New lab paper: The microbes we eat: abundance and taxonomy of microbes consumed in a day’s worth of meals for three diet types

A new paper out from my lab (with Jenna Lang as the 1st author and in collaboration with Angela Zivcovic from the UC Davis Food For Health Initiative and the Department of Nutrition):  The microbes we eat: abundance and taxonomy of microbes consumed in a day’s worth of meals for three diet types.  The work in the paper focuses on characterizing the abundance and taxonomy of microbes in food from three model diets.

Basically, Angela prepared meals for these three diets

Food was purchased and prepared in a standard American home kitchen by the same individual using typical kitchen cleaning practices including hand washing with non-antibacterial soap between food preparation steps, washing of dishes and cooking instruments with non-antibacterial dish washing detergent, and kitchen clean-up with a combination of anti-bacterial and non-antibacterial cleaning products. Anti-bacterial products had specific anti-bacterial molecules added to them whereas “non-antibacterial” products were simple surfactant-based formulations. The goal was to simulate a typical home kitchen rather than to artificially introduce sterile practices that would be atypical of how the average American prepares their meals at home. All meals were prepared according to specific recipes (from raw ingredient preparation such as washing and chopping, to cooking and mixing).

And then she blended them and we characterzied the microbial communities in the blended samples:

After food preparation, meals were plated on a clean plate, weighed on a digital scale (model 157W; Escali, Minneapolis, MN), and then transferred to a blender (model 5,200; Vita-Mix Corporation, Cleveland, OH) and processed until completely blended (approximately 1–3 min). Prepared, ready to eat foods that were purchased outside the home were simply weighed in their original packaging and then transferred to the blender. 4 mL aliquots of the blended meal composite were extracted from the blender, transported on dry ice and then stored at −80 °C until analysis. The following analyses were completed using these meal composite samples: (1) total aerobic bacterial plate counts, (2) total anaerobic bacterial plate counts, (3) yeast plate counts, (4) fungal plate counts, and (5) 16S rDNA analysis for microbial ecology.

And Jenna Lang coordainted the sequence analysis and then Angela and Jenna (with some help here and there from me) coordianted the analysis of the different microbial data and the writing of the paper.

Figure 5: Biplot of taxa in sample PCoA space.

Lots of interesting things reported in the paper (read it, I insist).  I note - this is a demonstration project in a way - trying to get the community and others to think about the source pools of microbes that come into our system from our food.  It is by no means comprehensive or conclusive (read the caveats section of the paper).  Congrats to Jenna and Angela for all their hard work. Anyway - the paper is Open Access in PeerJ.  Eat it up.

UPDATE: Some press and blog coverage

• Kevin Bonham on SciAM Blogs: The Microbes in Your Kitchen (Or in your Starbucks mocha)
• Maddie Stone on Motherboard: Here’s How Many Microbes You Eat in a Single Day
• “This paper will hopefully convince the powers that be that the next study, actually looking at how different foods or diets with differing microbes affect people, should be funded soon,” Zivkovic told me.
• Nathan Gray:  The microbes we eat: Study investigates bacteria in different diets
• Ross Pomeroy on Real Clear Science: This Is How Many Microbes You'll Eat Today
• Improbable Research: What’s Eating You, and/or Vice Versa: Microbes
• Marissa Fessenden at Smithsonian: You Eat Millions...Even Billions!...of Microbes Every Day

Smoothie Obsession

Smoothies!  Can we talk about them for a minute?

I have this weird and possibly annoying personality trait that requires that I share, nay, SHOUT FROM THE ROOFTOPS, when I discover something eye-opening or life-changing or otherwise wonderful. So naturally, I feel the need to share my smoothie obsession with you in hopes that you might experience this eye-opening, life-changing wonderfulness too.

I am one of those many people out there in the world who has a hard time eating enough fruits and vegetables because, well, I just tend to prefer the salty crunchy snacks and things like bread and cereal and, you know, stuff that does basically nothing for your health except keep you alive and slogging through every day, never feeling your best and certainly never feeding your body the best. Sound familiar?

A couple months ago I decided to start replacing breakfast with a nutrient packed smoothie, mainly because I wanted to lose the 3-4 pounds I had gained and I thought this would be a great way to start each day on the right track.

