Katherine Courage on How Ancient Foods Can Feed our Microbiome

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Hey, guys. Crypt and Gavin from the Gut Health Gurus podcast. I've got a background in food science. My sidekick James Shadorak is unfortunately not able to make it, and he's the psychology expert. And today we have a fascinating guest. Her name is Katherine Hamon Courage. I have no idea whether I've totally butchered that pronunciation. Sometimes I've seen you on the Internet and you kind of miss out certain parts of your. So firstly, Catherine, welcome to the show. And did I get that intro right? Is it the correct name?

Yeah, Harmon is the middle name. It's very close. Thanks for having me.

Cool. My pleasure. Thank you for coming on. And what we like to do at the start of our podcast is just to get it from the horse's mouth. And who better to let us know? So who is Kathryn Harmon Courage?

Yes. So I am an English major by training and a journalist by day. I'd say I grew up in a kind of a sciencey family, and I was maybe the black sheep who went into the humanities, but I really benefited from growing up around parents who are really interested in science, brothers who were really interested in it. You know, that was the major topic of conversation at our dinner table, was biology and science. It wasn't politics or anything. So I just kind of grew up in this environment, this great environment, learning, you know, all these things and just kind of how to think scientifically and just getting interested in that. Once I got to college, though, I admit I couldn't quite commit to those long, long lab hours. I really enjoyed reading, so found myself as an English major. But after college, I knew I wanted to do writing, and so journalism really appealed to me. So I went to graduate school for journalism. And there I really fell in love with this idea of explanatory journalism and this idea that the world around us is so complex and there's just way more information out there than anyone can really, you know, sink their teeth into, really, and get a good understanding of. To operate well in the world. So it's such an important area, I think, for people, you know, journalists who are. Are able to take the time to really dive into a lot of these complex subject matters and bring it to people in a simple, much easier way to understand. So that people can make better decisions in their everyday life. So in journalism school I really kind of came back to those science roots, I think, and found myself really diving into some of those issues and getting back into it. And afterwards I got an internship at Scientific American magazine here in the States in New York, and just kind of, I would say got my real science education there. Worked there for four years as a reporter and then as an associate editor and really, you know, kind of got my chops and learned so much about science. But that's one thing I learned about, I love about my job is I get to keep learning about science every day. So, yeah, I've been covering science and medicine and health for a long time. And over the years there started to be more and more papers coming out about this thing called the microbiome. And it just really intrigued me because I'd been in kind of the biology world and my coverage, but you know, deep in my heart I loved ecology. So this idea that there's this whole ecology of organisms in our bodies and on our bodies just really appealed to me. So following it over the years and finally it kind of, you know, there was enough of a body of scientific research and at the same time enough of these products coming out like, hey, do these products really match the science? What's going on? So that's how I came to write my latest book about the gut microbiome and food.

Awesome. So we just take a little bit of a step backwards. So what type of science particularly interested you in those kind of formative years as a child?

I think, yeah, biology and ecology really fascinated me a lot. Kind of in the niche of that. I'm also really interested in geology and geomorphology. Just, it's just so fascinating to me and you know, looking at these long timescales in the environment around us and I think it's a really interesting perspective too to bring, you know, forward, fast forward to the microbiome. When we think about the timescale that bacteria are living in our bodies and creating these own, their own environmental niches in our bodies as so reduced from what we're used to thinking about. But I think just being able to have that kind of mindset, being able to think really long term and super short term and you know, where really do we fall into that, into the category there and you know, how does our health play into all these different time portions?

The microbiome is a fascinating area. Bacteria, yeast, fungi, viruses, they're all really so intricate in us as humans and what we Are. So what was the. Just out of interest, the first moment when you heard the terminology. So if you could jump in a time machine and go back to that moment when you first saw that terminology or heard that terminology. Microbiome.

Yeah, absolutely. I can remember actually exactly where I was. I was sitting in my cubicle at the Scientific American offices. They used to be on Madison Avenue, New York, and was looking through papers. I think I was still an intern at the time, looking for something interesting to write a story about. And there was a paper coming out from this consortium called the Human Microbiome Project. And that caught my eye, you know, my interest in ecology. But here I was kind of covering health and medicine, and I saw this opportunity. You know, there's this whole biome in our bodies. And who knew? This was almost exactly a decade ago. And so it was really just kind of the early, early days when we were able to start getting a picture of exactly what microbes were living in our guts and on our skin and really just kind of cataloging who was there. So I got, you know, I thought, well, this is pretty interesting, but super quirky, like super niche, and who's talking or thinking about this? And I thought, well, this is a fun story. Kind of covered it and forgot about it. But, you know, as I said, over the years, kind of more and more stuff started coming out.

