Are we part of a holobiont? (7/29/2023)

If you haven’t been living in a hole in the ground, you must have heard about the word or concept called microbiome. Microbiome is defined as the community of microorganisms that exists in a particular environment. These can include fungi, bacteria, other singular cellular organisms and even viruses. When we look at us humans these are our gut bacteria and everything else that is down or better in there. Moreover, it seems that even our hands, our body and every other part of our body have a unique microbiome. The microbiome on our left hand might even differ from that on our right hand. Being a baker, I listened to a podcast on sourdough breads and it seems that every sourdough baker has a microbiome on their hands that is unique to the sourdough starter they use.

The microbiome seems to be responsible for a lot of things in our life including gut health; our resistance to diseases; dementia at older age; and even our mental health. It appears we have more (micro)organisms in our gut microbiome than cells in our body. We are what is considered by some scientists a holobiont.

A holobiont is defined as an assemblage of a host and the many other species living in or around it, which together form a discrete ecological unit. In other words, we as individual humans and our microbiome together are holobionts. There is still some controversy about this concept of holobiont and even my spell checker does not know the word yet.

What medical science is slowly telling us is that if our microbiome is off, we get in all kinds of trouble. The simple issue maybe diarrhea or other stomach upset. It may include weight loss or conversely in folks who suffer from obesity. As I mentioned above, it seems that Alzheimer can even be linked to our microbiome being out of balance, or at least it can excel the mental decline or onset of dementia in some. We can change our microbiome with the food we eat, and this is where the concept of not “not every calorie is the same” comes from. We are hopefully also all learning about probiotics (fermented foods rule), prebiotics, and now even post-biotics. All parts of a healthy nutrition that is good for gut health. Folks with CDIF (or Clostridium difficilus), a very virulent bacterial infection may even require a fecal or poop transplant to get a healthy microbiome from someone else implanted in their gut. Which might be the only way to shake this disease.

Anyway, I want to stop here, and write more about the concept of holobiont. This idea, an assemblage of a host and other species living together in some form of harmony is interesting to me and to a lot of scientists. I think this is what makes it so darn controversial. One of the reasons is that if we look at it on a large scale, we can look at an island or even the Earth as a holobiont as well, and that everything living on this earth are part of that assemblage. Ah, we are quickly entering the world of Gaia and I think this is where the whole concept of holobiont runs into trouble. Gaia is more metaphysical; it seems to be more the believe in the divine personification of the Earth and the matriarch of all things in existence. Modern pagans believe Gaia is the Earth and she is the spiritual embodiment of the Earth. In other words, scientist that consider the Earth a holobiont are skating on thin ice and can be accused of being pagans or some other form of religious heretics.

However, the concept is an interesting one. Like our gut with diarrhea, the earth can also get or be out of balance when the assemblage of species gets out of balance. An interesting concept isn’t it? It is somewhat Malthusian, but I am beginning to believe that we are exceeding the carrying capacity of the earth; the carrying capacity is the number of individual humans the earth can safely handle before things go awry. In my eyes, we humans could be considered the E. coli of even CDIF of the Earth. There are just too many of us, and the Earth is sick! That is what I think we are seeing, global warming, the weather is going bonkers; everything seems out of balance. Even today there was a report that the gulf stream that keeps western Europe warm may be diminishing and put Europe in an eventual deep freeze. Strange days indeed! Have we reached the point of no return? I don’t know, only time will tell.

During our hike last week we encountered communities like this.  Although not a holobiont, the lichen on the rock are a perfect union of algae and fungi living together in perfect harmony.  In addition I just loved the community of plants.  This was in Grayson Highland State Park. 

 

So how is your first pandemic going? (3/30/2020)

So how is your first pandemic going? At least for many of us it is, unless you are 102 years old and reading this darn blog, and if you do, you are out of your mind. I guess I am not counting HIV, SARS, Ebola and whatever else we had between 1918 and now. I am not telling you that those were not severe, but this one eats the cake. 

I have been social distancing for two weeks and a couple of days now. At least I get to see my wife at the end of the day. When I walk the dog, I get to see the regular folks walking down the street, and we greet each other from a distance. I also get to say hello to my coworkers every day during our check-in. This weekend we had a virtual dinner date with friends where we sat down on “WhatsApp” and had dinner together. Then we had a Zoom church service and a Zoom church meeting afterwards. While fun, rewarding and satisfying, nothing beats a one on one meeting with friends or colleagues. So, euphemistically, I will keep calling it house arrest. 

