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  • From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Syntropic Antioxidative Microbes (SAM) – a Unique Class of Probiotic Beneficial Microbes
  • Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2013 12:44:00 -0400

Syntropic Antioxidative Microbes (SAM) – a Unique Class of Probiotic
Beneficial Microbes
http://sam.vmicrobial.info/

Home Page <http://sam.vmicrobial.info/index.html> | How I Got Involved with
SAM <http://sam.vmicrobial.info/how-got-involved.html> |
Contact<http://sam.vmicrobial.info/contact.html>|
Disclaimer <http://sam.vmicrobial.info/disclaimer.html> |
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*Syntropic Antioxidative Microbes (SAM)
* *a Unique Class of Probiotic Beneficial Microbes*


ver. 1.2.3; last updated 03/31/2012
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Copyright notice may be found on the copyright
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*This site has been created by Vinny Pinto, a mystic, spiritual healer and
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*Preface*
This page will introduce you to a unique category of beneficial probiotic
microbes that I tend to call by the name "syntropic antioxidative
microbes". Before we jump into the meat of the matter, I feel that it would
be useful to offer you a brief preface and introduction into how I came to
be involved in this field.

As some of my readers who are familiar with my other websites and/or email
list groups may already know, I am not only a research and development
(R&D) consulting scientist with a Master's degree in the sciences, but I am
also a mystic and an intuitive, and I have, for many years, been
surrendering each day of my life, including all of my activities, to
service to Divinity, that is, to what I call Supreme Heart (aka Sacred
Heart) and Holy Spirit. So, you may ask, why am I mentioning this fact here
and now? Well, you see, the only reason that I started to investigate and
eventually work with syntropic antioxidative microbes, starting a number of
years ago, back in late 2002, was due to direct guidance, along with some
powerful nudges (more on this below…) that I received from Holy Spirit.

*Introduction*
As some of you will likely already know, my name is Vinny Pinto. I am a
degreed scientist with a graduate degree in the sciences and with extensive
undergraduate training in the sciences and in engineering. I have been
working with beneficial syntropic antioxidative microbes since late 2002,
and particularly with PNSB and with the SAM Type 4 (aka SAMT4) microbial
consortia, including the SAMT4 microbial consortia often known worldwide as
EM and EM-like microbial cultures, which have been widely used in fields
ranging from human nutrition to agriculture to waste remediation. Since
late 2003, I have been providing consulting on uses and applications of SAM
microbes (and particularly SAMT4 microbial consortia) across the world, and
I have rendered consulting services in this field for companies located on
every continent except Antarctica, and my consulting work in this field has
taken me to every corner of the USA, and to places around the world ranging
from southern India to Nicaragua to Malaysia. I have been told by many
prospective clients and vendors that I am seen as the premier consultant in
this field across the world.

I have, since 2003, operated two large email list groups devoted to the
topic of beneficial SAM microbes, have authored two books in the field, and
have delivered lectures on this topic (particularly on the use of SAMT4
microbial consortia in human nutrition, agriculture, waste management and
odor control) across the USA and across the world.

*More About the Author; Consulting Services *
If you wish to learn more about me (Vinny Pinto), including a more detailed
background and bio, and also including an overview of the websites and
email list groups that I operate, please see my main consulting website, at
http://www.vinnypinto.us

If you are interested in utilizing my consulting services, please be
advised, as noted on my main consulting website, that I have largely
retired from providing consulting services in the realms of the sciences
and engineering, but I still do accept a few consulting projects that I
might find interesting or of benefit to the world at large. For more
information on my consulting services, including terms and rates and how to
handle the application process, please see my main consulting website, at
http://www.vinnypinto.us

*My Foray into the Realm of Syntropic Antioxidative Microbes*
For the complete tale of how I got involved in doing R&D work, and
ultimately, consulting work across the world, in the realm of beneficial
antioxidative microbes, you will want to see the page on this website
entitled *Some History and Background: How I Became Involved in this
Field<http://sam.vmicrobial.info/how-got-involved.html>
*. The story on that page will relate the somewhat magical tale of how I
was led to work in this realm in the last few months of 2002. Ultimately,
by late 2002, the cumulative mass and import of all the coincidences and
synchronicities that I relate in the above-linked page was too great to
ignore, and I finally *woke up and smelled the coffee* -- I began to pay
attention to the subtle messages that I was receiving, and in short order,
based upon inner guidance, I started researching a very unique type of
beneficial probiotic microbes, often found in the soil, and sometimes in
waste streams, which I quickly came to call *syntropic antioxidative
microbes*; for shorthand, I started to call this genre by the acronym *SAM*.

*A Brief Definition of the Term Syntropic Antioxidative Microbes
*Briefly, if you have not yet guessed, I reserve the term *syntropic
antioxidative microbes* for microbial species and microbial consortia (that
is, cooperative aggregate microbial communities consisting of anywhere from
three to over forty species of microbes working together) that exhibit all
of the following significant properties:

- they exhibit antioxidative properties, that is, they produce
significant quantities of various antioxidants as metabolites when
digesting foodstuffs (which may range from plant matter to sewage to toxic
waste), in a fashion analogous to the manner in which brewer's yeast
digests sugars and produces alcohol as a metabolite, that is, as a waste
product. As a result of the production of these antioxidant compounds (aka
reducing compounds), most SAMs, in most settings, tend to exhibit
pronounced deodorizing properties, and also detoxification properties as
well.

- most SAM also tend to produce as metabolites a unique class of
*antioxidant
assistant* compounds that are very important in certain biological
process within living organisms, and also quite important in in-situ
bio-remediation of contaminated soils and bodies of water; these compounds
are variously referenced in both the popular literature and the scientific
literature by names such as *antioxidant assistants*, *antioxidant
helpers*, *electron shuttles*, *electron transfer agents*, *electron
relays* and *electron mediators*. One example of such an antioxidant
assistant compound is ubiquinone, also known as Coenzyme Q10 (aka CoQ10),
and other related quinones which also exhibit electron shuttle properties.
As a result of the production of these compounds, most SAMs, in most
settings, tend to exhibit pronounced deodorizing properties, and also
detoxification properties as well.
- SAMs also exhibit syntropic (also known as negentropic or
anti-entropic) properties, that is, they seem to prevent destructive *
decay*, or breakdown of various compounds, and instead seem to encourage
creation of compounds with higher order and structure; that is, they tend
to enhance or preserve the order, entropy and energy in a system.

As you will see below, some syntropic antioxidative microbes are found in
nature, while others are combined, usually via fermentation processes, by
humans for special applications ranging from making foodstuffs to treating
agricultural soils, to remediating toxic waste.

