Fermented foods are especially good for encouraging a healthy microbiome. “People know about live yoghurts, but the next stage up which has five times as many microbes is kefir, a Persian soured milk,” Spector told me. Other fermented foods like miso soup and kimchi (pickled cabbage) are a delicious feast for your internal lodgers. If that all sounds a bit rich, then garlic, artichokes, bananas and whole grains are also good fibrous fodder. And the polyphenols in red grapes are one of the favourite meals of Akkermansia. Which I’m taking as a good excuse for another glass of red.