So how else do I cope with it all? I noticed that I am reading more. I am really enjoying a book entitled “The Invention of Nature, Alexander von Humboldt’s new world” by Andrea Wulf. I have increased my time on the social networks, watch more bonsai video podcasts and while in the beginning I did watch more news, that has diminished somewhat over time. I know the drill now, I know it will be a matter of time we are all going to get Covid-19, or the Corona virus. 

Why am I so certain about catching the darn virus? I think it is unavoidable. I just hope that I don’t catch it when the virus is at its peak, and I need to fight someone for a ventilator. I also hope that when I get it, they figured out what the medicine is to treat it, or maybe that they have developed a vaccine. Lastly, viruses that don’t mutate very fast, and this one does not seem to do that, are supposed to lose their potency or virulence after some time; that is after replicating in other people’s body over and over. In other words, the famous flattening of the curve. But enough of that. I want to report how my life in the pandemic is going. 

It was nice this week to be able to get out twice. I quickly ran out to mail two letters, get fertilizer for my bonsais and medicine for Jake the dog. It was nice to see people in real life, let me tell you. The second time was to take my father-in-law to the ophthalmologist. I stayed in the car but managed to sneak away to the Starbucks drive through for a cup of coffee. A real treat after two weeks without a Starbucks visit! It felt awkward to drive; the roads were relatively empty, except of course the drive-through at Starbucks. I think it took me 10 or 15 minutes to get through it. But it was worth it. 

Finally!  My first store bought Starbucks in a cardboard cup in two weeks!  I missed that face so much.

At home, life has changed; I have graduated from weekend cook to almost fulltime cook. I bake bread whenever I think it is needed. In the past it was mostly on Fridays. I am now the main dog walker and do not have any issue getting my daily 10,000 steps in. 

The latest bread I made: an 80% biga bread.  We are really enjoying this one.

While as a boy from the tropics I do like the heat, I don’t like it that it is getting warm that quickly, because it means that tick and mosquito season is almost here. It means that our back yard and the woods behind our home are going to be that haven for those pesky critters again. It means either pesticides on your body or no more walks in the woods until sometime in October. No we do not treat our yard, because we have bees. It means walking through the neighborhood with all its excitement as I mentioned in a previous blog post <here>. But truthfully walking in the neighborhood is fun. You learn a lot about talking with your neighbors; you need some social interaction. 

Probably the strangest thing is that I have taken up the routine of showering around 4 pm in the afternoon. It was something my mother used to do, and I am not sure if it is genetically ingrained or why it is. There are not many things that my mother did that I am particularly proud off and would like to mimic. However, it allows us to sleep a little later, get the coffee going and my wife of to work and get my day started. On top of that I always remember overhearing Jo-Jo, a female co-worker of mine in the 1990s telling Kathrine, another female co-worker how she would never allow a man sleep in her bed who had not showered before getting in bed. Moreover, if he blew his nose in the shower (without a tissue I assume), he would be kicked out of the house immediately; I am not sure if she even allowed him to put his clothes on. The idea of getting in bed clean always stood with me; I wonder if that is why my mother did it. But sorry, I do blow my nose in the shower; I know, this is too much information. 

I have cleared this nose in plenty of showers and sinks in my life and will continue doing so.

Oh well, just reaching out to all my readers about my (and your) fucking first pandemic experiences. Are we worried? Not for ourselves as much as for our 93-year-old father-in-law who is getting more and more depressed in self isolation. Hope you are all doing well medically, physically and mentally. Hope you all have enough toilet paper and have not yet killed a spouse, kid, pet or other loved one (canary?). Stay tuned and let me know how things are going with you.

Climate change alarm bells are going off (11/27/2019)

It was again in the newspaper today, we are experiencing a climate change crises, or better a global warming crises.  The United Nations issued their report on Tuesday November 26, it seems, which tells us that during the past decade the global average temperature has already risen 1 degree Celsius or for us non metric stone-age folks 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit.  Moreover in the age of Trump the CO2 emissions in the USA last year have increased 2.7%.  This seems to be a reversal from what we were trying to do under the Obama administration of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  This alone should be reason for impeachment, if not by us, at least by our children or by the unborn children he is trying to protect to gain brownie points with the religious crowd.  But is seems, they be damned once they are born.

