26 March

I think we’ve wasted so much time in health thinking about nutrition. Most of our health is due to the microbes in us and around us. But here’s where the two overlap. Eat porridge. Porridge is food for good microbes in your gut, and the flow-on benefits to your entire health are enormous. It’s also cheap, and very filling. It’s a ‘slow-release carb’, if we have to use dietary language, so also great for people who have to watch that part of their diet too. Some researchers think it’s the most critical thing you can do for your health, as described in this article. I looked further into the research and it stacks up. They say you need a good 100g (about a cup) a day to trigger the health benefits. You also lose weight because you’re just not hungry for anything else, all day, and because obesity is likely caused by bad microbes in your gut, which the porridge overwhelm by feeding the good microbes. Probiotics are too hit and miss, nobody knows what the best bugs are for a person. But porridge is like soil that lets the good ones grow by themselves.