*Some Commonly-Encountered Instances of SAM*
The first instances of SAMs that I encountered in the first few months of
my foray into the realms of syntropic antioxidative microbes were purple
non-sulfur bacteria (aka PNSB) used widely since the 1950s for waste
management and odor control, followed quickly by natto bacteria (i.e.,
*Bacillus
subtilis var. natto*, used in making a Japanese fermented soybean dish
known as natto), and various types of commercial mixed (that is, containing
more than one species) microbial culture products then being used in the
agricultural field, including the wide family of products, available from
several vendors across the world, that had been loosely known, since 1982,
as "EM" (and were also widely known as well by terms such as "efficient
microbes", "effective microbes", "effective microorganisms" and "efficient
microorganisms"), Vita Biosa, one or two esoteric Biodynamic soil and
compost culture "preparations", and also a strange magical "soil
detoxifying and conditioning" microbial product, a purple-blue fermented
liquid, that had been developed in the 1950s by a long-deceased (d. 1975)
self-educated inventor from the US Southwest named Jim Martin; he believed
that his strange fermented microbial brews could eventually save the earth
and revolutionize the fields of agriculture, human and animal health, and
waste management. And, of course, there was always, lurking in the back of
my consciousness, also an awareness of the mysterious and long-lost
proprietary microbial culture, reputed to have near-magical properties, and
that I have briefly mentioned elsewhere on this site, that had been
developed by the elderly and now-deceased inventor in Nevada, and which had
apparently been fermented using, among other ingredients, urine from mares,
special native American herbs, exotic clays, and eggshell membranes.

Within short order, as I played with these microbes in my lab and learned
more and more about them, I started several email list groups devoted to
various aspects of this field, and particularly the applications of SAM in
health and in sustainable agriculture, along with two informational
websites offering coherent, cohesive and clear information on SAM and their
applications; I did this simply because such information was grossly
lacking in that realm at the time. The entire field of syntropic
antioxidative microbes (particularly in the realm of the various microbial
products that had loosely been called "EM" since the early 1980s), had,
until then, been largely filled with great gobs of confusion,
misinformation and myth, and even what appeared to be some notable attempts
at "disinformation" on the part of some commercial ventures that were
vendors of related products (which may, ultimately, have possibly been due
simply to grossly inept translation of product information into English
from other languages).

I also discovered, in relatively short order as I started playing with
syntropic antioxidative microbes, that consortia (that is, cooperative
aggregate communities of anywhere from three to over forty species of
microbes) of syntropic antioxidative microbes were not only brewed by
modern-day humans, but that they also occurred in nature, with perhaps the
most notable example being the often pinkish or purplish fluid filling the
pitchers (a bowl formed by the leaves) of various pitcher plants (i.e.
carnivorous plants), particularly *Sarracenia* species, growing in the
Americas, and also some other pitcher plants (including some
*Nepenthes*sp.); the microbial consortium often found in these
pitchers consists of
PNSBs along with yeast, lactic acid bacteria and other beneficial microbes.
I also uncovered some evidence along the way that some varieties of
earthworms contain relatively large quantities of PNSB microbes, in a
consortium along with other microbes, in their digestive tracts.

I also uncovered, along the way, evidence that some ancient fermented brews
used by Native Americans in Central and South America had also incorporated
syntropic antioxidative microbes (most frequently, it seems, PNSBs in
combination with yeast and lactic acid bacteria), and that spontaneous
occurrences of SAM consortia (usually PNSBs and/or *Bacillus subtilis* in
consortia with lactic acid bacteria) have been found at times in samples of
certain raw kefirs, yogurts and cheeses from around the world by modern
researchers. I also discovered some anecdotal evidence that some old legacy
varieties of sourdough yeast used in traditional cultures in baking breads
had, at times during long fermentations, accidentally become SAM consortia
by virtue of the presence of PNSBs (likely acquired from the ambient
environment or from ingredients such as grains) along with the yeasts, and
that this accidental "contamination" often imparted to the culture, or to
the sourdough mass, a pinkish or purplish color. It also appears that some
naturally-fermented hot sauces around the world contain, in addition to
lactic acid bacteria, PNSBs, thus forming a de facto SAM consortium.

*A Technical Book Entitled Fermentation with Syntropic Antioxidative
Microbes*
It is also worth mentioning that in late 2004 I authored a rather lengthy,
complex and dense technical book about fermenting various products using
SAMs, particularly the SAM microbial consortia that I reference as *SAM
Type 4* <http://sam.vmicrobial.info/#samtype4> below; the book was intended
for technically-minded researchers and/or technically-proficient
agricultural users only, and was, fittingly, entitled *Fermentation With
Syntropic Antioxidative Microbes*. I had intended the work to be a rather
technical work, and I had intended, and expected, that it would likely
never sell more than about twenty copies in its lifetime. Much to my
surprise, I discovered within a few years that copies of the book had ended
up in the technical libraries of agricultural colleges and universities,
and also a few agricultural agencies, scattered across the world!

*Categories or Types of Syntropic Antioxidative Microbes and SAM Products
*There exist a relatively small number of microbes which exhibit
significant syntropic antioxidative properties, and they may be available
either as single species cultures (which, is the form in which we encounter
microbes most often in the lab and in industry) and as microbial consortia,
that is cooperative aggregate communities consisting of anywhere from three
to over forty microbial species working together, which is the most common
form in which microbes are found in nature.

Since the entire field of syntropic antioxidative microbes (SAM) has been
rather scattered and disorganized until now, I have decided to make a
rudimentary attempt to break the most commonly-encountered syntropic
antioxidative microbes -- whether they exist as single species cultures or
as cultures containing microbial consortia which typically exhibit
syntropic antioxidative properties in most settings and which include at
least one member which exhibits significant syntropic antioxidative
properties in most environments -- into loose categories. Here, then, is my
first attempt at such an approximate categorization:

*Categories of SAM Which May be Commonly Encountered

**Some Notes About the Categories Listed Herein:
*SAM Type 1 through SAM Type 3 categories, along with their sub-categories,
list monocultures, that is, one species or variety only of microbes. SAM
Type 4 through SAM Type 10 categories list microbial consortia, that is,
cooperative (and usually synergistic) communities of microbes consisting of
anywhere from two or three to as many as 100 or more microbes working
together in a community; this is the milieu in which microbes are usually
found in the real world, that is, in nature. Please be advised that the
microbes listed for each type of SAM consortia will be those microbes from
the consortia which exhibit significant SAM properties and which are the
most dominant. However, there will almost invariably be other types of
beneficial microbes present in these consortia as well, even though they
may not be explicitly listed in the category (or sub-category) description
title, nor even listed in the descriptive text.