My wife and I were discussing whether it would behoove us to eat more vegetarian.  But then I was thinking, living here in Virginia would it be better for the environment to eat tofu produced in California or chicken and pork slaughtered here in Virginia?  Yes, those animals eat plant based food and produce a lot of waste.  However, the transportation cost from farm to my dinner plate surely must be less and thus the energy to transport them.  This is an interesting debate to have with yourself and to question with everything you do.  I really think we have to live more purposefully; make decisions in our every day life, with the environmental end in mind; and be concerned about leaving a livable planet for future generations.

A colleague of mine bought a large property with a home on it that might not be the mansion that many of us would want to live in.  It is a simple home; however, like her handle on Instagram which includes the word "homesteader", she and her husband decided to make is a homestead and try to become independent to some extent.  The first year they were there, they raised chickens for the slaughter, planted a garden, which did not do very well (the soil was to heavy), planted an orchard, all the fish in their pond died, but they had fun trying to find solutions and at least make a start.  I really think this may be a way of fighting the global climate change crisis, grow things locally and if you grow enough, maybe you can sell some of it at a farmer's market or barter.  She chronicled it all on Instagram.  Granted she is not there yet.  A lady down the street seems to want to do the same on her half acre lot.

I myself, what am I doing?  Our yard is wooded, and our vegetable garden is somewhat of a failure since it is mostly in the shade and we are still working stiffs.  I promised myself that I would revive it when I retire.  We try to heat with wood whenever we can, don't use fertilizer or pesticides.  For the rest we do eat vegetarian one or two days a week (no tofu form California though).  I bake my own honest bread.  Can we do better in battling global warming?  I am sure we can.  I would love to put solar cells on our roof; however that would mean cutting trees, which would raise the internal temperature in the house in summer (more air conditioning?).  On top of that, mature trees take out more CO2 out of the air than lawns or smaller trees or young trees.  It is all a question of alternatives.

I just love the profile of this tree on Yorktown Beach.  Again, trees are very productive in removing CO2 and other pollutants from the air. 

But again folks, we need to be aware of what is going on.  We are so close to that point of no return.  The UN says global emissions need to fall by 7.6% starting in 2020 to meet the Paris climate accord.  And then to see we increased it by more than 2.5% last year.  Let's resolve to live purposefully and as I mentioned in one of my posts, "Plant a tree" and consider climate change in our every day decisions, from eating to sleeping.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

You are what you eat (3/12/2019)

Recently, our minister Andrew reminded us in one of his sermons of the four main elements of this world:

1. Air (Wind)
2. Water
3. Earth
4. Fire

I am not sure what the correct order is, but who cares? The fascinating thing was that I realized that at least every molecule of air and water has probably passed through every person in history, the good ones like mother Theresa and the bad ones like Hitler, Mussolini and my (not so) all-time favorite Idi Amin. I acutely became aware that I was connected to everyone in our sanctuary at that moment, and that I probably had shared at least one or two air molecules with each one of them that morning already.

Water, as Reverend Andrew reminded us, may actually (partially?) originate from comets and connects us to rest of the universe. I remind my students of its unique properties as a solvent, but in particular of the fact that it is the only chemical compound (that I am aware of) that expands when it gets colder. Since a lot of my guys work for the Department of Transportation, this is a fact that is not lost on them. Expanding or freezing water is the origin of potholes in our roads and the source of their job security.

There is not much I can share with you about earth and fire, except that they are the origin and we cannot live without them. I have witnessed the virtual lack of life on the core of the earth in an area of Newfoundland. The Tablelands Areas of Gros Morne National Park is amazing; this area had no (top)soil or earth, and visible life was scarce. It looked like Mars; and word has it, NASA seems to has tested there Mars rovers there.

This picture was taken by my wife during our trip (2017).  To the right is a wetland pocket where some low vegetation is possible but the majority of the Table Lands look like what is in the foreground.

