermented cabbage. Sauerkraut is a basic fermented cabbage. Very simple to make. You just cut up some cabbage and you add 2% salt and you stick it in a jar. I mean, you can't get much easier than that. Right. And kimchi is a little bit like that. You start like that and you just add A paste with spices and ginger, spring onions, et cetera. That's super healthy for you. And the Japanese use miso. So they basically take a soybean, which is pretty inedible in its hard state, and they, by fermenting it, they create this incredible series of other foods that is their staple. They ferment it with a fungus called koji, and you make miso sauce. You've got soy sauce, you've got miso paste, which is basic. I now use that all the time as a stock cube.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Oh, interesting.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

It's amazing. Umami flavors.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

And is really rich in everything you can. You get tempeh, which is a soybean. It's a bit like a tofu that's fermented. And you've got natto, which is an amazing ferment that's really high in spermidine. Things are really good for aging. So all these cultures and I could go around the world and name all these other ones. Most countries have fermented milk. We, you know, kefir or kefir is like super yogurt. And of course, yogurt is a fermented food. Obviously. You know, when it's done by the big companies and they give it to children, it's not healthy at all because they add so much sugar, artificial sweeteners that drowns any poor microbes in there. And then you've got. Don't forget cheese. But it's got to be real cheese. And in the book, I did this study of 70 products that you can get in stores in the UK and we tested them all in our microbiome lab and got some interesting results. So we're talking about cheese. We took a Kraft slice, the most common cheese in America, and I've got one on my shelf that I've kept out of the fridge for five years. It still looks nice and shiny. And we couldn't get any microbes from that one at all. No microbes would go near it. Right. It's like two toxic for microbes. So that's most of artificial cheese in America is like that. So the stuff you put on pizza, the analog stuff. Yeah. Fake mozzarella.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

But a good Parmesan's probably okay.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yes. But there's one category of cheese. But there's another one. Like even Philadelphia cream cheese, which I was. No, that can't be real. It is real. It's got real microbes in it. If you leave in the fridge long enough, it will go moldy. Right. Whereas the other stuff never goes moldy. Cause it's not really live. Then got all the other cheeses, the cheddars, the other ones, they've all got microbes. And if they're made properly, so you've got this big range, then you've got the, the water kefirs, tibicos, which isn't well known yet, but a lot of used in Mexico and kombucha is well known in the US many parts anyway. The canned ones where we saw no live microbes, to the ones where you see a sediment in it with, you know, 50 or so microbes in it. So some really the good, the bad and the ugly in all these products. But I was actually pleasantly surprised that most of the commercial ones you could see, apart from things in cans, had a good lot of microbes in them.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

What would be three really good sources? If a mom says I want to get more fermented foods in my family's diet, what's kind of a simple two or three, three or four simple products in a grocery store?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Well, the simplest is full fat Greek yogurt.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Okay.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

If you've got nothing else in it, it's going to have microbes in it. And everyone can get that at any store. And so that's thing to have daily. If you want to boost it with microbes, you might add a bit of milk kefir to it. You can do 50, 50 if you find it too sour. If you're vegan, you might want to use a coconut kefir. Okay. They are increasingly being seen and they have lots of live microbes. So you might think coconut sounds a bit fishy, but actually it does work. And there's. You can get real microbes out of that. Then it's things like either sauerkraut or a kimchi. Start adding that to your food, your salads or into your soups. In my cookbook, I've got lots of ideas of how you can.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

The Zoe Cookbook, by the way, the.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Zoe Cookbook, which is which you can.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Get here in the United States and I highly recommend it.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

So there's lots of recipes there where you can see how I've added lots of ferments to it so that you have a curry or something and the end instead of putting cream in, you put milk kefir around it, adding miso to lots of things. But yeah, even in salads you can add bits of sauerkraut and you know, I always have a little bit of either sauerkraut or beet. Kraut is another one, goes really well with cheese. So you know, it's very easy to get three or five portions a day. You don't need a lot. It's small and often is the key to that. And the studies support this, that if you can get three to five portions a day, you're going to get a real reduction in your blood markers of inflammation. And we've done a big study of 6,000 people to show that people who weren't used to, you know, the average American isn't used to having ferments. Just like in the uk, we gave them three a day and they had to do that for two weeks. Half of them noticed big improvements in mood, energy and hunger. And they had reduced bloating because a lot of people suffer from irritable bowel syndrome. They think, I can't have these foods. But actually it made them better.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Just to be clear on miso, which I think is a brilliant idea, using it as a bullion or adding kimchi. Can you cook these foods or does that kill the bacteria?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Great question. If you heat them up above, all bugs are dead. Above, you know, 65 degrees centigrade.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