Now fast forward two months, and I am STILL having my daily morning smoothie, and I can honestly say they've kinda changed my life a little (a wee bit dramatic, but true!). Just this simple act of starting my day on the right foot helps set the tone for the rest of the day, and of course the nutrient-dense salad-in-a-glass itself gives me this punch of energy and overall motivation to continue clean, fresh eating throughout the rest of the day. I lost those few pounds, saw great improvements in my skin and moods, and generally feel much lighter and like my body is working at top capacity instead of always plugging away on its lowest setting.

The wonderful thing about smoothies is that they incorporate the finest, freshest ingredients, and there is literally no end to the variety you can enjoy each day.  All of my smoothies are "green" in that they include a nice handful of some type of leafy greens, but they are sweet and easy to enjoy because they also incorporate delicious fruits and natural sweeteners like honey or agave nectar. Depending which fruits you throw in on a given day, your smoothie may be more of a sludge color then a pretty green like in the first above photo, but sludge-color or no sludge-color, it will still be delicious and nutritious and you'll be doing your body a huge favor.

While smoothies are definitely filling, you'll be hungry again a couple hours after breakfast, so have some healthy snacks planned to get you through to lunch. My current favorite mid-morning snacks are:
+ Whole grain toast with smashed avocado and sea salt
+ A handful of dried figs
+ A handful of raw nuts like almonds or walnuts, with a little fresh or dried fruit
+ A healthy muffin
+ A small bowl of muesli or granola with milk or yogurt
+ A small bowl of healthy cereal

As for smoothie recipes themselves, there are literally endless ones you can find on Pinterest and other sites (here's a whole slew of them!), but I find that this is a pretty fool-proof group of measurements you can use to make one single smoothie that fills a mason jar:

1 cup of coconut water or milk-of-your-choice. I rotate between unsweetened vanilla almond milk or rice milk and coconut water
1 cup of fresh or frozen fruit
1/2 frozen banana or 1/2 small avocado
1/4 cup yogurt (I prefer vanilla Greek yogurt for protein content)
Sweetener to taste: Honey, agave nectar, stevia, chopped dates (I put about 2 tsp of honey in each of my smoothies)
1 to 2 Add-ons: 
Bee pollen (1 tsp)
Chia Seeds (1 TBS)
Hemp seeds (1.5 TBS)
Ground Flax: (2 TBS)
Ground Cacao or Cacao Nibs (1 TBS)
nut butter
cinnamon
turmeric
vanilla
ginger
..or any number of other super foods and power-packed ingredients you can learn about online and purchase at health food stores or more health-conscious grocery stores!

Here's a great graphic I found on HERE that basically illustrates what I just wrote above:

It's important to remember that you really can't mess up a smoothie, so don't be intimidated. Some will be thicker than others, some will be thinner than others, so just adjust accordingly if needed (add ice, frozen fruit, or yogurt to thicken, or add water/milk to thin). I think it's more enjoyable to drink them with a straw, so have some on hand!

Here's my current favorite smoothie recipe, since peaches are so delicious and in-season right now!

Peach & Greens Smoothie
3/4 cup coconut water
1/2 cup ice
1 whole, very ripe peach cut into chunks (de-pitted, of course). I prefer it un-frozen because it's more flavorful
1/2 frozen banana
1 packed cup or handful of spinach (or Kale or Collards)
2 tsp honey
1 TBS chia seeds
1 tsp bee pollen

Blend in a blender and enjoy :)

You'll never waste fruit again - just freeze anything you have that's about to be over-ripe, and use it in your next smoothie!

DO IT! :)

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Lifestyle Revolution

I have been quiet lately. In some ways I’ve been aching to get back to this space and express again, and yet there is so much keeping me busy and fulfilled in the other parts of my life, that I don’t need it here like I used to.  There are seaons and this is just one of mine.

In this particular season I am undergoing a strange transformation and I think it’s called maturing into full adulthood. Maturing into full adulthood for me, though, has had interesting side effects, and I can honestly say that I am happier in this time of my life than I’ve ever been before. So much of it has to do with opening my eyes and educating myself about nutrition and health, oddly enough, and I’ve hesitated to really express it here lest this blog turn into post after post about, well, FOOD.

