Super Gut: A Four-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

by William Davis

These are the steps you’ll take to correct microbiome-disrupting factors: • Avoid sugar—in all its forms. We avoid sucrose, dextrose, high-fructose corn syrup, coconut sugar, brown sugar, agave nectar, turbinado sugar, maltose, maltitol, maltodextrin, rice syrup, and the dozens of other code names for various forms of sugar—they’re all sugar and they all cultivate unhealthy bacterial and fungal species even after just a few days of consumption. • Avoid synthetic, noncaloric sweeteners. Avoid aspartame and related acesulfame, neotame, advantame, sucralose, saccharine, and all foods sweetened with them. This means that nearly all “diet” sodas are off the menu. • Banish emulsifying agents. Especially avoid polysorbate 80 and carboxymethylcellulose but also carrageenan, sodium stearoyl lactylate, and lecithin. • Choose organic. Minimize exposure to herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics, and genetically modified foods that also contain glyphosate and the Bt toxin by choosing organically grown and raised foods. • Filter drinking water. Filter tap water to avoid chlorine, chloramine, and fluoride. • Avoid wheat and grains. By eliminating wheat and grain foods from your diet, you avoid the protein gliadin, which increases intestinal permeability and slows intestinal peristalsis (the natural propulsive movement of the GI tract). You are also thereby reducing exposure to the antibiotic effects of the herbicide glyphosate and avoiding a major source of intestinal inflammation. This alo...