150.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

So 150 degrees Fahrenheit, more or less. So you can put it into warm food, but. And it will stay alive, you know, at the end. But if you're cooking with it, it will kill the microbes. Now, until recently, I would say that was a terrible idea. You've got no benefit from it at all. But in researching this book, I found out there is this whole new type of microbial benefit. So you've heard of probiotics, which are live microbes that give a health benefit. You've got prebiotics, which are like fertilizers for your gut microbiome. And now you've got this new category called postbiotics, which are dead microbes. So some people call them zombie biotics. And I used to think this is a crazy notion, you know, just by marketing companies or whatever. But I've seen really bonafide studies, at least a dozen studies showing that compared to dummy ones, these dead microbes, whether they're pasteurized or, you know, heat killed in some way, have a benefit. And this is both in some probiotic capsule studies, but also in some fermented studies where they've got a milk kefir and they've actually pasteurized it, it still has benefits on, but not as much as the. Well, in some cases it does, but. But in others it doesn't.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Okay.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

In general, I would say they have less effect than the live ones. So you should always have the live one. Because when you're having a live one, you're getting both dead and alive microbes. Right? Because they live forever. They have a pretty speedy life. So, you know, you were often talking about longevity, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to live to be 100. Well, these guys, they get born, they grow, they have sex, and they die. And that's all in an hour.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

It's a good hour, though.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

They pack it in, right? And so our body is full of dead microbes. Someone went to the trouble of actually working out how much of our stool was full of dead microbes. And it's about half. So we're all constantly getting these. But if they can reach the right part of the small intestine, we think that these dead microbes are tickling the immune cells even though they're dead. Cause the cell wall has these little protein sticks sticking out of it. And as they go through, they're just tickling the immune cells and acting a bit like a vaccine. And you think, oh, vaccines, they're often dead, killed microbes.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

So suddenly this whole idea makes sense. So even the worst products in the stores that you find here in the US like some of these kombuchas in cans, they're gonna have some benefit in them. They will have some of this. Either the dead, the microbial cell wall, or they'll have the soup of the microbes.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

By the way, if you don't have a lot of money, go to Tim's Instagram feed. Cause Tim is one of the top scientists in the world. Top 1% cited scientist in the world. Yet he's also a tinkerer in the kitchen. And you make a lot of your own probiotics, don't you? You make your own fermented foods.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Well, I had to for the book. You know, I can't be an expert and, you know, not know about it at all. So I did a lot of experiments. They didn't all work. Yeah, but that's part of the fun. If anyone does fermenting, it's this trial and error. There's no. No two recipes are the same. Everyone's home is different. Everyone's temperature is different. You know, the starter culture is different. But it really is great fun. And everyone can be a fermenter. I tell people the easiest possible recipe is to get 10 heads of garlic and a jar of raw honey. So good honey should be unpasteurized if you can get it locally, because it's. That means it's got bugs in it. And you, all you do is you, you peel the garlic, you put it in the honey, and you wait a week, after a couple of days, refrigerated it or no, no room temperature microbes. Like room temperature. Top or no top, but put a top on it. Okay. But it doesn't matter too much because this is under liquid. Okay. Other things, you want to keep the air out, but like a screw cap jar is fine. And then you'll just see little bubbles coming up. And what's happening is that. And you say, that's strange. Where do the bugs come from? You know, and it turns out they're bugs everywhere. So even in the garlic, even if you've got it from the nice store, you know, it looks clean. There's still bugs in it, just like there are in the cabbage. And they'll come out and start eating the honey and multiplying and having a wild time as we're discussing. Right. And that breaks down the honey. And then you get those microbes then start breaking down the garlic and it softens it up and it makes that, you know, after a week, you got a really tasty snack.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Are we just plucking out the garlic cloves and eating those?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Or you can do that, or you can put it in a blender and add it to, you know, your salad dressing.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Okay.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