Yeah. And it's really fascinating, Catherine, that, you know, it's almost been a decade, but prior to that, we've always thought of microbes being, I guess, enemies and something that we need to destroy and kill because they harm us. But isn't it interesting that it turns out that they're so fundamental to us being alive and being healthy and thriving, and without them, we couldn't exist.

Yeah, exactly.

So how about we define, like, from your, I guess, from your perspective, what is the microbiome?

Yeah, so the microbiome, from my perspective, is just the collection of organisms that live in our bodies and on our bodies. And by definition, they're microbes. They're microscopic. There's, you know, the whole area of looking at parasites that we've lost over the years, but usually those are a little bit more macro, a little bit larger. But, yeah, in terms of the microbiome, it really is just those communities of microbes. And that, too, is really interesting to me, the fact that there are all these different communities. You know, we talk about the human microbiome, usually we're kind of. We need to be talking about the gut microbiome, but there are all these Other biomes, you know, the mouse microbiome, we have different microbes on our right hand from our left hand. And it's just so fascinating that they have all of these different areas and the populations are completely different and they're doing totally different stuff, stuff in different locations.

And it's fascinating because the microbes living, I guess in the skin have a different job to the ones living in the gut. And then there's all these axes that I guess scientists are I guess kind of delving into and investigating further, like the gut brain axis and the gut lung axis and the gut kidney axis. So it's, I think it's really at its infancy. So where do you think we are at the moment in terms of our understanding of what these microbes actually do?

Yeah, that is a great question. I think. Yeah, it really is the very, very earliest days. You know, it kind of, you know, it's like we're, you know, explorers back in the, you know, centuries and centuries ago and spotting an unknown island, you know, way off in the sea and we're still at a distance, we can tell it's there, but we no idea really what's going on in there and the dynamics at play and the connections to ecosystems and you know, body systems. So it's, yeah, I think the very earliest days, which is so exciting. There's just, I think there's going to be so many more discoveries and you know, as you were saying, it's now the microbiome is linked to so many other things and we're getting these connections, you know, oh, it's linked to inflammation and you know, all of these diseases, maybe type 1 diabetes or autism and just these are still just, you know, connections. We still don't exactly know the dynamics, whether it's causal or just a correlation. So yeah, I think there are just going to be so many more exciting discoveries in the future.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's sometimes I ponder this very question. Is it the right word? Is it the Dunning Kruger effect or something like we think we know actually we do like more we delve into this microbiome field. It's been 10 years now, but we think we've kind of figured it out. But I think you're absolutely right. A lot of the times is it causal? Is it just some sort of biomarker for some of these disease type states? And this is this inner dialogue that I think about all the time in my mind because I always have to remind myself that we know nothing. I mean it's so complex. The interaction between microbe and human, incredibly complex. So how about we delve into a little bit about how do we acquire the microbiome? Where does it come from?

Yeah, so we get a lot of the microbiome from our very earliest days, through birth and the early days of infancy. It depends. It's really interesting to look at. Some of the research shows a difference in microbiome depending on how a person is born, whether they're born kind of, you know, traditionally vaginally or through cesarean section. That really determines whether the first microbiome is more gut bacteria or more skin bacteria. And then from there it also can be influenced. At least the infant microbiome can be influenced too by the way a baby is fed, whether it's fed breast milk or formula can really shape the earliest populations and dynamics, which as a mother of an infant myself, I find super fascinating. And I think about all the time and you know, since we still are in the earliest days, we don't really know exactly a lot with the long term effects and correlations there are either. But it's just so interesting, you know, a lot of responsibility there.

Absolutely. I think this is a nice little nugget to kind of delve into because I'm sure there's lots of mums listening to the show and prospective mums thinking about choices and decisions they're going to make in, I guess, fostering a healthy child as they possibly can and within their power. So you're pretty unique in the sense that you were pretty much in touch with a lot of this information, I guess, moving into, I guess, planning, having a child. Having a child. So how did that information influence the decisions that you made?

