You are what you FEED

Ever heard the phrase “You are what you eat?” Well, it turns out that you are actually feeding much more than just yourself. You are made up of microbes!

Only around 1–10 trillion cells in your body actually belong to you. Trust me, that´s a tiny number. in fact, it´s only 10 per cent of your cells.

Yikes! What´s the rest? (By the way, this topic makes good Science Projects, if you write it up the right way.)

Well, although 10–100 trillion cells are microbes (single-celled organisms) that live in your gut, they´re actually there for your own protection. They´re also much much smaller than a human cell (like a basketball next to an apartment building) so they´re nothing to be afraid of.

These tiny helpers break down carbohydrates that we cannot digest and make vitamins to make us healthy. In return, we give them a warm place to live where they can make little copies of themselves (baby microbes) and do whatever it is that microbes like to do. They sound like Science Projects don´t they!

Funnily, in the days when food was scarce, having these microbes was great. They get a lot more energy out of our food for us than we can get alone. NOW though, there is a lot of food for us to eat and we might be a bit skinnier if these tiny helpers would find somewhere else to live

In total, these 10 – 100 trillion microbes only weigh around 3lb. That´s not much for a whole lot of these little guys!

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