For just one example, the SAM Type 4 category is listed as "Microbial
Consortia Containing Organic Acid-Producing Bacteria and PNSB as Primary
Dominant Members", but the reality is that a typical SAM Type 4 microbial
consortia found in nature (or even in many commercial products) will
usually contain not only microbes from these categories, but will also
contain a wide variety of other beneficial microbes as well, including
perhaps two or three species of beneficial yeast, anywhere from five to ten
or even twenty varieties of beneficial bacteria, and, at times
(particularly for such consortia found in nature, in the wild), some
varieties of beneficial fungi as well. There may also be a number of
beneficial species of *Archaea* present in such consortia as well, and it
must be noted that these microbes are as yet very-poorly recognized and
classified within the field of microbiology, as archaea were largely
ignored by microbiologists until just a few years ago.


*SAM Type 1 -- Yeast Monocultures
*The only commonly-encountered and notable member of this category of yeast
monocultures which often exhibit significant syntropic antioxidative
properties is a yeast known as *Monascus purpureus*, and more commonly
known as red yeast, often used to produce, via fermentation of rice,
so-called *red yeast rice* nutritional supplements. When grown as a
monoculture on rice and certain other foodstuffs, many varieties of this
species will exhibit syntropic effects and will release copious quantities
of a wide range of antioxidants and other compounds with antioxidant-like
effects and/or antioxidant helper (electron shuttle, aka electron transfer
agent) effects. Largely because it is a relatively fragile microbe which
does not adapt well to many environments, and also because it does not tend
to dominate or entrain any microbial consortia in which it may be found,
this yeast has never seen significant application in commercial or
industrial applications such as odor management, waste management or waste
remediation.

There do exist several other yeast species which exhibit significant
syntropic antioxidative properties, but the above-mentioned species is by
far the best known, and the other contenders will not be addressed here.

Yeast falling into this category are sometimes used to produce fermented
foodstuffs for human or animal consumption, but are rarely or never used
commercially for waste treatment, waste remediation, or for deodorizing
purposes.


*SAM Type 2 - Fungal Monocultures
*There exist a small number of fungi, including some fungi which produce
fruiting bodies which we call mushrooms, which can be classified as SAM
microbes. There exist some mushrooms, some of which have been used in
Chinese medicine for thousands of years, which produce large quantities of
antioxidants and which also exhibit moderate syntropic effects, and, of
course, for the non-fruiting fungi, there is *Aspergillus oryzae*, used to
produce *miso*, an Asian fermented soybean (or grain) product and many
other fermented soy products such as tempeh and koji; many varieties of
Aspergillus oryzae, under proper conditions, produce copious amounts of
antioxidants and "antioxidant helpers" and also exhibit mild syntropic
effects.

While these and other *Aspergillus* species are used to produce fermented
foodstuffs for human and animal consumption, they have, due to their
specificity and fragility in many environments, and also their relatively
low level of syntropic effects, almost never been used commercially for
waste treatment, waste remediation, or for deodorizing purposes. The same
is true of other fungi which exhibit weak to moderate SAM properties.

*
SAM Type 3 -- Bacterial Monocultures
*There exist a relatively small number of bacterial species that exhibit
significant syntropic antioxidative properties. The only three that tend to
be well-known in our modern world are the following:

*SAM Type 3-Subtype 1* -- Bacteria which produce significant quantities of
organic acids (e.g. lactic acid, malic acid, citric acid or propionic acid)
during fermentation -- these include the various well-known species of *
Lactobacilllus* (which produce lactic acid), often used in making yogurt,
kefir, sauerkraut and a number of other foods, and often encountered in
probiotic nutritional supplements. The organic acids, including lactic
acid, malic acid, propionic acid and citric acid, produced by these
microbes during fermentation exhibit mild antioxidant properties and also
exhibit as well so-called "antioxidant helper" properties, acting as
electron shuttles or electron transfer agents in certain settings.

Commercial applications: Bacteria falling into this category are often
used to produce fermented foodstuffs for human or animal consumption, but
are rarely used commercially for waste treatment, waste remediation, or for
deodorizing purposes, because, while these microbes do produce mild
antioxidants such as the organic acids mentioned above, their syntropic
properties, while significant, are relatively weak compared to certain
other microbes which fall into the SAM realm. Microbes in this category are
also often marketed as probiotic nutritional supplements for oral ingestion
by humans and animals, and are sometimes marketed for commercial
applications such culturing exposed environmental surfaces and exposed
surfaces of meat in slaughterhouses and butcher shops to competitively
prevent growth of undesirable decay microbes or disease microbes.

*SAM Type 3-Subtype 2: Bacillus subtilis* -- many varieties of *Bacillus
subtilis*, including particularly *Bacillus subtilis var. natto*, exhibit
significant and strong syntropic antioxidative properties in many settings.
It has been alleged by some, particularly some commercial vendors of human
nutritional supplements, that some varieties of *Bacillus cereus* also
exhibit much the same properties, but, since some varieties of Bacillus
cereus have been implicated in certain human diseases in vulnerable
persons, and also because the evidence for this claim (i.e., that these
microbes exhibit antioxidant properties and syntropic properties)( is
extremely unclear and ambiguous, I am not including Bacilus cereus in this
category.

*Commercial Applications
*Many varieties of *Bacillus subtilis* exhibit strong antioxidative
properties and moderately strong syntropic properties, and Bacillus
subtilis varieties have been widely used in food production, particularly
production of a Japanese fermented food called *natto*, for thousands of
years, and Bs has been widely used in commercial applications and industry
as a powerful detoxifier and deodorizer for at least 70 years, and has been
used as a human probiotic nutritional supplement with powerful
antioxidative, deodorizing and detoxifying properties since at least 1940,
and likely earlier. In fact, the Germans used Bacillus subtilis as a
probiotic nutritional supplement for their troops in northern Africa during
World War II to help to prevent dysentery (via a process called *competitive
exclusion*.) It is worth mentioning here that researchers have noted that a
significant number of probiotic nutritional supplements currently on the
market, particularly in Europe, which claim to provide Bacillus subtilis
often actually contain not Bacillus subtilis, but rather *Bacillus cereus*,
and these brands are best avoided, for several reasons, including the fact
that Bacillus Cereus can sometimes act as a pathogen in humans (albeit
rarely.).

* Bacillus subtilis*, because it is a tough and hardy species which adapts
well to many environments, and often dominates or entrains any consortia in
which it occurs, has been widely used in commercial applications and in
industry as a powerful detoxifier and deodorizer, and for waste
remediation, since at least the early 1950s.

