🗞 These nature photos will blow your mind | 3-2-1

The Bircher Bar Weekly 3-2-1 is here to be interesting, educational, actionable and rewarding to you - our readers.

The goal is to pack in a bunch of great articles, recipes, new product ideas and giveaways in a fun and entertaining way - so much so that when you're finished reading it, you're equal parts devastated it's over and eagerly excited for the next one.

It's our job to put this together as best we can and your job to let us know if we hit the mark.

Let's go.

Highlights this week:

• Seed Labs - from the bottom of your gut to now up in space 🌌 

• Slime mould has never looked so beautiful 😍 

• A delicious recipe for egg, prosciutto, and gruyère pastry cups 🤤 

Our newsletter partner this week:

Before we get going, this is where we put some of our other favourite reads 👇 🗞 Give them a quick look - you might love them too ✅ 

3x interesting articles we've found:

From healing your gut to healing the environment! 💊  

If you’ve been a Bircher Bar subscriber for a few emails now - you’ve likely heard of our friends at Seed 🌱 

They’re responsible for creating what I believe is one of the best and most scientifically rigorous gut health supplements on the planet - the DS-01 Synbiotic 🔥 

Beyond this incredible product though, the highly-credentialed team at Seed have gone on to found Seed Labs - which in their own words, aims “to develop novel applications of bacteria to enhance biodiversity and recover ecosystems impacted by human activity”

In everything from problems with C0₂ emissions and honey bees through plastic waste and bio-materials, Seed Labs has already kicked some major goals ⚽️ and in doing so - has just been out on the Time Magazine ‘Best Inventions of 2023’ list 🎉 

The breakthrough that landed them this coveted achievement was the engineering of a bacteria that can be used in the breakdown of single-use PET-plastic monomers (commonly used in food packaging) into a molecule that can be upcycled into high-performance nylon 🪢

In conjunction with MIT, NREL, Cornell, and Harvard, Seed Labs has already deployed this experimental system to the International Space Station where it’s hoped that in the future, astronauts will be able to use it alongside other engineered bacteria strains to ultimately create fuel, food, and spacesuit thread while in orbit 👩‍🚀 🚀 

Mind. Blown. 🤯

Get the details and see all of the other amazing breakthroughs that made the list right here 👇

Nestle 🤝 Diabetes Australia? 😬 

In what will no doubt be a fairly controversial move - Diabetes Australia has recently come out and endorsed Nestle Optifast meal replacement shakes as a good option for treating the disease 🤨 

Based on the results of a 13-week study conducted by the University of Sydney, it’s claimed that (in conjunction with weight management education) - the use of Nestle Optifast shakes led to remission of type 2 diabetes for half of the participants.

While these results may seem impressive at first glance - the meal replacement shakes are really just a branded way to go into a ‘calorie deficit’, which allows your body to burn more energy than you take in 🤷‍♂️

The weight management education aspect of this study is probably the most impactful component in the long term as there are much healthier ways 🥗 to restrict your calories in the long term without using shakes that are nutritionally incomplete and made by a company that is categorically evil 😈 

The study was also supplied with shakes by Nestle and one of the researchers involved had previously been on the advisory board of Nestle Health Sciences 🤦‍♂️

Call me sceptical - but it all seems a bit suspicious at this point 🕵️‍♀️ Anyway, that’s my rant this week - click the button below to make your own mind up about it 👇 

Can you guess what this is? 👇 🤯 

What you’re looking at here is the winning submission for the Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition For 2023 📸 

In what resembles some kind of newly discovered alien landscape 👽, this particular photo is actually a micro-image of Lamproderma scintillans (also known as ‘plasmodial slime moulds’) firmly adhered to an autumnal leaf in Somerset, UK. 🍁 

These incredible iridescent structures were captured by the winning photographer, Irina Petrova Adamatzky, who researches the electrical activity of fungi, slime moulds and other micro-organisms, at Unconventional Computing Lab, UWE Bristol 🖥

While Irina took the title 🏆 with this stunning image - there were many more amazing shots captured in this exhibition in categories ranging from Earth Sciences and Ecology to Astrology and Behaviour.

If you feel like taking 2 minutes to marvel at the amazing natural world in which we live - this is the button for you 👇

It’s Time To Hear From You! 🫵

It’s so cool to see science innovation surging forward in the hands of the awesome team at Seed Labs ⬆️

And with their recent feature in Time Magazine for engineering plastic-eating bacteria 🦠 that may one day be used to create new products and materials in space - it got us thinking about the human fascination with the final frontier 🌌 

This week’s question is for The Bircher Bar reader is 👇 

Last Weeks Results:

Last week we asked you: ‘Do You Think Science Will Ever Figure Out How Humans Can 'Live Forever'?’  