So I just always keep a little pot of this and it's a perfect thing to add to salad dressing. Just gives it really nice two ingredients.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

And it's super healthy.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

So, you know that that's the easiest one.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

You know, remember Tim Spector, Instagram? You can see him doing these things. You know, you described our microbiome as being this kind of ongoing conflict between bad bacteria and good bacteria. What happens now when we introduce fermented foods? Because those are live bugs often. Are we trying to coax the growth of another type of organism in our gut, or is it just purely some sort of a byproduct?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Well, we used to think that these fermented or probiotics used to work by colonizing the gut and trying to get in there and take over and sort of elbow their way in and do something. But the recent science is suggesting that's not how they work at all. The bugs that like food rarely live in our guts. So the overlap, there's only about 4% of bugs in our gut that can live in food. Most of them are very specialized. So when you're eating something that has grown in food, they love milk, for example. When you eat them, they're gonna be hanging onto the milk. And when they get into your stud, they've got nothing really to eat, so they will pass straight through. They take a long time to get there, might hang around a little bit, but they're not going to stay there and say, oh, this is a nice new home. I'll just adapt and eat something different. No, they're highly specialized, so they don't do that. What we think they work in the same way is they probably act on the small intestine where there's less competition. So this upper part of the gut, less competing bugs. And so they can have an impact there. We think they, again, somehow influence the immune system, telling the body, you know, these are good guys sending a good message down, but they're not directly competing because they'd be outnumbered. It's about, you know, one fan going to the super bowl and you're trying to sort of, you know, convince everyone else there to buy you a drink. You know, it's not going to happen. So rather than thinking that it's all about colonizing your bug with these foods, it's about seeing them as little messengers that every day are coming down, sending the right signals. And this is why, you know, in things like the Mediterranean diet, you see this regularity of these foods that seems to have this impact. It's not just having one feast once every two weeks or so. It's this regularity having the cheese, having the milk. These things are all part of that culture that at some part in the day, you're gonna have that.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

It's so deliciously complex.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

It is. And it. This is. The science is evolving all the time. I would. I would have written a very different book just three years ago. I would have written off all these dead bugs and given a very different story. But it's now getting much clearer exactly what's going on. You know, in five years, it'll be different again. That makes it so much fun for a scientist.

[Dan Buettner]

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[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

And you have a front seat to all of this.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Absolutely.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

It's so nice, by the way, that Zoe's a company. I think you've spent something like $10 million, you and your investors, on doing this research. So you're not just doing your interpretation of just doing science and then trying to create some product. The company is evolving along with the science. And I know you've just come out with this new. I'm not a fan of supplements, but I am a fan of your supplement, this Zoe 30. Why should we think about taking a Zoe 30 and what's in it?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

The Zoe Daily 30 Daily 30. I'm sorry, is a whole food supplement. So it's a whole new category. Okay. So you think of supplements as some chemicals or green powder or something else that. This is dried plants. So we now got about 34 freeze dried plants in small pieces, a bit like a granola mix, but each of them is an individual plant. And that's what we wanted to do and includes. And of course, we have, I think, seven fungi, which aren't plants technically.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Yeah, mushrooms.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Because actually some of them are functional mushrooms, like cordyceps. We can't call it a food. We had to call it a supplement. So that, in a way, we, we didn't know that at the time, but that's why it's called a whole food supplement. And I think it is a new category. And the idea is that we knew that this 30 a week message was important for people, but many people struggle to get there. And they said, is there something else I can do to get me on that way or get me there quicker or help me when I'm too busy or when I'm traveling. It can be really hard to get your different vegetables and herbs and spices. So this is something you can add every day to your meals. It's not meant to replace meals. You top it up. So you idea is mainly breakfast, where you're in control of your meal, whether you're having oats, you're having some scrambled eggs, you're having a yogurt, you're having a smoothie, put it on there. Or you're at lunch, you might have.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

A few, few tablespoons, right?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

