Building a healthy microbiome isn't just about adding good bacteria — it's about removing the dysfunctional ones first and then replacing them with something better. Unfortunately, the typical probiotic tablet doesn't really get that job done. The bacterial counts are often too low, the strains too narrow, and the delivery too fragile to survive the journey to where it matters.

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My approach is a multi-step process. It starts with intermittent fasting — and I'll be clear: this is a sledgehammer, not a scalpel. Fasting shifts microbial composition by removing the constant food supply that less beneficial bacteria depend on. It's blunt, broad, and imprecise. It's also effective.

 

A regular fasting window is my recurring tool for disrupting the existing population and creating a cleaner slate for what comes next.

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That slate gets filled with traditional fermented foods. At the core is kombucha — a live-fermented black tea I drink daily as part of my Garbage Disposal Smoothie. While good commercial brands like GT exist, I brew my own for freshness, cost, and control. I go through roughly ten gallons a month. Kombucha contributes a beneficial community of bacteria and yeasts along with organic acids that support gut pH and intestinal environment.

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Beyond kombucha, I eat something fermented with nearly every meal — sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, yogurt, miso. These go on the plate as sides or get stirred into soups and stews, upgrading both homemade and store-bought meals with minimal effort. Each fermented food carries a somewhat different microbial community, and the combination is the point.

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MS research regularly identifies specific bacterial strains as either implicated in or protective against the disease — but acting on that is harder than it sounds. The entourage effects between different microbial populations are poorly understood, and targeting a single strain with a specific probiotic feels like trying to fix a complex ecosystem by adding one species.

 

Instead, I've opted for a broad mix of traditional ferments that human guts have coevolved with for thousands of years. It's not precise. But precise tools require a map I don't have yet.

 

Broad, time-tested, and consistently applied has worked well enough — and the data keeps pointing in the right direction.

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