*SAM Type 3-Subtype 3: Sulfur photosynthetic bacteria, aka sulfur
phototrophic bacteria, and cyanobacteria* -- many of these microbes have
been classified as sulfur photosynthetic bacteria simply because
researchers in the first half of the twentieth century noticed that they
were largely sulfur-dependent, that is, they required the presence of
sulfur compounds found in nature in order to produce energy. Many of these
bacteria, including some species/varieties of cyanobacteria (sometimes
referenced as "blue-green algae"), can exhibit antioxidative properties and
mild syntropic properties in certain settings. However, for a number of
reasons, including the fact that some of these species can produce toxic
compounds in certain settings, these microbes, with very few
exceptions, have never "caught on" for widespread use as probiotic
nutritional microbes or for commercial or industrial waste remediation,
waste treatment or deodorization applications.

Incidentally, it appears that some of the odor control, soil treatment and
waste remediation microbial culture products developed by the Texan
inventor James Francis Martin in the early 1950s and marketed by him and
his associates throughout the 50s, 60s and early 70s, contained some
species of purple sulfur photosynthetic bacteria and cyanobacteria in a
larger consortia, along with some trace nutrients.

*SAM Type 3-Subtype 4: Purple non-sulfur bacteria (PNSB)* -- Many members
of the purple non-sulfur bacteria (aka PNSB) family -- so named by
researchers in the 1930s because they realized that these photosynthetic
(aka phototrophic) bacteria, unlike many of their well-studied close
relatives which were also purple in color and also photosynthetic, were not
dependent upon sulfur compounds as a foodstuff in nature -- and
particularly some species of *Rhodobacter*, *Rhodopseudomonas* and *
Rhodospirillum*, exhibit very strong syntropic effects and very strong
antioxidative effects.

As we will see in a later category, these microbes are often included in
microbial consortia intended to yield SAM properties precisely because of
their very strong and highly notable SAM properties.

In general, for most applications, and in most settings, many varieties of
PNSB tend to exhibit far stronger SAM effects than do most varieties
of *Bacillus
subtilis*, which is the only other well-known SAM microbe which commonly
even comes close to being a contender in this arena.

*Commercial Applications
*Because of the very powerful syntropic and antioxidative effects exhibited
by these microbes, and because it is a relatively tough and hardy species
which adapts well to a number of environments, and due to the fact that it
often dominates or entrains any consortia in which it may be found (thus
ensuring that the entire consortia will exhibit syntropic and antioxidative
properties), PNSB have been used since at least the mid 1940s in a wide
range of monoculture or combined monoculture (that is, a culture containing
two or more species or varieties of PNSB) products in the agricultural,
commercial and industrial arena, intended for use in odor control, waste
treatment and waste remediation. Some PNSB have also been used in
anti-inflammatory skin creams marketed for human use since at least the
late 1930s, and have been used in various probiotic products intended for
human and animal consumption since at least the 1950s, and perhaps earlier.
You will see some specific examples of such uses, along with some
interesting product histories and greater detail, in the section below
entitled SAM Type 4 <http://sam.vmicrobial.info/#samtype4>, which is
devoted to PNSB microbes found in consortia with organic-acid producing
bacteria such as lactic acid bacteria (LAB.)

*SAM Type 3-Subtype 5: non-organic acid producing soil based bacteria not
already listed in subtypes 1 through 4* -- some varieties of a common soil
bacteria (sometimes referenced as "soil-based organisms" or SBOs)
called *Deinococcus
radiophilus* have been found to exhibit significant antioxidative effects
and, at times, very mild syntropic effects. There are a few other bacteria
as well that have not been mentioned in earlier sections but which exhibit
significant antioxidative and syntropic properties, and many of them are
soil-based bacteria. However, they are not well-known, and there is no need
to offer more details about them here.


*SAM Type 4 - Microbial Consortia Containing Organic Acid-Producing
Bacteria and PNSB as Primary Dominant Members
*There exist a number of microbial consortia that have been noticed in
nature that consist of beneficial microbes which produce significant
quantities of organic acids (e.g., such as lactic acid, malic acid, citric
acid or propionic acid); the organic acid-producing microbes most commonly
encountered in such consortia are lactic acid bacteria (aka LAB; many LAB
exhibit weak antioxidative effects and rather weak syntropic effects as
well) along with PNSB (which exhibit strong SAM properties) acting as the
dominant SAM contributor, wherein the PNSB "loan" the SAM properties to the
consortia as a whole. This category consists of microbial consortia that
consist of LAB (or other organic acid-producing beneficial microbes) plus
one or more species and varieties of PNSB, and often other microbes such as
yeast, and, at times other SAM microbes as well, including
particularly *Bacillus
subtilis*. In fact, it can be stated unequivocally that syntropic
antioxidative microbial consortia of this type (that is SAM Type 4) are the
consortia exhibiting syntropic antioxidative properties most commonly found
in nature, and also, perhaps not surprisingly, the microbial consortia most
commonly found in commercial culture products exhibiting significant
syntropic antioxidative properties.

*Examples Where PNSB are Found in Nature*
Some typical examples of such consortia found "in the wild", that is, in
nature, include the following:

- the pinkish liquid found in the pitchers or bowls of many species of
pitcher plants in the wild, including many *Sarracenia* species.
- a consortia also noticed at times in the GI tract of some varieties of
worms which exist in soil or decaying waste matter, including some
varieties of earthworms, these consortia include LAB and PNSB, along with
yeast or other microbes.
- a similar consortia has been found at times in certain traditional
artisan cheeses, and some traditional yogurts and kefirs, where PNSB have
been found co-occurring as a rather silent partner to the primary cheese
culture microbes, along with small amounts of LAB.
- a similar consortia has also been found at times in certain legacy
sourdough bread cultures, where certain LAB and PNSB have been found to
co-exist along with one or more yeasts.
- a similar consortia has been found at times in some traditional
naturally-fermented hot sauces across the world (including the USA), with
PNSB occurring as a slower-growing background partner to the LAB.
- a similar LAB and PNSB-containing consortia has been found at times in
certain traditional fermented "herbal" alcoholic beverages from traditional
cultures, including agave-based fermented drinks often called *Mexcal*or
*Palenque*, often found in the more rural regions of Mexico where
traditional methods of brewing are still employed.

The survival advantage of such consortia over single-species cultures is
simply that the consortia are far more robust, more hardy and can adapt to
a far wider range of environments and conditions than can any single
species, and yet, due to the dominant or entraining nature of the PNSB and
the *Bacillus subtili*s (if included), such consortia will continue to
exhibit significant SAM properties over a very wide range of environmental
conditions.

