YouTube clip (Mihail Pautov, uploaded 2026-02-01) where a single speaker offers practical advice to improve the gut microbiome: aim for about 30 different plants per week for microbial diversity, 'eat the rainbow' to include polyphenol-rich and bitter foods, and prefer high-quality extra virgin olive oil over highly refined seed/sunflower oils; avoid ultra-processed/refined oils.
Chapters
If they know they took antibiotics, they ate processed food, and they want to change their health and they want to improve their microbiome, what would you suggest them to do? The first is to try and eat 30 different plants a week. It could be, you know, having lots of nut mixed nuts and seeds, just trying to go for more variety in your, in your, you know, not just have tomatoes and beetroot. The second is to eat the rainbow so that you're having lots of colors in your, your choice of foods because those colors indicate other chemicals. It's another source of fuel for your gut microbes. These are called polyphenols, high polyphenol foods. Also these are bitter ones. Going for high polyphenol things like cooking oil. So extra virgin olive oil rather than, you know, corn or seed oils. Yeah. Also I know sunflower oil is big in Romania. Olive oil is definitely healthier because it's got more polyphenols, it's more bitter. Sunflower oil, is it good for. For the health? The good ones are the good ones. Okay. It shouldn't be too refined and ultra processed. Okay. So if you have, you know, really well prod high quality sunflower oil, it can be beneficial for your health. At the other end of the spectrum, I would say they're probably negative for your health. Olive oil is always going to be better.