Seed That

The science behind the song

"Seed That" is built around something genuinely happening on a kitchen windowsill: jars of mung beans, lentils, and fenugreek, sprouting over four days. Many of the seeds we eat carry dietary fibre and oligosaccharides that survive digestion in the small intestine untouched and arrive intact in the colon, where resident gut bacteria ferment them.

That fermentation produces short-chain fatty acids, including butyrate, which is the primary energy source for the cells lining the colon and is one of the better-studied links in the gut-brain axis literature. The song also nods to the idea that eating around thirty different plant types a week is associated with greater microbial diversity. It's worth being precise about that figure: it comes from observational research, not a controlled trial, so it's an association rather than proof of cause and effect.