*Commercial Applications
*Not only is this consortia found in a number of niche environments in
nature, but it has also found widespread applications in agriculture and
human health, and in the marketplace, since the late 1930s or early 1940s.
Because of the above-mentioned robustness and adaptability of such
microbial consortia, a wide array of commercially-available cultures with
SAM properties -- often marketed for purposes ranging from probiotics for
humans and animals to odor control, waste treatment and waste remediation
-- contain any of a number of variants of this consortia, that is, they
contain LAB in consortia with PNSB, and sometimes contain *Bacillus subtilis
* as well, often along with other microbes. Of all syntropic antioxidative
microbial consortia, this is perhaps the one that has been best represented
in products available in the consumer, commercial and industrial
marketplaces for many decades; variants of this consortia have been used in
commercial products since at least the 1950s, and, some claim, since the
late 1930s (more examples may be found below, in the subsection
entitled *Commercial
Applications -- An Overview and History.)*

Before moving on to the overview and history section, which will include
discussion of some actual products in this SAM Type 4 (aka SAMT4) category
which have been developed and marketed over the past 50 years, we should
pause here for a moment to discuss how these various products were brewed.
The majority of the SAMT4 fermented microbial products which will be
discussed below, including the broad family of EM products and EM-like
cultures, have always classically been brewed by producers using a
combination of commercial monoculture (i.e., single-strain) microbial
cultures (all originally collected from nature; none of the producers has
ever attempted to employ genetically-modified (aka GM) microorganisms)
procured from microbial type culture collection vendors. This process has
been problematic at times, since it is very difficult, when combining
commercial single-strain cultures, it is very difficult to convince the
PNSB to work together in an effective consortia with some of the other
microbes, particularly with the lactic acid bacteria, and thus the few
producers of these products have been forced to use all sorts of
fascinating tricks to convince the microbes to form an effective consortia.

While, as mentioned above, most vendors of commercially-available SAMT4
products have used, and continue to use, a combination of commercial
monoculture (i.e., single-strain) microbial cultures procured from
microbial type culture collection vendors in brewing their SAMT4 consortia
products, a small number of producers (including Dr. George Merkl and his
Sumerian Elixir product, and also including the mysterious farmer/inventor
Andrew and his Soil Blast product, each of which will be discussed at
length below) have relied solely upon the wild microbes naturally present
in various natural ingredients, which were, of course, tightly-specified
and carefully-sourced by the developer/creator. This matter of trying to
rely solely upon wild microbes naturally present in/on the various natural
ingredients led to a number of quality control problems and related
problems for these producers, since the quality of their product often
tended to vary greatly from batch to batch, and also because many such
brews ended up containing a rather large amount of alcohol, well above the
one percent level allowed by the USDA and FDA in foods and nutritional
supplements. This disconcerting and undesirable side-effect led to all
sorts of problems for these producers, and, in fact one of them, Dr. George
Merkl, eventually ran into trouble with US regulatory authorities, who
demanded that his Life Crystals/Sumerian Elixir production facility be
registered with, and inspected by, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and
Firearms (BATF) as a brewer of alcoholic beverages, and that the facility
conform with BATF regulations for brewing of alcoholic beverages during
brewing, and who further demanded that Merkl distribute and market his
Sumerian Elixir and related liquid products only as alcoholic beverages,
because most batches contained well over one percent alcohol content.

*Commercial Applications -- An Overview and History
*This consortia is widely used in commercial and agricultural applications.
Much as I listed above, in a bulleted list, some commonly-found examples of
consortia of this type found in nature, here is a brief overview and
history of some of the commercial applications of variants of this
widely-used consortia, dating from the early 1940s; some will likely claim
that the following list is far from complete, and this may be true, but I
feel that it will nonetheless provide some insight into the utility of
variants of this consortia, along with the incredible variety of their uses
in human endeavors, and its ubiquity in various applications since at least
the 1940s.

Before we move on to the list itself, I would like to draw attention to one
other point regarding the various commercial products listed below: it is
worthwhile to note that while some of the products were (and are, if they
are still in production) created using commercial cultures purchased from
microbial type culture collection vendors, while others were (and are, if
they are still in production) produced using only naturally-occurring
"wild" microbes found on fruits, vegetables, herbs and in agricultural
waste products such as cow manure, etc. Here is the list:

*Compost and Soil Preparations Used in Biodynamic Farming
*Biodynamic farming is a natural and "spiritual" farming movement spawned
in the early 20th century as an offshoot of Anthroposophy, a communal
mystical tradition founded by Austrian philosopher and mystic Rudolf
Steiner. Biodynamic *preparations* are special standardized microbe-rich
fermented compounds prepared using special rituals and processes, and which
are claimed to exhibit exotic energy properties and spiritual properties
along with microbial culture properties, and are used in small quantities
in Biodynamic farming as soil amendments and compost treatments. The
various standardized Biodynamic preparations used in this Anthroposophic
farming system sport names such as BD500, BD501, BD507, etc. Several
European researchers have claimed, via private communications, that at
least two of the Biodynamic preparations used in Biodynamic farming since
the late 1930s or early 1940s contain not only LAB but also significant
levels of PNSB, usually in consortia with yeast and several soil-based
organisms.

I find these claims to be eminently credible and realistic (and my own
limited tests support the claims as well), if only because of the ubiquity
of the microbes in question in some of the ingredients used in creating
these preparations, but the single and highly important and relevant caveat
that I wish to offer in regard to this claim is that in examining it we
must bear in mind that the so-called standardized Biodynamic preparations
are, in actuality, prepared on-site at numerous Biodynamic farms across the
world from basic locally-sourced natural ingredients (e.g.,
locally-procured soil, spring water, rainwater, cow manure, cow horns,
skins of wild animals, herbs and other plants, etc.), and thus there is
undoubtedly a fairly wide variance in microbial makeup of these
"standardized" Biodynamic preparations across sites, that is, dependent
upon the unique location where a particular version of a standard
Biodynamic preparation was created, and even* when* it was created. Thus,
while this consortia may indeed be found at times in at least two of the
standardized Biodynamic soil preparations, as claimed, this does not
guarantee that all instances of these same Biodynamic preparations would
necessarily contain the same consortia.

It is worth noting that none of these Biodynamic preparations have ever
employed any commercial cultures from microbial type culture collections,
and rather, much as already referenced above, the microbial flora present
in each preparation is determined solely by the naturally-occurring
microbes present in and on the surfaces of the various natural ingredients
(all acquired from the local immediate agricultural setting) as well as the
unique array of nutrients and micronutrients available in the ingredients.

