Rooted in Health
by Sarah Schuette, CPSS
You’ve heard the saying: You are what you eat. But what if the food you’re eating—no matter how fresh it looks—is quietly starving your body of what it needs?
What if the problem isn’t just on your plate... but in the soil it came from and the bowels it is bound for?
You might’ve heard that the gut is the “second brain.” That’s not just a metaphor, it's science. The gut has its own nervous system, comprising over 100 million nerve cells. It communicates directly with your brain through the gut-brain axis, influencing everything from digestion to emotion.
At the center of this system is your microbiome, a diverse community of trillions of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes. These tiny organisms don’t just help you digest food, they produce neurotransmitters like Serotonin (90% is made in your gut), GABA, and dopamine that help regulate mood, sleep, and appetite, reduce anxiety, and support decision making.
When your microbiome is disrupted by poor diet, antibiotics, stress, or chemical exposure, it creates an imbalance in your system, resulting in brain fog, mood swings, fatigue, inflammation, autoimmune disorders, and even depression.
The Obligatory Symbiosis— Soil and Gut Microbiomes
Your gut microbiome evolved in constant contact with the soil microbiome, resulting in an obligatory symbiosis between the two. Healthy soil, identified as “living soil,” contains trillions of microbes that break down organic matter, cycle nutrients, and support plant immunity. Just like your gut, this underground ecosystem depends on microbial diversity to function. Today’s conventional farming practices—chemical fertilizers, fungicides, and pesticides—have decimated soil biology as a consequence. When we lose life in the soil, we lose the life source that human health relies on.
Why Living Soil Grows More Nutritious Food
Healthy soil doesn’t just grow food, it grows functional nutrition. Plants require soil microbes to unlock minerals, stimulate root growth, and produce the secondary metabolites that make fruits and vegetables so powerful for human health. These include anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds that modulate the immune system, detoxify the body, and protect against cancer.
When soil biology is damaged or absent, these beneficial plant compounds decline significantly, impacting how our bodies interact with and digest food.
Antibiotics and Pesticides— Blunt Tools for Acute Conditions
Just as antibiotics revolutionized modern medicine, pesticides and synthetic inputs have revolutionized modern food production. But they come with a cost—wiping out beneficial gut bacteria along with the harmful ones, sterilizing the microbiome. Whether in your body or the field, this microbial imbalance—called dysbiosis—leads to breakdown. In people, it shows up as nutrient malabsorption, food sensitivities, weakened immunity, mood disorders, and mental health issues. In soil, it leads to poor plant vigor, nutrient leaching, erosion, and increased pressure from pests and diseases. When microbial life disappears, the whole system suffers.
Extreme Gut Repair: Fecal Microbiota Transplants
Gut dysbiosis is the cause of some of the most common diseases that plague humanity today - Chronic Inflammatory Diseases, Neurological & Mental Health Disorders, Autoimmune Conditions, Metabolic and Cardiovascular Diseases, Immune and Skin Disorders, and Cancer!
Modern medicine now recognizes the importance of microbial diversity. In some severe cases of dysbiosis, doctors are resorting to fecal microbiota transplants (FMTs). Yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like: transplanting gut microbes from a healthy donor into a sick patient to restore balance. What once seemed extreme or fringe is now FDA-approved to treat recurrent C. difficile infections, and it's being studied for everything from IBS to depression.
This radical intervention reveals just how deeply human health is tied to our microbial partners, and it mirrors the kind of regenerative work farmers are doing to bring dead soil back to life.
Farming for Health— Healing the Soil, Healing Ourselves
Regenerative agriculture actively repairs what we have actively destroyed. Instead of fighting nature, regenerative farmers work with it—building microbial life in the soil through compost, cover cropping, crop rotation, minimal tillage, and biological diversity.
As the soil microbiome is restored, plants become more nutrient-dense, resilient, and flavorful. That’s the kind of food that doesn’t just fill us up, but feeds our microbiome, repairs our guts, and helps our second brain thrive.
From Dirt to Digestion to Decision-Making
Your gut isn’t just digesting your food; it’s shaping your thoughts, energy, immune response, and emotional resilience. The microbes in your gut and soil are your unseen allies. When we degrade one, we harm the other.
So next time you think about health, don’t just think about the gym or the grocery store. Consider the soil, as true health begins beneath your feet.
