Massively. Changing diet is about the only realistic way to elicit long-term changes in the microbiome. Even taking probiotics doesn't last very long.

There's a lot of questionable microbiome science that hasn't been replicated. You can find a lot of studies that say something changes the microbiome, but it's almost always a single short-term observational study on a small group of people.

Realistically, increasing vegetable intake and reducing processed food intake are the easiest knobs you can turn to adjust the microbiome. A lot of people reach for supplements or imagine extreme measures like fecal transplants, but the practical solution is to simply buy some snacking vegetables every time you go to the store and eat them throughout the day.

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TuringTourist 10 hours ago | parent [-]

What is your definition of processed food? Are potatoes processed because they are cleaned? Is chicken breast processed because the chicken is plucked? Is vinegar processed because it has undergone a chemical transformation via fermentation? Are potato chips processed because they are sliced potatoes fried in oil? Are fried plantains processed because they are sliced plantains fried in oil?

I do not mean to come across as antagonistic, I just haven't been able to find a line that everyone agrees with and felt it was useful to demonstrate that by asking a bunch of questions.

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healthless 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> What is your definition of processed food? Are potatoes processed because they are cleaned? Is chicken breast processed because the chicken is plucked? Is vinegar processed because it has undergone a chemical transformation via fermentation? Are potato chips processed because they are sliced potatoes fried in oil? Are fried plantains processed because they are sliced plantains fried in oil?

In practice, for the vast majority, it doesn't matter where the line is drawn.

Simply moving your diet as close as possible to unprocessed food (read: minimal steps between organism and ingestion) is the goal.

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Diti 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My personal definition is that if you can stack the food you buy, it has been processed. It’s a subjective definition, and there might be dozens of counterexamples, but it feels true to me.

	▲	bell-cot 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		So Pringles are, but regular potato chips aren't.

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adammarples 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Nobody seems to agree, but the best I've been able to find is that every step counts and the level of invasiveness does too. So a plucked chicken is one thing, but a plucked, chlorine rinsed, freeze dried, ground up, centrifuged, glued, rehydrated, salted, etc. is another

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porridgeraisin 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think an easy 80% solution is to have rarely stuff that will be called processed no matter how you draw the line e.g doritos

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cyberax 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I've heard the theory that it's the ease of separating the food into small chunks with high surface area that matters.

Most processed food is made of ground meat and various types of mush/pastes, so it easily falls apart in the gut.