In my workshops I often tell the attendees that “you are what you eat.” No, as most of you know I do not teach nutrition courses, nor do I give motivational talks hoping they lose some weight or get healthier. I sometimes do get a standing ovation after taking for six hours straight, which I find terribly embarrassing to tell you the truth. Most of you know I am somewhat of a dilatant: a sailor; bread baker; cyclist; naturalist; biologist; photographer; a shin kicker; and amateur philosopher; and a teacher. In other words, I can talk about a variety of subjects for hours. So yes, I could probably give a health talk and yes some of my students could stand to get in shape (but so could I) or stop smoking. But when I mention “you are what you eat” I do this in context of my workshops on soil, plant nutrition and establishment.

The latest bread I baked.  It is a banana sourdough and was an interesting bread to make.  No artificial ingredients: bananas, flour, water, salt and natural yeast, that's it.  Honest ingredients, you are what you eat! 

What I tell my students is that when you give your plants a good, healthy, nutritious soil you get healthy plants, or a good vegetative stand, like a lawn. But is you give them a crappy soil you get a crappy vegetative stand or sickly plants. Makes sense doesn’t it? One way of achieving this is by adding organic matter to the soil. Organic matter or compost kick starts the soil microorganisms that are so sorely needed for a healthy soil. This is why I got so angry in this blog at my neighbors for bagging their leaves.

One way of ensuring a healthy soil is by taking soil samples and getting them analyzed by an accredited lab. They should be able to let you know what nutrients are missing in the soil and what you need to add to make it better. I am no enemy of synthetic fertilizer, except for the fact that it takes a lot of energy to produce or transport some of them. But in fact, I really do not think there is a heck of a lot of difference where the nitrogen or phosphorus comes from. However, I am in favor of sustainability. Moreover, a lot of the organic fertilizers bring in micro-nutrients and organic matter which are good for the soil and thus for the plants.

I am no friend of pesticides or chemicals that control weeds and bugs. For one many of these chemicals break down and seem to transform to estrogen type compounds. Honestly, estrogen is not something I want to have a lot of in my body. In addition, I strongly believe that we are all connected in this world and that we depend on each other. Many of these chemicals will travel far and impact and harm more folks and species than we ever intended.

So, where am I going with this post? Talking to my students in workshops, I tell them you are what you eat. The plants they eat represent what they are being offered in the soil. Water, nutrients, organic matter, contaminants and agricultural chemicals including pesticides. We are what we eat: those plants, or animals who eat those plants, the (contaminated) water that we drink. We are the top of the food chain, unless you get mauled by a mountain lion or a grizzly. But in the case of those mountain lions or grizzlies, don’t you want to offer them the cleanest, least contaminated food possible? But in any case, those contaminants are not good for your health neither for for those creatures below in the food chain or potentially above you. Let’s just try to keep our environment clear, our air, water, earth … and fire!

My "Go to" bread (2/14/2019)

In various posts <here and here> I have mentioned that I am a home baker. I have posted pictures of my breads on Facebook and Instagram and I am a member of two bread baking groups on Facebook.  Recently, I was asked by a friend of my wife why the bread her daughter was making had a horrible crumb (it was crummy and never stayed together).  So my wife volunteered my "go to" recipe and asked me if I would be kind enough to share it with her.  In other words, I spent an afternoon typing it up in a way that someone else could execute it, after which we thought I might as well publish it here on my blog.

This is my latest bread.  It is slightly different.  Instead of 300/600 whole wheat/bread flower (see the recipe below), I did 300/50/550 with the 50 being buckwheat flower.  Buckwheat makes the bread taste slightly nuttier, but more crumbier (looser).  Buckwheat has no gluten and gluten makes bread stick together.

So this is my go to bread.

First, I work in grams and baker's percentages, and for those of you who do not know how that works let me explain it.  Don't worry, I also have the recipe in cups, but that is so less precise and often the reason why things fail.  You need to buy a scale that works in grams if you want to be a serious bread baker; they are cheap (mine was $16 and is good enough).

