Lizzie Hall - Product Designer - Specialist in Sustainable Material and Bio Design
My graduate collection ‘The Good Gut Kitchen’ was in response to the growing lifestyle disease health crisis, and the latest scientific research about the gut microbiome, and how it effects our health. Lifestyle diseases which are directly related to the overconsumption of processed foods in western society are diseases such as: heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity and some types of cancer. The gut's microbiome is a complex ecosystem made up of 380,000 billion bacteria from over 5000 different species. The gut needs to be fed with the right probiotics and prebiotics to maintain the complex chain of chemical reactions which affect the rest of our body and overall health.
I explored a range of ideas about how this research could be implemented into our daily routine and lifestyle, consulting with experts in nutrition, farming, gut health and medicine. While experimenting with ways to treat and prevent lifestyle disease she created a range of recipes designed specifically for gut health. These experiments used ingredients from wild farms with high nutrition value, high fibre content, and additional live bacteria cultures on and in the foods and recipes.
As the project developed, she considered how good gut bacteria could be added to any foods, especially those that are highly processed. Processed foods lack the necessary bacteria due to how they are produced, and the preservatives used to prolong the shelf life. As processed foods have largely taken over parts of our diet, such as convenience foods and ready meals, these are the most important food groups to focus on repopulating with good gut bacteria. Some parts of society have little choice but to eat a largely processed diet, and the feeding of their gut's microbiome and maintaining its diversity is most crucial to these people. By developing a way of repopulating these processed foods with good gut bacteria, we could help prevent health complications in the future.
Therefore, as I refined the project, she designed and created innovative kitchen appliances to be used at home or on the go. This collection is designed to repopulate processed foods with good gut bacteria using The Good Gut Incubator and The Good Gut Lunch Box. The Good Gut Live Culture Solutions are filled with live bacteria strains we know are key to a healthy gut microbiome, and these are used to refill the appliances. As we start to learn more about the specific role each of the bacteria play in our overall health, we could revolutionize treatments for illnesses such as obesity, high cholesterol and more. We could even grow personalised culture solutions to treat individuals' gut microbial needs.