It's one tablespoon. One scoop. Yeah. And that gives you five grams of fiber just in, in one scoop, which we all know is, that's that five extra five grams itself we know from epidemiology, you know, it's going to reduce your, your chance of dying early by about 8%.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Jesus. Just one tablespoon.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Wow.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

So does that mean it's a regular habit? If I put 10 tablespoons on, does it lower my chance of dying by 80%?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

It's possible because the epidemiology for fiber hasn't shown an upper limit yet.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Is that right?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

You know, the average American has about 15 grams of fiber a day. A day. And the recommended limits in most countries around 30. And if you look at populations like in Africa, they're having 60 to 80 and they're very healthy. So it could be that the real amounts of fiber, you know, just keeps going up there isn't actually a limit. So I think if we can find ways of getting fiber into people that doesn't cause problems, doesn't have any side effects, then this is the sort of way to go through giving people natural plants. And there's things like as one of these seven, you know, fungi, which is hard to get, I don't know about you, but it's pretty hard to be eating mushrooms every day of seven varieties. We've got things like baobab in there. We've got, you know, lots of different berries. We've got some Mediterranean herbs in there, all a mix. So it's, I think, a new way of looking at. And we've just added in, because of my research, we've just added in freeze dried kombucha because we think that that's likely to have a health benefit postbiotics there. So we are the first product like this that has a postbiotic as well.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

And what I love about it there, there's probably no downside. This isn't a processed well.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

And Zoe, we always test everything properly. So we did a randomized control trial. You know, huge by nutritional standards. 350 people divided into three groups and the group taking the daily 30 on average people improved by about 14. Good bugs improved compared to zero in the control group and three in the probiotic group. We know probiotics work, but it's always been a question of how much they work. Yeah, yeah. So I think what this tells us is that we all have very different gut microbes. You know, you and I are only. We only share about 20% of our gut microbes. So having one probiotic might be very. Work very differently in you and I. But a prebiotic fiber is like a broad brush blunt, what we call blunderbuss approach, you'd call it shotgun approach.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

But it's a pretty good chance that.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

These are going to work. So this will stimulate a lot of new microbes, giving them a food source they hadn't seen before. And so this is why we think it's working. And I think this is a whole new way of thinking about nutrition. You know, we'd love people to eat that every day, but it's hard to get your baobab and your cordyceps. And we'll keep developing it, I think, as the science tells us what, you know, what's going on. But so far it's, it's, it's highly successful. And as well as these gut changes, as I said, people get the symptom changes as well. So you, you get less hunger, so you lose weight and you're getting the mood changes. The improvements in energy and mood probably, as I said, happen even before you get the big shifts in the gut microbes. I love it.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

It's a shortcut. At the end of the day, we do live in this food environment that serves 95% of the food. The food environment serves us up as bad. And you really have to be proactive most of the time. You have to be cooking at home. And in case you're not, you have at least this easy way to get.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yeah, I want everyone. Yeah, don't. Don't get me wrong. I'd love everyone to be, you know, eating whole plants, getting there 30 a week, you know, the natural way. But if they can do that and they can do this as well, or this is like the insurance policy when it's difficult or they've got kids who are difficult and, you know, they can just add it to their spaghetti, you know, or their smoothie.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

You wouldn't even notice it.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Exactly. They wouldn't notice you. Just silently improving the health of people.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Is sourdough bread, a, A probiotic, a fermented product.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

If it's real. Most of the ones you get in the stores are fake sourdough. What they do is they make it chemically and they just sprinkle a bit of sourdough flour in there so it tastes sour. Or they might have a slight smell on it that they spray on it. And it's fake and they charge an extra dollar for it and it's useless. Sourdough itself, I think is slightly overrated as a health food because it all depends on the flour. If you're still using white, refined white flour, it's still not going to be good for you. But if you get the good ones that are made properly and they have high fiber content, then it is going to be slightly better for you and it will contain some dead microbes. So you are getting some postbiotics. Yeah. So some of them are good, but you really gotta go to the store that you trust.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

So my breakfast every day. I learned the recipe for a Sardinian minestrone from the longest lived family in the history of the world. Nine siblings made it 843 years collectively and they had the same minestrone every day. And it has three beans, it has celery, carrots, onions, garlic, it has tomato in there, a little bit of barley, sometimes it has rosemary in there, potatoes, and finished off with an extra virgin olive oil. How's that for a gut? Friendly.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

