Hello, I am interested in increasing the healthy flora in my body, for a number of reasons. I think that I might have harmed it by stress and coffee, and a bout of bad eating choices. Anyway, one thing that I am curious about is that I have heard that onion and garlic are prebiotics, in that they would help healthy flora grow while killing uneahlthy bacteria. Does anyone know if this is true? How is it possible that they kill some bacteria while allowing others to grow? If anyone else has any tips for me also along these lines please pass them along! Thanks!!

Yes, onion and garlic are prebiotic. But eating a high fiber diet is also prebiotic. This means lots of unrefined plant foods, especially fruits and vegetables. If you eat an entire head of lettuce plus 20 p9eces of fruit every day you will get a very healthy balance of good vs. bad bacteria.

There is an incredible amount of genetic diversity in the bacterial domain--much much more than in the animal kingdom. Some are photosynthetic, some aren't. Some are killed by certain substances, and some will die without certain substances. Also they are very wily life forms. Under stressful conditions, some of them can send out their DNA along little tubes to other bacteria which will allow for the receiving bacteria to mutate in such a way that increases the chances of survival.

You don't need to take pills for healthy flora. You just need to eat right. I do not think it's possible to have a high population of healthy flora without good eating habits. Pills might make it a little bit better for a handful of identified species but fixating on a few species is not as good as getting the wider range of the good ones.