*An Anthroposophic Topical Skin Remedy for Healing Damaged Skin
*Anthroposophic remedies are part and parcel of a communal mystical and
spiritual tradition called Anthroposophy which was founded in the early
20th century by Austrian philosopher and mystic Rudolf Steiner. One
Anthroposophic remedy, a topical skin cream used for soothing, detoxifying
and repairing irritated or damaged skin that has been used in
Anthroposophic medicine (aka Anthroposophical medicine), and sold
over-the-counter (OTC) in Anthroposophical pharmacies (usually co-located
with Anthroposophic (aka Threefold Way) communities across Western Europe,
the US and Canada) since at least the early 1940s has been claimed by
several researchers to contain PNSB and LAB, and it is felt by these
researchers that the PNSB constitute the primary active ingredient. This
topical skin cream, which, according to several reports, was at times
marketed under the name "Remedy 16" or "Remedy No. 16" and under other
trade names as well (including, according to some reports, a name something
like to "Dr. Hoch's Skin Remedy No. 16"), has been credited over the years
with some very impressive healing of badly damaged skin across many users.

I have also received several reports that the same OTC Anthroposophical
topical skin remedy was also marketed as an over-the-counter skin cream for
treating inflamed skin in a number of conventional pharmacies across Canada
and the Eastern part of the USA in the 1950s and 1960s (they reportedly
acquired it from a German-born health and beauty aid products distributor
in New York City, who had become familiar with the product while living in
Germany and had become quite enamored of it), and that it gained a quick
reputation as a powerful means of healing inflamed or damaged skin that did
not respond to any other treatments.

*Andrew and His Magical Fermented Soil Treatment Product
*I have learned across the years from several farmers located in Nevada,
Utah and the Midwest and Plains states of the US, including particularly
Nebraska and the Dakotas, and also from at least two vendors of microbial
products for agricultural use, that a now-deceased tinkerer/inventor based
in Nevada (some reports have claimed that he lived in Las Vegas, while
others have claimed that he was based in a small city in northern Nevada)
named Andrew (some reports have stated that he also used the name John at
times) had produced and direct-marketed -- under any of several product
names, including apparently names such as "Soil Blast", "Compost Blast" and
"Pit Blast" (i.e., where "pit" denotes a deep manure pit for cow manure or
pig manure) -- among farmers in the aforementioned regions an extremely
powerful and unique brownish fermented liquid microbial culture product for
treatment of hard-packed and dead farm soils, for remediation of toxic
waste and for odor control.

Andrew apparently claimed to have developed the product in the late 1950s
after extensive research and experimentation; he often claimed that his
esoteric microbial brew was the end product of a lengthy and complex
fermentation of molasses along with exotic ingredients which included urine
from mares, eggshell membranes, certain native American herbs and special
nutritional clays that he hand-harvested from secret sites in Utah and
Nevada (I have, interestingly, met a farmer, a former customer of Andrew's,
who had visited Andrew at his home in Nevada in the late 1970s and had seen
the production fermentation setup in Andrew's basement.) It has been widely
reported to me that the product had a fanatical following among farmers who
were Andrew's customers due to its remarkable abilities, and the only worry
that his agricultural customers had, since he consistently adamantly
refused to share his formula and process with anyone, was that this already
rather-elderly man would die someday and take the formula to his grave with
him.

Eventually, much as his devoted customers feared, Andrew did indeed die,
reportedly in the mid-1980s, apparently taking his formula and process to
the grave with him, although several of his former customers, and
reportedly also one of his adult sons (who had reportedly been living in a
city in the Midwest until his father's death) purportedly tried to create
replicas of his microbial culture product after his death. At least two of
these aspirants apparently eventually (but in each case only temporarily)
marketed their hopefully-similar microbial culture liquid products under
brand names that were somewhat related to the brand names that Andrew had
used. However, it seems, at least according to Andrew's original customers
and to other observers who have contacted me over the years, that none of
these latter-day entrants into the field were able to successfully
duplicate the highly-effective and nearly-magical microbial consortia that
the old man had learned to culture, and the results in real-world
applications of the two successor products were, according to many reports,
never anywhere near as impressive as those seen with the original culture
product. All information (much of it proprietary and confidential)
available at hand indicates that the powerful culture which Andrew
successfully brewed and marketed for almost 25 years until his death was a
microbial consortia which contained LAB and PNSB, along with some other
microbes as well.

While the exact details of the brewing process employed by Andrew are not
known, it is quite obvious that his microbial concoction did not employ
commercial cultures that were purchased from microbial type culture
collection vendors, but rather it appears that the exact microbial flora
present in his concoctions was determined solely by the naturally-occurring
microbes present in and on the surfaces of the various ingredients as well
as the unique array of nutrients and micronutrients available in the
ingredients used in the formulation.

*Dr. George Merkl and his Solar-Fermented Life Crystals and Sumerian Elixir
Products
*I first heard of Dr. George Merkl and his exotic nutritional supplements
-- which were then marketed under the names *Life Crystals* and *Sumerian
Elixir*, and later under numerous other names as well -- in the mid-1980s,
when a small mail-order nutritional supplement vendor in northern Wisconsin
from which I occasionally purchased products started listing his two
products in their catalog and also started distributing marketing pamphlets
making some very wild claims for Dr. Merkl's two products. I purchased his
strange nutritional supplement products occasionally throughout the mid and
late 1980s and more frequently throughout the 1990s. Eventually, by the
mid-1990s, I became acquainted with two persons who had worked closely with
George Merkl for many years in developing and producing his exotic
nutritional supplements, and, over time, I heard a number of fascinating
tales from them about Dr. Merkl and his products, which, by then were being
marketed under a variety of brand names, including Life Crystals, Sumerian
Elixir, Sumer-Tech, Sumerian Drink, Renaissance Drink, Renaissance
Beverage, Vida Force, Vida Source, Vida Lyze, Gaiandriana and Aquagaia. It
has been estimated by observers of the fringe nutritional supplement
marketplace that at the height of their popularity -- which would be from
roughly 1982 to 2003 -- many tens of millions of dollars worth of Dr.
Merkl's products were sold in the US and Canada and also in over 48 other
countries, often accompanied by claims that the products would, in short
order, cure everything from diabetes and heart disease to cancer. These
extreme and blatant -- and almost entirely undocumented and unverified --
health claims for a product that had never been approved for therapeutic
drug use, along with Merkl's uncanny ability to manage to continually
antagonize and run afoul of regulatory agencies -- led Dr. Merkl and some
of his distributors into repeated troubles over the years with the FDA and
Health Canada, and with several other government regulatory authorities
across the world.

Dr. George Merkl was born and raised in the Soviet Union in the early 20th
century, where he earned a PhD in physics. In the wake of some serious
difficulties with the Soviet authorities in the 1940s just after the end of
World War II, he emigrated to the USA in the 1950s, settling primarily in
the El Paso, Texas area. He reportedly worked briefly for the US Naval
Weapons Laboratory in the field of nuclear weapons research and then went
into partnership with a few other PhD-level colleagues in forming a private
R&D laboratory which primarily performed contractual R&D services for the
US Naval Weapons Laboratory and for other defense-related sectors of the US
government; much of his research work was still apparently in the realms of
nuclear weapons development and the design of nuclear reactors for use on
submarines. He often claimed in later years -- when he had shifted his
focus to the field of esoteric nutritional supplements -- that he had been
awarded over 400 patents between 1955 and 1980, and that many of them had
been immediately classified as top secret by the NSA due to their
applicability in defense-critical areas.

