Something is missing…👀 We just realized the #RenaissanceEyes filter was missing a microbiome-friendly portrait: Vertumnus by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1591). A depiction of Roman Emperor Rudolf II as the god of the seasons, covered in 🍐🍎 🍇 🌾🍒 🌽 🥬 🧅 🌰. Unknown to him in the 16th century, Arcimboldo’s works (surrealist portraits of ‘people’ made from fruit and vegetables) would have been a muse of the microbiome today. Why? Different gut microbes feed on different plants.🥦 So, a diet rich in various types of fibers and starches likely supports a more diverse microbial community, a primary indicator of gastrointestinal health. In fact, the #AmericanGutProject (a crowd-sourced, community science microbiome study) found that people who eat more than 30 different plant types in a given week have more diverse gut microbiomes than those who eat 10 or fewer.¹ The compounds found in plants—micronutrients 🍓 (like vitamins B12 and D), phytochemicals (like polyphenols 🫐 ), even carboh...