Ruminants depend on gut bacteria to digest cellulose, highlighting the importance of maintaining a healthy microbiome. Using antibacterial products, whether for pets or surfaces, can disrupt this balance by eliminating beneficial bacteria. It is crucial to reflect on the consequences of employing such products, as they may create a temporary sterile environment, but nature will quickly repopulate surfaces with unknown bacteria. The focus should be on understanding the impact of our actions on microbial ecosystems rather than solely seeking sterility.
We know that being kind to our gut biome is crucial to our health, but what about the trillion happy helpers (or not) on our skin, in our lungs, our ears, our mouths… the things we slaughter daily with the ‘cleaning products’ we splash around our homes that not only impact our biomes directly, but leach out into our waterways, soil and the air that we breathe so we end up adding to ecosphere annihilation.
Human health and the health of our planet are intimately interwoven and while we're all getting to grips with the need to keep our gut biomes (and those of the animals who share our lives) healthy, we're woefully behind on the need to look after the rest of our biome: skin, lungs, teeth, eyes, ears..
I listened to Joe Flanagan months ago on Viki French’s brilliant ‘PupTalk’ podcast and knew we needed to talk here, too.
Joe is a font of information and this was a unique opportunity to explore ideas with someone right at the cutting edge of transformation. We talked everything from canine aural surgery to human behaviour and the corruption endemic in our health systems. Above all, we got to grips with the fact that if each of us changes our behaviour – if we actively choose to stop poisoning the planet that is our home – and stop poisoning ourselves and those we care most about at the same time – we can make radical improvements in the way our system works.
Joe is the Owner of Ingenious Pet Probiotics https://ingenious-probiotics.com/
Joe on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-flanagan/
Ingenious Probiotic products are not a medicine or medical device - if in any doubt, always consult your vet.
Any Human Power Book Club Sunday 15th September 6-8pm UK time (BST) https://accidentalgods.life/any-human-power-discussion/
Pup Talk Podcast with Vicky French https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/pup-talk-the-podcast/id1525563393