Dr. Merkl was badly injured in at least two accidental laboratory
explosions during the 1960s and 1970s, and one of them also reportedly left
him with severe plutonium poisoning due to inhalation of airborne plutonium
particles. Concomitantly, he also developed several chronic and severe
health problems commonly associated with aging, including heart disease,
and it is safe to assume that his earlier injuries and the plutonium
poisoning only greatly exacerbated these chronic illnesses. In the
mid-1970s, Dr. Merkl suffered several severe heart attacks, and in the wake
of his last one, apparently in early springtime of 1977, he was essentially
sent home from the hospital by his doctors to die; they had reportedly
advised him that his heart disease was beyond help and that he likely had
only weeks to live; he also reportedly had rather severe bowel cancer at
the time, with at least one large cancerous mass in his lower bowel. Now,
this is where the story gets weird and where the fun begins....

Merkl reported in later years that he had several mystical experiences in
those weeks after he had been sent home to die in 1977, and most of these
experiences seemed to happen at night, during sleep. He later claimed that
angelic beings had come to him during these mystical experiences, and had
told him that it was not necessary for him to die from his illnesses, and
they offered to guide him along the steps to a speedy recovery. Merkl
reported that he accepted their offer, and that he was, in short order,
instructed to go out to the field his lower backyard -- it happened to be
early springtime -- and to carefully cut the pre-blossom rosebuds off the
wild rose vines growing there, and was advised to collect the liquid sap
that would emerge from the cut tips of the plant stems over the next few
days. He was instructed to process this small quantity of liquid in a
modest and simple alchemy-like process, and was then guided to drink it. He
was, within a few weeks time, cured of his heart disease and of the cancer,
and of a number of other illnesses from which he had also been suffering.

By mid-1977, once he had been returned to a state of good health, Dr. Merkl
was then reportedly told by his inner angelic advisors that the process
that he had been given to prepare the springtime rose vine sap elixir,
while it had been quite useful for him on a one-time emergency basis, was
not at all practical to adapt to large-scale production of a healing
elixir, and so they offered to teach him an alternate method to create
larger volumes of what they claimed with be a very much similar nutritional
supplement elixir which would exhibit very powerful healing properties. The
process that his angelic guides taught him required him to procure certain
organic fruit juice concentrates (including grape, blueberry, black cherry,
raspberry and currant) from specific sources and to also procure several
dried organic or wild-crafted teas (primarily chamomile, jasmine and
oolong) that had been grown only in volcanic soils in certain specified
regions of the world (primarily parts of western Central America and South
America), along with two or three proprietary ingredients, and to ferment
them for several months in a strange rooftop glass-enclosed apparatus --
which he eventually came to call a *solar reactor* or a *solar still* --
based upon a design that they had given to him, and his guides further
specified that the rooftop solar reactor had to be positioned to allow
maximal sun exposure. Merkl later, in both lectures and in some of his
writings, often referred to his solar fermenters as s*yntrophic
transducers, *for he felt that they, and the process of fermentation
therein, lent powerful syntropic properties to his products. He once
referred, in a lecture, to his solar fermenter or solar reactor in the
following fashion *"My syntrophic transducer is not only able to stimulate
solar fermentation, but could also produce electric current and free
hydrogen through transducing the lower level energy. ..." *In a related
4-page article that he wrote in the late 1980s or early 1990s,
entitled *Syntrophic
Transducer*, Merkl also wrote the his solar fermenter, aka syntrophic
transducer, functioned by ".*...**transducing scroll waves (free energy
braiding into photons) to a higher energy level to control chemical
bonding....Scroll resonant energy leaves its signature on everything
throughout the whole universe including all forms of life...". *Scroll
resonant energy leaves its signature on everything throughout the whole
universe including all forms of life.This concept, and terminology are, of
course, very much similar to, and in fact, almost identical to, that
employed by Dr. Terugo Higa (see the following section), the developer of a
SAM Type 4 consortia culture called EM, in describing the syntropic or
negentropic exotic energy effects, which he called "wave energy" or
"gravitational wave energy" of his EM product between 1992 and 1998.

The result of this process was a mildly acidic reddish-brown liquid with a
not-unpleasant taste somewhat akin to that of the old patent cough syrups
of the early and mid-1900s. Merkl eventually, by the early 1980s (if not
earlier) started to market this product as Sumerian Elixir and later as
Renaissance Drink, and, much as referenced earlier, over the longer term
Merkl and his associates and distributors marketed various versions of this
liquid under a number of other trade names as well; a large reason for the
never-ending parade of trade names was the simple fact that Dr. Merkl
seemed to be constitutionally unable to simply market his product as a
useful and nourishing nutritional supplement, and instead, he apparently
simply could not refrain from making extreme health claims for his product,
claiming that it exhibited drug-like effects in healing a wide variety of
diseases. And, since he and his associates had never put his product
through clinical testing and clinical trials in order to gain approval from
the FDA and Health Canada to market it as a drug, his bizarre and
ultimately self-defeating tactic ensured that he was constantly on the
radar screens of the FDA and Health Canada, and that he was continually
running afoul of these agencies and other regulatory agencies.
Interestingly, most of the Merkl products disappeared from the marketplace
by 2003, and the very last of the Merkl-inspired products seem to have
disappeared from the marketplace by the year 2006. As of today (it is now
early 2010), I am not aware of any products using Merkl's Sumerian Elixir
(aka Life Crystals, Renaissance Drink, etc.) technology available on the
market anywhere in the Western world.

A few years ago, in 2006, after I had developed some useful and rapid
non-culturing-type proprietary assay methods for determining the presence
of PNSB in liquid samples, I carefully searched my storage cabinets and
managed to find some old bottles -- dating back to the 1980s and 1990s --
of Merkl's liquid product that had been marketed under each of several
brand names, and I subjected the liquid samples to some tests in my lab.
These tests showed in short order that the liquid exhibited a pH below 3.9
and that the acidity was largely due to lactic acid from fermentation, and
my proprietary PNSB assays (mentioned earlier) quickly showed that the
products contained very significant quantities of PNSB and their
metabolites, thus confirming my hunch that the microbial culture that was
found in Merkl's nutritional supplement product was a SAM Type 4
consortium. (With this information, along with some intuitive guidance from
my own inner guides and angels, I was then quickly able to determine the
likely proprietary ingredient that Merkl had used in creating his fermented
elixir, and was able, in short order, to brew several fermented products
which were very much like Sumerian Elixir (and, of course, Renaissance
Drink.)