Yeah, it really. I did think about it a lot. I did the reporting for my latest microbiome book before we were planning to have a baby. But I, you know, I kind of had that in the back of my mind, you know, that the knowledge that the mother's microbiome does influence what is passed on to the offspring. So, you know, thinking about even just eating a very rich, a diet rich in fermented foods, eating a lot of fiber to cultivate the native microbes and you know, knowing that a lot of, you know, we think about the gut microbiome, but a lot of this is all about the vaginal microbiome. And that's an area that hasn't been studied quite as much or, you know, certainly isn't talked about as much. And that itself changes over the course of pregnancy and preparation for childbirth, which is so, so interesting. You Know, that's just part of evolution. It's, you know, preparing to inoculate your. Your baby with its first microbes. So that definitely, you know, I thought about that a lot. And in pregnancy, there is, you know, there's the side of our kind of Western idea of making sure you're super safe during pregnancy. You know, don't eat any dangerous foods because your immune system is weakened and you don't definitely don't want to pass anything dangerous across the placenta to the fetus who can't handle it. So as, you know, someone who likes to play it safe, too, I was kind of torn between these two. You know, obviously want to keep this, you know, baby safe, but also. Oh, but all the. Those great fermented foods that I usually eat, you know, what's the right path there? And I can't say I have an answer for that, but. Yeah, but definitely weighed heavily on my mind for sure, during, you know, before and during pregnancy.

That's amazing because I guess there wouldn't be many people around the planet. And I think maybe you have these unique ones that were actually, I guess, empowered with that information going into this. I applaud you for that. So diet was important for you, I guess, just being very mindful on what you're eating in terms of fiber, including the fermented foods. Any other tips for mums or mums to be.

Yeah, I mean, some of the research, too, has looked at antibiotic use, even. Shoot. Sorry.

That's okay.

There we go.

Antibiotic yeast.

Sorry, I've lost the video here. That's okay. As long as you can still see me.

I can see you already.

So. Yeah, so some of the research has shown that antibiotic use can influence the microbes that are passed on to babies even before pregnancy. So. Or, you know, antibiotic use before pregnancy can influence what microbes are eventually passed on to babies when they're born. So even, you know, I was thinking about that to make sure, you know, if I needed an antibiotic prescription, that it was absolutely necessary just in, you know, looking to have as many diverse microbes as I could to pass on to my child.

And did you go down the path of doing something like a stool test to work out, I guess, where you're at in terms of your forearm before you had a baby or during that time?

You know, I didn't actually do it during that time. I was. I did some. I did a couple different stool tests several years ago just because I was, you know, they were kind of new on the market and I was, you know, reporting on this area and interested in it. So I did them then, but I didn't do them right around the time I was having my baby. I probably should have, but maybe next time around if we have another one.

It's just an interesting thought bubble that just popped in my head. It'd be interesting to know whether, I guess, a mum could work out what the status quo is and then make some adjustments to optimize the gut microbiome as much as you can and then going into pregnancy. So you're kind of inoculating with, I guess, the best that you can.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So let's move on. So we'll segue on to you mentioned earlier. We started talking about fermented foods. So how did you go from the microbiome to then start getting interested into fermented foods?

Yeah, so as a journalist who is not a nutritionist or a scientific researcher, I was really kind of looking at a, for a way, I guess, to cover the microbiome in a way that made sense for my background. And so just looking out there in the world and, you know, asking myself what I was interested in too, which is foods and travel. Fermented foods were kind of an obvious choice. And two, as the research was kind of getting going, just looking at that connection, I found super fascinating between diet and the gut microbiome because I think a lot of has actually kind of gotten left out of the popular conversation about exactly, you know, what these microbes and our fermented foods are doing and what are they not doing in our guts. So that was an area I was really interested in, diving into more.

And fermented foods, I think is such an inherent part of our culture. And I absolutely love, I think we're kindred spirits because I'm a huge science geek and I love food and I love travel. So I think you're absolutely right. But following that sort of path into new cultures, whether it's Korea, Japan or Greece or Switzerland, I think these are the countries that you kind of traveled around to write your book. So you would have discovered these inherent, I guess, types of foods and processes and methods and fermentation being one of them in those cultures. So how about we talk about that? I'm so jealous to have a job where you can kind of jet set to Korea and spend some time in Japan or Greece or Switzerland and kind of spend time with these people and understand fermentation, then connect it to gut health and the microbiome and write this amazing book that you've written. So how about we dive into it? So how did it all eventuate and what was the trip like?