That sounds perfect. Thank you. Yes. Is that your.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

From the master himself.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

That sounds absolutely perfect. So I think, yeah, we need to move away from, you know, having dessert for breakfast and look at other cultures. Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Or eggs and bacon, which is in America. It's a classic. Either cereal and milk or eggs and bacon. And it's probably the worst way to start your day. Yeah. The other thing, smoothies. What's your opinion of smoothies? Taking a bunch of fruit and some nut milk and a protein powder and blending it up.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

I have mixed feelings about smoothies because it sort of all depends. I imagine most people's smoothies just have way too much sugar in them and adding lots of chemical powders to them just seems kind of wrong, really. I'm fairly ambivalent about protein powders and creatine if it's not impeding the rest of your diet. Key about smoothies is if you are going to add plants to it, it's the whole plant and you're not squeezing out and missing, you're not juicing.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

So if it's the whole plant generally, and you do finish it and you don't sort of just have the liquid at the top and leave the sludge, it's probably doing you some, some good. If you haven't got too many sweet fruits. But if it's full of mangoes and it's full of bananas and really sweet fruits, you're going to be getting much too much sugar. In a way that nature never really intended you to eat. Fruit.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

So it's the same sort of thing, you know. Why is orange juice not healthy? Well, because you wouldn't normally be having the equivalent of eight oranges in, in one glass. That's the worry there. But if it's, if it's more vegetables than fruits, you know, I'm okay with it. And you can make it healthy, you can add nuts and seeds, you can add daily 30 to it. But I personally don't do it myself.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

How about meat, do you eat meat?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

I eat meat about once or twice a month.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Once or twice.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

I went about 5 years without eating any meat and I did get B12 deficient and started having injections and I thought this is a bit silly and so I started going back to meat. Interesting. I can't eat much quantities of meat, but I eat small amounts. My wife's a French Belgian so she's a real carnivore. So in restaurants she's tucking into some T bone, so she often gives me a small bite or something.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

If you were in just sort of general guidelines or let's say it's your 20 year old son or daughter, said, dad, how much meat should I eat?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Pick the very best meat and probably have it once a week. We've done some research on this. So we had a paper came out a few months ago comparing vegans, vegetarians and omnivores. I don't know if I've told you about this, but. So we had about 25,000 people, we'd all filled in these detailed dietary questionnaires with Zoe, all had their gut tests and we looked to who's got the healthiest gut. You'll be pleased to know, the vegans one. On average, they beat the vegetarians and they beat the omnivores. And we adjusted for things like obesity and social class, education, other diseases, and we even adjusted for the diet quality. But the devil's in the details. So the f. The top like 1% of the healthiest gut people had an overabundance of the omnivores. Okay. So they had the most diverse and the best ratio of good to bad bugs. And it turns out when you looked at them in detail, they were the ones who were also eating the most plants.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Oh, interesting.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

So what this tells me is that for gut health it's not so much this categorical religion about saying, I'm a vegan, I'm a vegetarian, I'm a lacto free, whatever, I'm a carnivore, you can have any of those as long as you can get enough plants on your plate. But none of the meat eaters were big meat eaters, they were small or occasional meat eaters who managed every day to get lots of plants on their plate and get to the 30 plus plants.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

So the name of the game is diversity and quantity of plants.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yeah. And not be stuck with labels. So I think that's really important because people get fixated and you can be a very unhealthy vegan and a very healthy carnivore. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, we, we need to just realize what's, what are the key essentials. And, and it sort of makes sense because if you are eating everything, you're giving your microbes the best possible choice. They can decide what they want to eat.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Right.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

You know, here's the buffet, you know, whereas if you, you go into these restrictive diets, as many people do in America, they're just not giving themselves that option. So, you know, there aren't that many people on carnivore diets in the uk, but if we had, I'm sure they would have had the worst gut health.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

And how about fish?