I’m not really sure how it happend. I guess it all started with some food documentaries we watched several months back. One was about Veganism (called Vegucated), and I can’t remember the other one but it was about farming and the importance of supporting local farms and really getting aquainted with your food - making it personal. Now, I don’t really have plans to go Vegan, but YOU GUYS. I beg you to educate yourself, TODAY, THIS WEEK about the common factory-farming meat practices in this country and our world. Ignorance of it is not OK and it’s not an excuse. It is absolutely discpicable what we do to animals raised for food, and I was forever changed after aquiring this knowledge. After watching Vegucated, I cried. Hard. And didn't sleep well for days. I was devastated by what I learned, because my heart is for animals. I was sickened and horrified and so sad that I’d been ignorantly buying in to this system my whole life - as are so many others of us who simply don’t want to know. It’s a system that will only be perpetuated unless as many of us as possible do what we can to make a difference (and the simplest, easiest way is with our dollars - the products we buy at the grocery store).

Yes, this maturing into adulthood I mentioned has had a great deal to do with opening my eyes to the world I live in and not simply being a blind consumer. As I’ve inched away from my old, disengaged way of being, it’s as if blinders have come off and I can suddenly see the way I used to fumble around in the dark along with most other Americans, feeding my body absolute shit that contributed to my terrible PMS and bad skin, as well as supported a system that tortures animals and treats them like machines that feel no pain, suffering, or fear. There are tears rolling down my cheeks as I write this, because that’s how passionately I feel about it and that’s how glad I am to no longer be feeding my body with FEAR.

Besides what I’ve learned about animal cruelty in food production, I’ve learned other interesting and helpful things, about gardening and farmer’s markets and bees and healthy, whole foods straight from the Earth. We’ve had decent luck with our first organic backyard garden, and food has become so much more personal to me, versus this soul-less thing you buy at the grocery store and often let go to rot in your veggie drawer because there’s just no connection there. We waste so much less now because A) we can’t afford it due to the new way we grocery-shop, B) we’ve developed a taste for fresh, healthy food, and C) much of it is coming from our own garden and that’s just cool.

I’d like to talk more about all of this - I have so much to say about it, but I felt like I needed to generally introduce this topic first, then tackle smaller topics down the road. Basically, when something changes my life in such a positve way, I want to spread the word! I want you to experience this too!  But obviously I can’t force anyone to care, I can’t make it be magically the time in your life when you’re open and available for this information and the eventual lifestyle change that follows. But I can plant the seed, and I can tell you it’s really nice on the other side. I’m nowhere near where I want to be in my knowledge of living a healthy life and supporting humane practices, but it’s this thing I’m pursuing every day and learning a little more and a little more about.

I encourage you to watch documentaries like Vegucated, Earthlings, and Food Inc. I haven’t seen the latter two yet, but I’ve heard they are very compelling. Those will give you a push in the right direction. Just watching THIS TRAILER might be all you need to make a serious change.  Like us, you may not be willing to go full vegan or even vegetarian, but rest assured there ARE ways to remain a meat-eater but not buy into cruelty that exists in the meat industry. I’m compiling a list of things I’m now doing to help make a difference, and will post about it ASAP.  Stay tuned…

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Summer Orzo Salad AKA An Explosion of Delicious

Every now and then I make a really share-worthy meal, and this is one of them. I wanted to find a yummy, cold summer salad, and this is an adaptation of one I found and changed around a bit. Matthew and I are completely obsessed with it. It may look un-assuming, but believe me it's not. One bite, and you'll get it.

This recipe can be served as a side dish or a complete meal. We like it as a complete meal, and leftovers for lunch the next day are just as delicious. Hope you try it! :)

Summer Orzo Salad

Ingredients for the dressing:

1/4 cup White Wine Vinegar

2 TBS Fresh Lemon Juice

1 tsp Honey

1/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Sea Salt and Fresh Cracked Pepper

Ingredients for the salad:

12 oz Orzo Pasta

6 cups Chicken Broth

3-4 medium chicken breasts, seasoned with salt and pepper (may be omitted)

1 TBS Olive Oil

2 cups Grape or Cherry Tomatoes, halved

3 TBS Chopped Fresh Basil

1 cup Baby Spinach or Arugula, chopped

1 cup Crumbled Feta Cheese

1/2 cup Pine Nuts, toasted in a dry skillet (toss often, they burn quickly!)

Directions:

- Cook the orzo in chicken broth until tender, according to package directions (I don't add any extra salt).

- Dice your uncooked chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces, sprinkle with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, and sauté on medium heat with a tablespoon of olive oil.

- While orzo and chicken cooks, dice up your tomatoes, basil, and spinach or arugula. Set aside. 