Yeah, so, yes, as I mentioned, I'd been following the microbiome research for a really long time and had an idea that I would love to write a book about it and obviously including food. My first idea for a book had a similar title, but I wanted to write just about yogurt and thought, well, maybe that's not quite a big enough topic for a whole book, but it's so fascinating, just the history and that's how the study of probiotics kind of got started. But as I was doing my research, kind of fleshing out this idea for a book about fermented foods and how they help our gut microbiome, a new study came out showing that probiotics, once we take them, they don't actually take up residents in our gut after you take them. The researchers couldn't really find any trace of these probiotics a matter of weeks later. So I was pretty crushed. I was like, oh gosh, there goes my book idea and so much for all this yogurt and kombucha and everything else I've been consuming. I guess there's really no point. But then I started thinking about it more and I thought, well, that's actually more interesting in a way, the fact that these microbes and a lot of the fermented foods and probiotics are actually kind of transient in our system, but as they go through, they're obviously having these benefit beneficial impacts on the whole system and interacting with our native gut microbes and, you know, how the heck can we feed our native gut microbes too? So I really started thinking about this and especially in the States, like, we just do not have a good culture of fermented foods or fibrous foods. So we've really kind of missed the boat over here for a long time. And you know, just looking around the world, just about every other culture has like a really rich fermented food tradition. So, yeah, just starting to kind of look, and I was looking too, almost kind of going back to like the blue zones, you know, like what groups are super healthy or where are, you know, certain disease rates much lower than we might expect. So just kind of looking at these places of good health and, well, what are they doing to, you know, feed their microbes? Well, just, just as an inherent part of their culture. Not that they're going out of their way saying, oh, I'm going to have my daily kombucha and My daily handful of probiotic pills. But it's just the way people eat and live in a lot of other places.

I think that's fascinating. I had a similar kind of journey, I guess, because we all kind of bought into the advertising that you can kind of reseed and feed, and they're gonna kind of. These probiotics are gonna populate the gut, and they're gonna live in there and be happy. But when you actually do the maths, like, I actually went through this mathematical exercise and did a calculation on 100 billion organisms in a pill. And if you just look at that as a percentage of your. I think you also call it your old friends, the existing flora in the gut. It is a drop in the ocean. Like, it's tiny. And I think then if you logically think about these things actually getting through the gut, through that harsh environment, the acidity in the stomach, the immune system, all the indigenous flora, and then having to find a niche somewhere in the gut and attach to the lining of the gut and then start to populate and see, you can start to put a picture on how kind of ridiculous that kind of theory was. I'm glad that science now is pretty well established, and I think we're all in agreement that it's very unlikely it's going to populate the gut. It's most likely going to be a transient situation. And then coming back to your other point about, I guess, the Western world, we're getting back into the ferments, which is great, but we kind of lost it a little bit. I think if you look at Australia, a lot of immigration came from Europe. They did have a culture of fermented foods because Captain Cook, who was the, I guess, the early pioneer of Australia, managed to survive the journey and avoid scurvy by having sauerkraut on his ships. So that's the story and the law behind that. And I'm sure there'd be very similar stories in other Western countries. And I think probably I would put it towards the, I guess, the industrialization of food and looking for, I guess, shortcut methods using, I guess, a pickling process, as opposed to your traditional fermentation, which takes more time and more effort and more cost to actually make. So in that sense, we lost that, I guess, that fermented culture in our Western world. But it's great when you think about the, I guess, the Koreans or the Japanese or some other cultures that have maintained their roots in fermented foods. So what was Korea like? I'm fascinated.

Yeah, Korea was fascinating. So this trip was the first time I'd been to Asia and I actually did the whole. Did all my reporting in kind of one go. So it was like a five week trip kind of around the world. Went to all the European stops and then went to Japan, and then Korea was my last stop stopped. So I was a little bit. A little road weary by the time I got to Korea. But if Korea was incredible, just the amount of fermented foods there was just amazing. You know, I went there to study kimchi, which, you know, is technically their national food too. So that was kind of my, you know, my target when I went there. But just touring the food markets, there is just so many different kinds of fermented foods that are so cool, that make their way, you know, as sauces, as condiments, as other ingredients, just into the whole cuisine was so cool to see that and to see too, how different ferment, similar fermented foods have, you know, kind of, you know, immigrated and been moved, you know, moved around to different cultures around Asia. So a lot of similar fermented foods show up in China and in Japan and just this kind of exchange, too, among these cultures of their fermented foods and little tweaks here and there. Fermented bean pastes are a little bit different, you know, or fermented, like a soy sauce type of sauce. Little bit different in each country and each region. Really super fascinating and really definitely, I think, drove home the point of how key these foods really have been over the thousands of years and keeping us healthy and happy and how much we're really lacking that a lot of our diets.

