Funnily enough, after my editor sent me these three books to read, my guts started playing up. Suddenly, food seemed to go straight through me. At first I wasn’t bothered, but when it didn’t get any better I began to worry. I went to see my doctor. She told me to bring her a piece of poo to see if they needed to stick a camera up my bum. I realise this is probably the last thing you want to know, but that’s the whole point about the gut: no one wants to talk about it, or even think about it, until something goes wrong.
These books set out to break this taboo, and they’re full of fascinating things I didn’t know. I had no idea that reading about crapping could be so absorbing. It brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘toilet book’. These toilet books vary in tone and content but they all share the same central premise: we may think digestion is disgusting but that doesn’t stop it being interesting. And the most interesting thing is, each person’s gut is unique.
The main thing I learned from these books is that our guts are full of bacteria. Only a few of them are bad for you, and some do you a lot of good. Each person has a different set, depending on where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to. Like your internet history, it’s a map of who you are.
Hunter-gatherers had a broad range of bacteria, because of the broad range of stuff they ate. Growing our own food narrowed this range, which was bad news for our intestines. Industrialisation made things even worse. Modern life has reduced the prevalence of bacterial diseases, but it’s made us more prone to allergies. Messing with our bacteria could be at the root of all sorts of other ailments, too.
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