- Toast your pine nuts in a dry skillet over medium-high heat, watching them carefully and tossing often. Set aside to cool.

- Mix all dressing ingredients and set aside. 

- When orzo is done cooking, drain it and allow to cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally so it doesn't stick together - this is important!

- When orzo and chicken has cooled, you may mix everything up, but wait until just before serving to add the pine nuts.  

-May be served at room temperature or cold

Enjoy!

Serves about 8 as a side dish or 4 as an entree 

The beginnings of our garden

I still want to talk about the food revolution we experienced after watching those documentaries, but I just haven't quite had time to formulate my thoughts yet. I can say, though, that said "revolution" invoked a desire to grow our own food (or, more accurately, our stupidly high grocery bills have done the invoking), and we have now started our very first backyard garden. We don't really know what we're doing and so we're crossing our fingers we don't kill everything we've planted, but so far it's been a really fun thing to do together as a couple and we are so excited to eat food that we grew from babies and feel more of a connection to. 

This nursery in the photos is called It's About Thyme, and we've really, really enjoyed the couple of trips we've made there so far. Everyone is so helpful and the plants are actually cheaper than at places like Lowe's or Home Depot. We thought it would be the other way around. It's also a really fun place to snap some gorgeous photos.  I am falling more and more in love with plants and gardening and all things pure and given to us by the earth. We all really need to rekindle our connection with our planet, and I think for us, it's starting with reconnecting to the food we eat. So far it's been a nice journey. 

And in our own backyard.... if all goes well, we'll have tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, squash, zucchini, arugula, some kind of fancy lettuce, turnips, strawberries, basil, parsley, and mint. :)

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Dolce Neve, Austin

The other day I got to try out a new little gelato spot here in Austin, Dolce Neve, and it was to. die. for. It had all of the marks of my favorite places in town: super great aesthetics, locally owned, friendly staff, and oh so yummy. Austinites (or visitors!), I'd recommend this spot most highly! Add it to your list! :)

 

See other Austin recs here. :)

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Cute neighborhood bakery alert: Crema

Austin, like most big cities, I suppose, has the highest concentration of really cute, trendy restaurants and bakeries downtown, where all the folks who can afford six hundred grand for an adorable 1900 square foot bungalow live.  Those bastard bungalow-livers. (I'm just jealous.)

So those of us who live a little farther out on the outskirts of town are stuck driving deep into Austin for a cute cupcake or some good ambiance, and of course we all (or maybe just me) get inordinately excited when an actual locally-owned restaurant or bakery opens up in our 'hood (vs. chain establishments). I drove past this cute little cafe, Crema, the other day, and in the interest of supporting a business that has the guts to open up and be cute outside of Central Austin, I decided to try it out.  As you can tell from the photos above, it's a really great little spot and the food is yummy, too! Awesome cakes, cake balls, and cupcakes, and surprisingly good breakfast tacos. It would be a good place to bring your laptop and do some studying or working, or a nice spot to meet a friend for coffee or brunch. Just putting the word out to those of you who may live in Southwest Austin or plan on visiting.

Happy Thursday!
(view other around-Austin posts here)

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Energy Bites (advisory: highly addictive)

We are all completely obsessed with these "energy bites" around here. They are all natural, insanely delicious, and the perfect, quick snack to whip up and keep in your fridge to hold you over between meals or to enjoy with a cup of coffee, tea, or milk. We love them so much, so I figured I'd share the wealth with you all, too. Just be careful - they're addicting! :)

Energy Bites

1 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup crunchy peanut putter 

1/2 cup ground flax

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/3 cup honey

1 tsp. vanilla

(you could add other things too, if you'd like, such as chia seeds or coconut!)

Mix all together and form into round balls (about half the size of a golf ball). Refrigerate. 

(best after refrigerated a couple hours)  Enjoy!

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Josephine House

I haven't been getting out much lately, but yesterday I met a friend at a new-ish little spot downtown called Josephine House. The cuteness factor was out of this world, so of course I had to document it a bit. What a great spot for lunch, snacks, or an evening drink with a date. Perfection.

house-made vanilla-cherry soda (I'll try cucumber next!) ^ 

My friend Kate's baby is the cutest and sweetest baby on the planet...

Sweet potato beignets with serrano & honey glaze... I was skeptical at first, but they were to die for. Complete savory sweet awesomeness....

Check out more around-Austin posts HERE

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