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ✅ Yep - given enough time, science will figure it out

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🚫 Nope - this is one even the best science can't solve

It’s a 50:50 split! Half of you think science will solve for death, and the other half think it can’t be done.

One of our nope voters also had this to add:

I think I’d agree with this ⬆️ - nothing makes you want to hit your goals like a bit of existential pressure! 😉 

And thanks as always to our readers who write in and contribute 🙏 

2 'easy eats' you can make this week

1x epic product find this week:

Like it or not - Xmas is upon us 🎄 

So this week our epic product find of the week is actually … well … 29 different products 🔥 😎 

That’s right, we’ve just dropped our gift guide 🎁 for all the health nuts out there - showcasing 29 great gift options for the health lovers in your life 🏃‍♂️

I don’t want to say healthy living enthusiasts are hard to buy for, but … they aren’t often after a box of Nestle chocolates 🍫 or a case of cheap beer 🍻 

If you’ve got someone in mind who is pretty keen on their healthy living principles and you’ve been struggling to come up with what might suit them this year 🧐 - hopefully this guide will help you out! 👇

Help Us Grow & Score Yourself Some Epic Freebies!

The long-awaited Bircher Bar referral program is NOW LIVE! 🙌 

So - how does it work?? Well - it’s as easy as:

1. Share us with some of your friends and family who you think might like us as much as you do

2. Get rewarded with products that I already know you love for everyone you send our way!

Everyone wins! 😃 

Our Current Subscriber Specials:

These are only made available to our email list, to use them, simply click the links below and enter the coupon at checkout (where applicable)

Keep checking this list as we are always getting bigger and better deals for our subscribers! :)

1. SuperFeast: Medicinal Mushrooms & Tonic Herbs - enter THEBIRCHERBAR at checkout for a minimum 15% off your entire order.

2. Athletic Greens AG1: Foundational Greens Nutrition - click the link and subscribe for a FREE canister, shaker, 5 travel packs & a 1-year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 (& a 90-day money-back guarantee).

3. SEED - A Revolutionary 'Synbiotic' (Prebiotic + Probiotic Combo) - enter 'THEBIRCHERBAR' at checkout for 15% off your entire first purchase.

4. Live Momentous Supplements: enter THEBIRCHERBAR at checkout for a minimum 15% off your entire order.

5. HumanTonik: Greens, Reds & Synbiotics - enter BIRCHERBAR10 at checkout for a minimum 10% off your entire order.

6. The Natural Edge: Fulvic Acid & Minerals - enter THEBIRCHERBAR at checkout for up to 33% off your entire order.

7. Life Cykel: Mushroom Grow Kits, Infusions, Liquid Extracts & More - enter THEBIRCHERBAR for a minimum 10% off your entire order.

8. Goli Gummies & Nutrition - enter THEBIRCHERBAR at checkout for a minimum 10% (up to 45%) off your entire order.

9. Teelixir: Superfood Medicinal Mushrooms & Tonic Herbs - enter THEBIRCHERBAR at checkout for a minimum 11% off your entire order.

10. Pique Tea: Amazing Matcha & Specialty Tea - click the link for our most up-to-date partner pricing

11. Funday Natural Sweets & Lollies - enter THEBIRCHERBAR for a minimum $10 off your entire order.

12. Tropeaka: Health Foods, Protein & Teas - enter THEBIRCHERBAR at checkout for 10% off your entire first purchase.

13. Biome: Sustainability + Eco-Retailer - click the link for the most up-to-date partner freebies, giveaways and sales

14. True Protein: Protein, Supplements & Workout Nutrition - enter THEBIRCHERBAR at checkout for 5% off your entire order.

15. White Wolf Nutrition: Vegan Protein & Nutrition - click the link and enter thebircherbar at checkout for the best current deal available ($$ off &/or free gifts).

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17. Sipspa Matcha Tea - click the link and enter coupon code THEBIRCHERBAR at checkout for 15% off your entire order.

18. Kenko Matcha Tea - click the link and enter coupon code BIRCHERBAR at checkout for 10% off your entire order.

19. Happy Matcha Tea - click the link and enter coupon code THEBIRCHERBAR at checkout for 10% off your entire order.

That’s a wrap 👉 🌯 

As always - we try to make this the most valuable newsletter available in the health, wellness, lifestyle and science space - so I truly hope you've gotten something from it.

If you have any questions or feedback - don’t hesitate to hit reply and let me know:)

Talk Soon!

Darce 😊