How do bakers percentages work?  Solids like flour and oats (in this recipe) together are always 100%.  Some bakers just say let's start with 1000 grams, but sorry, as you will see, this recipe starts with 1020 grams.  The liquid you add makes the baker's percentage.  You add water (sometimes milk, beer or cider) and the ideal is about 70% to 80%.  If you want a baker's percentage of 70% you would add 700 grams of liquid to 1000 gram flour (solids).  Less liquid (60%) makes to bread denser and heavier more liquid makes it softer and more open. High moisture breads, 80% or higher makes foucaccia.

In the recipe below you have 1020 grams solids and 760 grams water which give you a baker's percentage of 760/1020=75% (whole wheat and oats are thirstier than only white flour).

This recipe uses oats. I sometimes use Bob's Red Mill 10 grain cereal instead, or cracked rye, a mix of the two, or of all, just keep it to the 120 grams.  The other day I actually put in 120 grams of baked sweet potato, this made a very nice tasting bread, especially when toasted.  There is a lot of moisture in a baked sweet potato so you could reduce the water a little (say by maybe 10 or 20 grams; just experiment) or add a little flower (not too much).

As I mentioned, I will leave the cups in the recipe, but I found it not accurate enough, and it gives you not enough dough to sufficiently fill two 9 inch bread pans. In the grams recipe I have increased everything by approximately 20% to get a nice loaf for our standard U.S. 9 inch pans.

Bakes 2 loaves (again, the grams recipe is more accurate and is 20% more than the cups recipe)

• 1 cup oats  ...  120 grams
• 2 cups of boiling water  ...  760 grams
• 1 Tablespoon molasses or honey  ...  2 Tablespoons for the grams recipe (lately I have not been using any honey or sweetener)
• 2 teaspoons salt  ...  8 grams
• 1 cup whole wheat and  4 1/2 cups bread flour (all-purpose flour is ok too)  …  900 grams (300 whole wheat and 600 bread flour) 
• 1/2 Tablespoon instant yeast (I only use instant or bread machine yeast, which does not need blooming)
• 1 Tablespoon butter or oil, plus more for the pan  …  2 Tablespoons (I use coconut oil, but lately I do not use oil at all.  Fat makes the bread softer; just do not use an oil with a strong flavor like olive oil)

1. Place the oats in a large bowl. Bring water to a boil and pour 200 grams over the oats. Stir in the sweetener and butter if you are using it. Let stand and cool for 20+ minutes (make sure it is cools to 110 to 100 degrees). When it reaches that temperature stir in the yeast.

2. While the oats mixture is cooling mix the flour with the remaining cool water.  Mix and knead just enough to incorporate all the flour and water together. Let the mixture rest (covered) for 15 to 30 minutes.

3. Mix the oat mixture into the rested dough and add the salt. Knead in the bowl until a shaggy dough comes together, then pull out onto a floured work surface and knead, adding more flour as needed, until the dough is no longer sticky and relatively smooth (the oats won't make it completely smooth), about 15 minutes. Resist adding more flour in the beginning, it will start out very sticky, but after 10 or so minutes it should get less and less sticky.

4. Shape the dough into a ball, place back in the mixing bowl, cover with a dish cloth and place in a warm, draft-free spot (like a turned-off oven) to double in bulk (about an hour).

5. Butter two standard loaf pans (I use Pam or some other cooking spray). When the dough has doubled in bulk, gently pull it out of the bowl onto the work surface. Carefully cut the ball in half. Do not knead, but gently fold and shape the ball into a loaf shape the length of the loaf pans. Place each piece of dough into a pan, cover anew with the dish cloth and let rise until doubled in bulk (about an hour).

4. Remove from the oven, if that is where you were letting the loaves rise, and preheat to 425. Approximately 5 minutes before the loaves go into the oven place a roasting pan on the bottom rack in the oven with some water in it to create steam.  Remove the dish cloth and place the pans in the oven.  I score the loaves with a sharp knife. When putting the pans in the oven watch out for the blast of steam!  Bake for 20 minutes with the steam.  After the 20 minutes remove the baking pan with the water (watch out for the blast of the steam) and continue baking for another 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack and enjoy, The bread will keep in a bread box for 4 to 5 days or can be frozen in plastic freezer bags.