Absolutely. And fact, correct me if I'm wrong, I did read an article that you were featured in, and you mentioned something about guess the Koreans and kimchi and not being fully satisfied with that meal unless there was, I guess, kimchi on the plate. Talk to that a little bit.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, just the fact that especially in Korea, it's really a lot of their meals, as I, as it was explained to me, is really a lot about balance. You know, you kind of. It doesn't feel like a real meal if it's, you know, a little out of balance, if there's not that sour element, you know, or if there's not like maybe a spicy element. You really just kind of need all of these different flavors and experiences to make it feel like a full meal. And actually, one researcher I spoke with who's studying the microbial environments of kimchi and other fermented foods, he was lamenting. He was saying, you know, well, these days there might be only one type of kimchi on the table, whereas when he grew up, you know, there might be three or four types of kimchi at every meal just on the table to pick out a little bit. And each kimchi offers different collection of microbes. So you're just kind of constantly, constantly ingesting all these different colonies and collections of microbes for your body to, you know, to experience and for that to help tune the immune system and interact with your own microbes. It's just such a richer microbial environment if you're eating that way, for sure.

And when you. When you mentioned different types of kimchi, does that relate to different types of vegetables or different recipes?

Yeah, both. Yeah, different ingredients that are used and. Yeah, different recipes. And they also, you know, will eat kimchi often throughout the fermentation process. So if you can imagine, too, the microbial profile changes from when you first make it through, you know, maybe a year later when it's super funky, it has a totally different profile. So you're also kind of getting these different collections of microbes throughout the time as well.

Absolutely. That's such a good point, because a lot of our listeners are fermenting vegetables and. Or embarking on the process or even buying, I guess, the ferments from the store. But that's such a good point that different parts of the. I guess the age of the ferment is going to have different colonies of microbes. It's almost like a progression or steps in different colonies dominating at different ages in the product. So that's such a great tip. Like, I mean, if you want to increase diversity, perhaps a way could be by having different ages of ferments, so different types, but also having ferments at different stages in their life cycle. That's awesome.

Definitely.

So where do we go now? So how about we step on a plane? And I think we're going backwards in time according to your journey, but let's go to Europe, let's go to Switzerland. What was happening down that in that neck of the woods?

So kind of early on, when I was looking into this book and looking at different fermented foods that offer beneficial bacteria, I came across some papers about different alpine cheeses that actually have live probiotic bacteria in them. And I thought, oh, darn, I'm gonna have to go check those out. Because really, when we think about foods that have probiotic benefits, we think about the kimchi and the kombucha and kind of these Sour veget or fruit based ferments, we don't usually think, or yogurt or kefir of course, on the sour side. But we don't usually think about these like rich, yummy cheeses. So. Yeah, so some of the alpine cheeses up there they were finding do still offer these kind of live probiotic bacteria in them, which is, you know, super interesting. You don't look at a table full of cheese and think, oh, that's going to be really good for my gut. But you know, in Switzerland they've been eating this way for hundreds and hundreds of years. So it was really cool to get to, you know, talk to these cheesemakers and see these processes that they're still making the cheese up there by hand and it's just a really, you know, cool process in itself.

Absolutely. And that's another interesting, I guess, topic to explore because I think in our western countries, Australia being one of them, potentially in the US as well, we've lost that, I guess the artisanal cheeses because now we're like in Europe, especially in countries like France and Switzerland would be one. Italy, they still use raw milk in their processes, whereas they're kind of banned in the West. Like certainly in Australia we'd be hard pressed to find a raw cheese. I think they're all kind of illegal, so we can't get them. So we've lost this incredible source of probiotics that they have in like the Swiss cheeses or the funky cheeses in France. So that's such a, such a disappointment. But what do you do? Go on a plane? Travel?

Yeah. It is interesting that, you know, you bring that up, that kind of like tension between these really traditional ways of doing things and the health and safety regulations that have been put into place. And in my research and travels I just, I learned so much about how even the equipment that people have been using for hundreds of years to make these cheeses or other fermented things acquire a microbiome of their own.

Yeah.

So all these bacteria and fungi in some cases actually colonize, say those wooden cheese making pieces of equipment and that actually keeps them safe from harmful microbes. Whereas, you know, if you go all stainless steel, then it, it's not really able to colonize these beneficial microbes and that makes the wood stuff makes the health agencies nervous. So it is kind of this tension between these traditional ways that have kind of cultivated these safe ways of doing things before we knew anything about germ theory or microbes and our new scientific understanding of, okay, everything has to be sterile. But sometimes the sterile way can actually be a little bit more harmful because they. It doesn't have these native microbes keeping it safe, actually.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think it's almost like the wooden vessels, like the barrels they use for making cheese or even soy sauce in Japan, they kind of take on a life of their own because after so many, maybe decades of being used, they develop their own identity and their own colonies and their own microbiome, for want of a better word. And then these cultures are then I guess, preserving and protecting the food a lot more effectively and efficiently than say, using a sterile stainless steel vat that's been nuked with boiling water or steam, or then using sanitizers and chlorine and all these type of chemicals that they use. And then essentially you've got no competition for any, I guess, nasty type of organisms to compete against. And that's when you run into some problems. So let's hope, Catherine, let's hope that, you know, I guess if there's industry bodies or regulatory people listening, that maybe we could consider a slightly different way of thinking or maybe a compromise because maybe these things that we're thinking are doing good for public safety in a sense might be doing harm in the long term because we're certainly reducing the diversity of microbes that are coming through our food supply by adopting these processes.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Another fine line there. Yeah, we definitely want to keep the bad stuff out of our food, but it would be great to let some of the good stuff stay in there, so. Yeah, exactly.

