We Study Microbes Because It’s Good for Your Health
Here’s a piece adapted from Michael Pollan’s latest book “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation” which discusses how processed foods and the modern diet have made us more obese and more likely to get sick. He makes a case for eating more fermented foods that haven’t been pasteurized – probiotics, live-culture foods – in order to get the good bacteria back in our guts.
At ISB, the microbiome is an area of focus because microbes play such a huge role not only in humans but in the environment, too. Our annual symposium in 2012 centered on the microbiome (read ISB founder Dr. Lee Hood’s editorial “Tackling the Microbiome”) and brought some of the world’s experts in the field to share the latest research.
Read Michael Pollan’s piece