About kneading:

I love kneading, it is very meditative. But there is also folding and I am really starting to like that technique. This involves a quick knead in the bowl in the beginning to get everything incorporated and then letting the dough rest. After a half hour you grab the dough (with wet hands) at one side and you pull it over itself (without tearing the dough) and you go around on all sides for a few times. You then rest the dough for a half hour and repeat. You do this three or four times and then you rise it for an hour and pan it. This method it often done with sour dough and if you do it with yeast (as I do it with this recipe) I half the amount of yeast, which makes the first rise (or proofing) go much slower (approximately 2.5 to 3 hours). Some books say let it double others say triple the size. YouTube is full of demos on folding of dough and shaping of dough into loaves.

Bread making is fun and so much healthier.  For me it has become flour, water, yeast.  Nothing more and maybe just a little salt (yeast needs salt to function properly), no additives, nothing.  Healthy, honest bread.  At times, I may knead some sesame seeds, flax seeds or sunflower seeds with it.  But only do that when shaping the loaves at the end.  Enjoy!

Home baker (3/15/2015)

I’m a baker of bread.

Our whole wheat bread

Well you say that’s different, here the nomad talks about baking bread, and not his usual travel, observations of nature or even politics.  In addition doesn't the nomad have enough hobbies?  If you are a regular reader, you know I sail, bike, take photos, read, garden, love to cook, wood work (not lately), grow bonsai (although they have been neglected lately), and love my beers and wines.  In addition, I love to do a Sudoku so now and then as way of relaxing.  On top of that I have a full time job.  If I am not teaching he has a two and a half the three hour commute each day (an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half each way).  I might have mentioned that I love to lay brick and my wife and I have built all kinds of (good looking) structures in the yard (a shed and a wood shed).  I am getting tired from typing all this down for my blog (oops another hobby).  I guess this probably makes me mediocre in everything I do, or maybe not.

Why would a person do all this?  I really don’t know.  My mother always told me I know a little about a lot of things or as they say in the English language, that I was a Jack of All Trades but a Master of None.  Maybe it is escapism, attention deficit disorder, I don’t know; I think ADD was invented after I graduated from college.  I started to look up on Google the term "Jack of All Trades" and interestingly Wikipedia describes it as follows:

“Jack of all trades, Master of none” is a figure of speech used in reference to a person that is competent with many skills but is not outstanding in any particular one."

In his blog, David Mansaray laments that being competent inherently means that you have a certain level of mastery, so in a way the term is a contradiction in itself.  Yes, the blog by Mansaray is more than 4 years old I think, but it is still valid.  Sometimes I hear the words "Renaissance Person" which Wikipedia defines as:

"a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas"

Two fascinating concepts.

Oh well leave it to my mother to tell me which of the two I am.  But then I really do not think there is much difference between the two.  However, like Mansaray I strongly believe that it is important to be multifarious and I am not sure if society encourages this enough.  It seems we are more interested in specialists than in generalists.  I have this thirst to learn things, and I when I stop doing that, I'll stop living.  I still believe that my hands should be able to do what my eyes can see (maybe with the exception of buttoning the cover to the comforter in our bed).

Back to my bread making habit.  I really miss the European breads and the only bread that we find palatable at our house is one that we buy at Costco.  Lately we are seeing that even those loaves are slowly going down hill and that they have an overdose of salt in them.  This prompted me to revive one of the things I did when I was unemployed six years ago, and that is baking bread.  (Here is a previous post on bread baking).  It really is not that difficult, and I have started making a whole wheat bread that is healthy and has really none of the bad things in it like corn syrup, azodicarbonamide, and L-Cysteine.  These chemicals do not belong in bread!  Moreover, my bread has no white flower in it, albeit a little malt which I bought at a shop for beer brewers.

In addition to the brown bread, I make a (Dutch) currant bread, which is such a success that I currently get orders (from my father-in-law).

The results of a Saturday of baking

The nice thing about baking is that it is meditative, it taste good, it is healthy and you have plenty of time between the rising and baking to pursue your other interests and hobbies.  Even when traveling it is good to be home, stay active and have good bread.

Yorktown 9/26/2013

I have been pretty delinquent lately.  My excuse is that my wife has been in the hospital with abdominal surgery and I have simply not been motivated to take pictures and post them.  I will try to post a few in rapid order detailing a bit what has been going on in life.  This picture was taken at home doing one of my other hobbies which is baking bread.  This is a rey/pumpernickel bread that I baked.