It's a tough. I can't believe we've got. We've almost come up to time. It's amazing. We're just flying so well. But I have to go to Greece. Take us to Greece.

Yeah. Greece was incredible. And that was another place, you know, I went there to look at the yogurt and the yogurt making process and, you know, how people are eating it there just in their everyday life. But once again, I've discovered so many other fermented foods there that people were eating. Like, I never really thought of table olives as a fermented food, but you know, in the traditional preparation that's, you know, they are fermented and offer live microbes. So it's just. It was really wonderful to just see how all these foods that, you know, we might eat every day from the supermarket in a very pasteurized form or, you know, re. Inoculated form in the case of yogurt, but are, you know, Making appearances on these kind of traditional Greek tables, you know, as they have been for centuries.

Wow. So how, if someone was listening, how do you actually make table olives? Any ideas?

Yeah. So that's generally kind of more of a. At least when I encountered it, more of an industrial, you know, industrial scale process. It wasn't something people were fermenting at home on their kitchen counters or anything like that. But a lot of the, you know, kind of bigger industrial operations use caustic soda or lye to kind of give olives that character. But the traditional way of doing it is actually to, you know, ferment them in liquid and let them kind of develop their own microbiome and get a little softer and tastier along the way.

Like some sort of salting process of brining.

Exactly. Yep.

That's fascinating. Wow. And any other ferments in Greece that come to mind.

Those were kind of the big ones. And one of the things we haven't even really touched on yet is just the whole issue of prebiotic foods and fibrous foods. And that was another big eye opener in my travels and reporting for this book too, was just to see how much the foods that really nourish our native microbes are incorporated into all of these diets and that increase that really my eyes were definitely open to the amount of different vegetables and especially the different greens that people eat there. There's in Greece they often have kind of wild foraged horta, it's called. So it's just kind of like weeds from the hillside. People still actually just kind of, you know, we would see folks just on the side of the road cutting down, you know, some wild, growing. My host translated them as weeds, but it's this diversity of greens and, you know, things foraged out in the wild just are introducing so many different fibers to our system too, for our native gut microbes to eat. So I thought that was a really big takeaway, especially from my time in Greece. But in all of my stops along the way, it was just, you know, where people are definitely eating so many more microbes, but they're also doing a really great job of feeding their native microbes as well. It's high fiber diet and whole foods and a wide variety of different vegetables and grains.

Absolutely. That's such a great point because we tend to focus a lot on the microbes and getting more microbes, healthy microbes and good microbes into our diet. But that's such a great point. Once they're in there, we need to feed them with things like fibers. And I've also observed that as well, that certainly in Australia, the amount of vegetables consumed pales in comparison to countries in Asia or Europe. And we tend, especially in Australia, we tend to stick to a few vegetables all the time, like potatoes, carrots, tomatoes. Some of them are not even vegetables. They're fruits, cucumbers or salad greens from the market. And that's the extent of it. But then if you look at the cultures in Asia and in Europe, there's so much diversity. You go to these markets and there's vegetables that you've never seen in your life before. There's so much diversity and there's so much variety. It's like that kind of old adage of eating the rainbow, different colors and different types, and going to the supermarket and just like picking something that you've never tried before and just giving it a go. And that's going to certainly help, I guess, with different variety of flora in the gut and more diversity in the gut as well.

Definitely. And that's one of the things I loved about my visit to Japan, actually, was just that every single meal, there were so many different dishes. You know, just small little dishes. And having that wide, you know, is probably more food served at one or more types of food served at one meal than, you know, maybe our family eats in a week. It's just, you know, really incredible to see that diversity of foods, you know, offering different fibers and different nutrients. It's just a great way to eat if you can get into the habit of it.

Totally. And Japan is a great way to wrap up. This world tour that we were going on in Japan is up there with one of my favorite countries in the world. I actually just got back from Japan a couple of weeks ago. It's fresh in my mind. And you're absolutely right. I mean, there's so much diversity because even in Japan, they've got these things called zuke, which is like kimchi, but the Japanese version. So all these different types of pickles that they make, and they primarily ferment it with koji. Koji seems to be the, I guess, the hero kind of starter fermenter in Japan. So what was your observations of your trip to Japan?

