Everybody knows we’re not afraid of a little potty talk, so we get asked a lot (A LOT) of questions about poo. Most commonly, “How often should a person go?”

Obviously, we think you should poop as much as possible (we’d sell more toilet paper that way), but we also recognise that might not be the best for your gut’s health. So we decided to bring in an expert in just that – gut health.

Meet Joanna Baker. She’s an Accredited Practising Dietitian and  registered nurse based in Melbourne, Australia who specialises in gastrointestinal nutrition (gut health) and food intolerances. We had the pleasure of chatting with her about mucus linings, the bugs that live in your belly and, yes, how much TP you should be using.

Do you talk about poo a lot?

Day in and day out. Pretty much everybody I talk to, "How often are you going to the bathroom? What's it like? Can you describe it for me?" It's what I do. It's normal to me now. It’s a big part of understanding your gut health.

Wow, what a segue! What exactly do we mean when we say “gut health?” 

Gut health, gut flora, gut microbiome, gut microbiota, gut bacteria – a lot of those words are used interchangeably. Generally, what most people are referring to is their gut microbiome, which is pretty much everything combined. It’s the sum total of all the bacteria and the fungi and microbiota and bugs living in the gut. So…

Wait, did you say bugs?

Yeah!

Um, what type of bugs are we talking about?

Different types of bacteria! There are more bugs living in our gut than we have cells in our entire body, by like millions more.

Get out of town. 

And they do lots of amazing things for us. Some of the food we eat is actually supposed to provide nourishment for them. It's kind of like we've got these little pets living in our gut, and when we eat, part of what we're doing is feeding them and keeping them healthy.

Ok, that just sounds like we’re doing stuff for them.

Well hold on. In return, they keep our gut healthy by providing a physical barrier. In the lining of our gut, we've got this mucus layer that's protecting epithelial cells. The epithelial cells are the last barrier between our gut and our body.

If we've got a really healthy gut microbiome, that nourishes a healthy mucus layer, we’re protecting the lining of the gut. Then underneath that mucus layer, we've got a lot of immune cells, and the gut bugs and the mucus layer on the epithelial cells control the information that goes from the gut to the immune cells.

So basically, we have a whole garden inside of us with flora and bugs and bacteria – a whole ecosystem that protects the lining of our gut. 

Right.

And we want to protect the lining of our gut because that's where the cells that produce better immunity live?

In nutshell, just in a real sort of simplified way...yes. That’s right.

The smallest of nutshells.

Haha yes, it’s about immunity, prevention of chronic diseases, all sorts of other things too.

For example, we know that about 90% of our serotonin, which is our feel good hormone, is produced in the gut and the gut bacteria are involved in that. They also produce vitamins like vitamin K. They produce hormones and neurotransmitters and a host of other things. So if we keep them healthy, they do lots of stuff that keeps our body healthy. So it's a real symbiotic relationship where we look after them and they look after us.

This is so fascinating. Is it possible to have too much of an ecosystem? Too much gut flora?

There's never been any research that has indicated it's possible to have too much. The thing about this gut microbiome is that science is now at the point that we can take a stool sample and we can do a nice little map and we can tell someone exactly what bacteria they've got living in their gut.

It’s kind of cool, but it's kind of an issue as well because everybody's gut flora is different. It's more individual than fingerprints. It's influenced based on what your mother ate while she was pregnant with you. It's influenced based on how you were born. It's influenced based on whether you were breastfed or bottle fed. It's influenced based on stress levels, the food that you eat, any medications you take, where you live in the world, what the environment is like around you, whether you have pets or not.

So no two floras are alike? 

Exactly. And it doesn't actually matter what specific strains people have, as long as we've got the little niches that are able to perform certain tasks. So what they do is more important than what they look like.

It's sort of like how backyards gardens all look very different. You could have a rose garden, you could have a Japanese inspired garden, an Italian garden...

Yes!  But as long as it's healthy and flourishing and making your house look pretty, it doesn’t matter what kind of garden it is. I love that comparison.

Ok, but back to the individual biomes. My mom famously ate a lot of chocolate pudding while she was pregnant with me. What do you think that did to my gut flora?

Haha, how long is a piece of string? We don't know. What science does know about gut flora is that we know having a lot of it is a good thing and having a lot of different types of it is a good thing. Those are the things that we know for sure.

What are some things that people can do if they're really looking to garden their gut?

There is a huge study that's been going on in the U.S. for quite a while, called the American Gut Project. As part of their research they compared people who ate 30 different plant foods in a week to people that ate 10 different plant foods in a week. 

They found that the people who ate 30 different plant foods had a much more abundant and diverse gut microbiome than the people only ate 10 different plant foods. So if you want to nourish your gut, you want to eat a high fibre diet. You want to eat lots of plant foods and lots of variety of plant foods.

You know, a lot of people think about “healthy eating” as a way to lose weight or look a certain way. But you're really just talking about “healthy eating” as a way to not get sick. 

That's where I come from as a dietitian. I'm not going to tell someone to cut out sugar or cut out fat or cut out anything. I'm going to encourage them to eat more plant foods, eat more variety because that stuff is more achievable and it's more sustainable in the long-term.

Also, there’s more than one kind of health. You've got physical health, which is super important, but you've also got mental health.

Food isn't just about nutrition. Food is about memories. When you think back on Christmases and birthdays and things, food is often a big part of that. When you're going out to see friends and connect with people socially, food is a big part of that. People eat for religious reasons. People eat for comfort. When it's cold outside, you curl up with a hot mug of cocoa or a hot soup or something, and food as part of that as well.

I wouldn’t suggest eating only healthy food all of the time because then your mental health is suffering.

Well that’s great to hear. Especially because a lot of foods are good for gut health are very fibrous, and it sounds like a lot of time on the loo.

For some!

In your expert opinion, how many times a day should we be going to the bathroom? And what's the appropriate amount of paper to be using?

Anything from three times a day to once every three days to poop would be considered normal. If someone's going for a whole week and only pooping once, I would say that's not enough. If someone's going six or seven times a day, I'd say that's probably too much. But it's anywhere between three a day to once every three days.

What's probably more important than how often someone's going is the comfort, pain, bloating that's impacting on that.

What do you mean by that? 

We want comfortable digestion, that ease of going to the toilet, the comfort, that feeling of satisfaction after going to the toilet...

So it's not about how much toilet paper you use, it's how happy you are when you use it.

Of course, and obviously we've got to think about the sewer system. We don't want to block it up.

True, true. 

It's a rite of passage for a father to come in and give a child a lecture on how much toilet paper is appropriate.

Haha, totally! Well those are all of my questions, Joanna. Thank you for your time!

Thank you, it’s been a pleasure. 

If you have any questions about gut health (or your poos), you can reach Joanna through her website or on Facebook / Instagram. 

If you need a lovely toilet paper for those poos, well, you know where to find us.