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Slightly pro, but I like the Mediterranean fish that are high in the omegas and low in mercuries and low in microplastics. So sardines. And I love sardines, I love anchovies, so I'll put them in everything. And so, you know, I spend a lot of time in Spain and, you know, these guys are having these foods every day.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

And Spain, by the way, they live about five years longer than Americans do.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Right.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Maybe it's because of what they eat. And speaking of Spain, where do you come down on wine, pro wine or a lot of health information out there telling us, sending up big red flags about drinking alcohol.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Yeah, everyone is telling us to. There's no safe limit of alcohol. It's bad for everybody. And that's statistically correct. But there are, I think if you're drinking one unit of alcohol a day, there's no evidence that that is going to make any real difference to your life. You'd have to have about a thousand people to show one event through drinking one unit a day. So very small amounts have been exaggerated because they don't show compared to what I think you've got three times more risk of dying just by driving your car for one hour than you have of drinking one glass of wine.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Oh, wow.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

So it's all relative and people talk about risk, but they never put them in proportion but luckily, as an epidemiologist, you know, that's what we're quite good at. Now, having said that, if you are going to drink a unit a day, which one should you drink, by the way?

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

I think a unit is measured in either a 12 ounce beer or an ounce of spirits, which by the way is often mixed with, you know, orange juice or coke or margarita mix or whatever.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

It's like a shot. It's a shot. It's a small beer glass or it's a small medium glass of wine. Yeah, and that's a general unit. And yeah, we all lie about how many units we consume. If you're an alcohol drinker, but if you are going to drink one, what I would say is if you pick red wine, that will give you some health benefit to counteract any problem. Because studies convincingly show that drinking one to two glasses of red wine gives you cardiac protection of about 20% compared to people who don't drink now. Doesn't mean you're protected from other things. Cancer risk might be slightly increased. So it's a nuanced one, but we did a study of several thousand people looking at what alcohols people drank and their gut health. And again, I think the reason that it's actually good for your heart is that it's good for your gut microbes. The reason is red wine is obviously fermented, but the grape skin is part of the drink and that has these defense chemicals, these polyphenols. White wine is less so, so you've got to drink a lot more to get the same polyphenols. So it sort of negates itself. And the only other similar drink we found that might be potentially healthy would be what we call alcoholic cider. Oh, okay. Yeah. The fermented apple. Apple juice that's very common in Europe because again, you've got bits of apple you're eating. So little tip for you. But the red wine fits into the Mediterranean theory of why these things might be giving a health benefit.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Yeah, I've always had kind of a problem with the, with blanket malignment of wine because red wine has been part of the Mediterranean diet for thousands of years. And I don't know if we fully understand how it interacts with the other foods in a Mediterranean diet, how it interacts with the plants and the great whole grains and that's inside the body and then how it fuels social interaction. So I'm one of the kind of lone voices out there. I'm saying not so fast with bad mouth.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

And wine too. I get attacked all the time when I say, you know, red wine is actually fine. And. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think it's part of the, you know, the prohibition temperance movement. There's so many worse things than drinking a glass of wine a day. Right?

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

In. In our society and in our food system, why aren't they being picked on? And it's. I think it's this sort of religious temperance movement that has a strange view of this stuff that, as you said, binds societies together, is incredibly important socially. But clearly we, you know, some people do get addicted to it and it's extremely bad for them. In that case, people get addicted to.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

Coke, you know, so they do, and.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

They get addicted to junk food, and that's actually much more of a problem than getting addicted to a glass of red wine. So, yeah, moderation. In moderation.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

We have the new book Ferment, which.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

Anyone keen to understand fermented foods? Yes, that's the Bible.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

So somehow he manages to be a top 1% producer in cite it academic articles and somehow be a key part of this fantastic company. And I'm not a big fan of most health and wellness companies, but I am a big fan of Zoe and I'm a big fan of yours. You do such a great job of explaining the science, but also giving us practical ways to put it to work. And you're on the cutting edge. And I just think you are not only a national treasure for Britain, but a treasure for the United States. And I hope more Zoe and more Tim Spector make it to the U.S. oh, that's great.

[Dr. Tim Spector]

You're making me cry, Dan. It's too much. I'm just a reporter, too.

[Podcast Host (possibly Dan Buettner or a co-host)]

I already got you on my podcast, so I don't even have to butter you up anymore. Thank you very much.