Yeah, I mean, in addition to the diversity, it is just that rich fermentation culture and just kind of the, I guess, reverence that a lot of people there pay to the food and the fermentation process. You know, I've seen. I didn't see it in person when I was there, but I've seen them some Videos of making of koji spores to cultivate them for different food preparations. And, you know, in some places, the koji masters, you know, kind of like sing to their koji beds of rice. And it's just this whole, you know, ritual almost, and just this idea of really just, you know, you are nurturing these living organisms. We just can't really see them, but just kind of paying that love and respect and attention to the whole food process, you know, from the very first spores, I guess you could say, all the way to when you're sitting down to eat it and just having these beautiful presentations of food, it's really just kind of a different way of looking at and approaching food, I think, than we have, at least in the States and possibly in Australia too, where it's kind of like a, you know, mechanistic thing where, like, oh, I'm hungry. I need to put something in my body to make that feeling stuff so I can get on with work. And I'm guilty of that all the time. I just, you know, want to get back to my work or back to whatever I want to be doing and just taking that time to really think about our food. And, you know, if you have time to make more of it yourself, it's just, I think, a valuable lesson to be able to take away from some of these other cultures.

Mm. With you there, Catherine, the absolute reverence of food, the passion for food that exudes in Japanese culture is staggering. I mean, you can literally go to just about any food outlet and it's almost perfection. You could go to the local convenience store, and the presentation and the amount of care and preparation that goes to making that food is clearly evident. Like, I've eaten at convenience stores that I've just been like, oh, my God, this is amazing. This is the 7 11. This is one of the best meals I've had. It's all fresh and it's all prepared and it's not processed or anything like that. And then you go to these real artisanal type places where, you know, it's like, it's a whole ceremony. It's like we went to a shabu. I think it's a sukiaki and shabu shabu outlet and a very traditional one that was, I think, maybe in the hundreds of years old Tokyo, and it was like, from. From the presentation of the food. But then having, you know, this wonderful woman there to actually explain the whole process and then prepare it so meticulously and then serve it to us, we can't get that in Australia.

Yeah, not in the States either.

You can't get that. And what. What staggered me as well is that the amount of meat consumption was tiny. And if you look at the Japanese and how they eat, certainly from what I observed, the meat was very premium and expensive, like, and it was, like, fully marbled. But most, 90% of that whole dish was just these different varieties of vegetables, some that I've never seen in my life. So that's another, I think, maybe a hint of what's going on, I guess, in those blue zones versus some of the, I guess, the modern societies where we see prevalence of disease like diabetes and cancers and things like that. Maybe we are consuming too much meat, which could be having a detrimental effect on the microbiome.

Yeah, absolutely. And that was one thing that was interesting too, that I learned in my research is, you know, we think of our microbes as these wonderful helpers and things that are producing beneficial compounds for us. But, you know, just because it's generally a good microbe or it's part of our microbiome, doesn't mean it's always making good compounds for us. So that is one thing. You know, some microbes make harmful compounds if we feed them too much meat or, you know, certain types of meat. So it is, you know, they're kind of like, I think of them sometimes as our translators. You know, they're translating our diet into different compounds for our own body. And some of those compounds are not great. So, yeah, that is, you know, it's inputs and outputs. And definitely meat is one of those things that across the board, and even in Greece, talking with people, you know, it's. Meat was kind of like a once a week, like, special occasion, a Sunday treat, but every other day was pretty much vegetarian. You know, in the traditional way of eating there it was, you know, a lot of whole grains and vegetables and some dairy. But yeah, meat was the exception for sure, rather than the rule.

And I guess a lot of these blue zone countries are consuming a lot of seafood as well. Certainly in Japan, with sushi, sashimi, a huge focus on those seafoods, truckloads of omega 3 fatty acids. I think certainly that's a factor for sure in influencing the microbiome. I think we're pretty much coming up to time, so we'll start to wrap. So, Catherine, so you wrote this amazing book, and we've been touching upon it through this conversation. It's called How Ancient Foods Can Feed a Microbiome. I think we've explored all the elements of the book. The travel, the I Guess the microbiome, the investigative journalism that you did in those different countries. Is there anything else you would like to add to some of your findings from writing this book?

Yeah, and I think it's really some of the things we've already touched on is really just this whole different way of thinking about our food and just integrating all of these different foods into our diet in a more kind of regular way without treating them as kind of like special foods. You know, it's not this, you know, weekly cup of yogurt to, you know, as you said, recede our microbiome because now we know science told us that's not how it works, but just this idea that all these foods are really just healthy to have in your diet anyway and we don't have to kind of treat them as a silver bullet or this like magic pill that's going to cure us from everything and prevent us from getting anything bad in the future, but just kind of this balanced approach. You know, I asked the same question to a lot of researchers actually that I spoke with, with for the book. You know, I said, how has this research influenced the way you eat? And a lot of them said, you know, I just, it's really taught me to take kind of a balanced approach to my diet and just to think about, you know, keep it in the back of my mind. But you know, just try to enjoy food and eat good food and then if it's, you know, if it's good for our bodies, it's good for our microbiomes and vice versa. So it's just a nice way to try to think about it when you can.

I love the balance, the word balance and that approach. And in terms of the fermented foods or the cultured foods, as you guys say in America, what's your go to in terms of are you making it at home or getting some good stuff from the health food store?

Yeah, I have to say my most successful ferment was actually super traditional. Just sauerkraut. Yeah, that's one of my go to super easy one to make. Get strong hand muscles though, massaging all those. And then I mean I think some of the, I mean I'll keep her, you know, almost every morning on my oatmeal or my granola, whatever I'm eating. But yeah, just paying attention to the fiber contents of all my meals and you know, adding in some extra greens when I can or some, you know, cocoa powder is another secret prebiotic food I learned about in my reporting. So yeah, just keeping those things in mind. And treating myself to some unsweetened hot cocoa in the morning is not. Not terrible.

Awesome. And I actually, that's, that's my, my little secret as well. I have a truckload of hot chocolate. We have like maybe three hot chocolates a day.

Oh, you're making me feel better. Sometimes I'm on a two hot chocolate day.

Yeah. Literally, like, I stopped coffee consumption definitely before 12 because I'm a slow metabolizer of caffeine, so it will stick in my system, mess up my sleep. So my little hack is I just have. If I have a craving for something warm, certainly it's getting into winter now, so you want to drink the warm stuff. I drink a lot of just raw organic cacao powder with some milk and just boiling water, so I don't add any sugar.

Yeah.

And it's fine. I mean, it tastes nice. It's very comforting. It's very rich in prebiotics, as you mentioned, and polyphenols. It's amazing.

Yes. Yeah, I'm with you on that one.

I love it. Kindred spirits, I'm telling you. We'll certainly link to the book. So if people want to find the book, I'm sure it's on Amazon, on, on Kindle and all the popular outlets, but we'll link to it. And so what's next for Catherine? I'm on Courage. What are you up to?

I'm thinking about another book, hopefully in the future. Working on some other microbiome stories right now, looking into some of the cutting edge science. It's been cool to dive into some of the ancient foods, but there's so much fascinating science that we're just on the cusp of right now in terms of genetics and. And all of that learning about the microbes in our gut. So working on that and yeah, we'll see. There's just so much science out there to cover and so much, so many health topics that it's all about finding the time.

Absolutely. And I'm with you, Kathryn. The microbiome space at the moment is so fascinating. I mean, every day practically, there's like some new studies coming out, and it's just such a hot field at the moment. And I'm really excited to see how you kind of choose these topics and put it into layman's terms in a book to, I guess, bring this amazing information to the rest of the world. So exciting to see the next, I guess, the next phase of your journey in your next book. I'll be very closely following you. And so let's start to wrap it up and I always ask the question at the end of my shows, if there was one thing that you could do for your gut health, Katherine, what would it be?

More hot cocoa? Unsweetened hot cocoa?

I love that it's such a decadent thing, but so good for your gut health. And if people want to reach out to you and find you, how can they find you on the socials or on the interwebs?

Yeah, absolutely. On Twitter is usually the spot where I am most often and my handle is Courage. Courage like the word and I'm there.

Awesome.

I have a website too if they want to follow along. It's just katharinecourage.com cool.

We'll certainly link in the show notes to all these social avenues that people can reach out to you and just want to say huge thank you for coming onto the show and yeah, great to have you on such a cool conversation.

Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.

Awesome. Thanks Katherine.

Thank you.

Hey guys, we hope you enjoyed this episode of the Gut Health Gurus podcast with Kathryn Harmon Courage. You can find show notes and links@www.podcast.nourishmeorganics.com au if you enjoyed this podcast, please give us a positive review and 5 stars on iTunes and share our podcast with your friends and family members. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast outlet to be notified when the next episode launches. If you're in interested Interested in learning more about fermenting at home, head to www.nourishmeorganics.com and check out a range of home fermentation accessories. Heirloom cultures like kefir grains, kombucha, Scoby's koji and sourdough starters. Use the code HAPPYGUT for 10% off your purchase.