Since I know a good part of the process that Merkl used in brewing his
primary product, which was the Life Crystals Drink (aka Renaissance Drink),
and also based upon some of the characteristics (to be discussed below) of
this product, it is obvious that Merkl's fermented product did not employ
commercial cultures purchased from microbial type culture collection
vendors, and rather, the exact makeup of the SAM Type 4 microbial consortia
present in each of his batches of fermented product was determined solely
by the naturally-occurring microbes present in and on the surfaces of the
various natural ingredients that he used, along with the unique array of
nutrients and micronutrients available in the organically-grown ingredients
used in the formulation. However, this led to some interesting twists and
challenges when it came to the marketing of his products, particularly the
Life Crystals Drink and the Sumerian Elixir, for each of these nutritional
supplement products contained a significant amount of alcohol due to
ongoing fermentation by wild naturally-occurring yeast during the active
brewing process.

While FDA rules allow nutritional supplements and foodstuffs to contain up
to 1% alcohol content and still be classified as nutritional supplements or
foods, in general, if any such product contains over one percent alcohol
content due to natural fermentation processes, then, with few exceptions,
the product no longer falls under the purview of the FDA, and rather, it is
subject to the much stricter and harsher rules for the brewing and sale of
alcoholic beverages formulated by and enforced by the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms (BATF). Since most batches of Merkl's basic primary
products -- the Life Crystals Drink and the Sumerian Elixir -- contained
well over 1% alcohol, and most often contained from 2% to 3.5% alcohol,
this fact eventually came to the attention of first the FDA and eventually
BATF, and his US production facility in El Paso, TX was eventually
classified by BATF as an alcoholic beverage brewery, and his products were
likewise eventually classified as alcoholic beverages that could be sold
only in liquor stores.

Had Merkl employed tighter control over the brewing process, including use
of commercially-available cultures available from microbial type culture
collection vendors, along with certain other measures, he could easily have
ensured that the amount of alcohol present in these two products would have
remained well below one percent, most likely on the order of 0.2% to 0.5%,
and he could have avoided much of his eventual hassles with the FDA and
BATF.

*Dr. Teruo Higa and His Antioxidant-Rich Fermented Microbial Culture
*In the 1970s and early 1980s, a Japanese horticulture professor named Dr.
Teruo Higa at University of Ryukus in Okinawa, Japan was searching for a
potent microbial combination for use in improving agricultural soils and
enhancing plant growth without the use of chemical fertilizers. He was well
aware that PNSB were already in use all across the world in treating
wastewater streams and toxic waste and for odor control, and, in fact, some
of his colleagues at the time in other departments at the university
(including Dr. M. Kobayashi) were actively involved in using PNSB for
treatment of agricultural wastewater, particularly livestock waste, but Dr.
Higa was also very much aware that the PNSB microbes, when used alone as a
monoculture (that is, a culture consisting only of one species/variety of
PNSB) or as a mixed monoculture (i.e., a culture consisting of several
different species/varieties of PNSB), were rather fragile and could not
function well over a wide range of pH, temperature and other conditions,
and rather, could function well only within a rather narrow range of
environmental conditions, and that this factor rather radically limited
their usefulness in many real-world settings.

Dr. Higa worked for years in his university laboratory to find a way to get
PNSB to function together in a manmade consortia with other beneficial
microbes such as lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and beneficial yeast, and,
eventually, by 1983, he managed to find methods, albeit somewhat
technically difficult and arduous, to convince the PNSB microbes to
function together in a microbial consortia with the aforementioned
microbes. By 1984, as he was, with only limited success, trying to convince
Japanese farmers and various agricultural groups to use this
antioxidant-rich microbial culture product, he was calling the brownish
liquid culture by the name "effective microorganisms" or by the shorthand
term "EM", and eventually, this EM culture product was introduced to
various Asian third-world nations and elsewhere by two non-profit
organizations, Asia Pacific Natural Agriculture Network (APNAN) and
International Nature Farming Research Center (*INFRC*), each of them
organizations founded by a Japanese religious group called Sekai Kyusei Kyo
(often referenced simply as SKK), which had been founded by Moichii Okada
in 1934; these organizations were founded largely to promote adoption of
SKK-approved natural Nature Farming practices worldwide.) In fact, from
this point until at least 1993, the brownish liquid culture, rich in
antioxidants, that was known by the name *effective microorganisms* and by
the shorthand term *EM* was primarily distributed and disseminated over
much of the world by these two SKK-affiliated non-profit organizations.

Eventually, in late 1993, some of Dr. Higa's friends and family members
founded a for-profit company called EM Research Organization (aka EMRO), to
distribute the product; Higa's role in the company at the time was, of
necessity, limited to simply a titular honorary position, because, since he
was then a full-time professor at University of Ryukus, and also because he
had developed the antioxidant-rich culture liquid in the university
laboratories and while on university salary, he was not allowed, under
university regulations and under Japanese law, to profit from the marketing
of the product. From 1994 onward, EM and some related secondary products
were promoted and distributed in commercial sectors primarily by EMRO, and
to a lesser extent by an Okinawan for-profit company, Sanko Sangyo (which
had, as an outside independent contractual R&D laboratory, helped Dr. Higa
find ways, between 1982 and 1984, to convince the microbes to grow together
successfully in a consortia, and which continues to this day to produce
most or all of the seed cultures used in creating the mother culture for
the EM products distributed by EMRO, INFRC and APNAN) and in non-profit
sectors primarily by INFRC and APNAN (and via the offshoot Kyusei Nature
Farming movement/organization), each of which were/are affiliated with the
aforementioned SKK religious organization.

By 2004, there were, along with the aforementioned for-profit and
non-profit organizations of the product that had become generically known
worldwide as *effective microorganisms* or *EM* (and which I classify as
manmade instances of SAM Type 4 syntropic antioxidative microbial
consortia), a small number of for-profit companies worldwide producing and
marketing antioxidant-rich microbial culture products which contained LAB,
PNSB and yeast in a consortium (along with, at times, any of a variety of
other beneficial probiotic microbes, some of which (such as *Bacillus
subtilis*) also exhibit syntropic and antioxidative properties); the list
of these companies include EMRO (mentioned above), SCD Probiotics, Vita
Biosa, BM Ecology (aka BEM Ecology), Senong (Korea), OZA, Sanko Sangyo
(also mentioned above) and Lanox Korea, and each of them are/were
apparently able to trace at least part of their product's early lineage to
Dr. Teruo Higa's work in his university laboratory in the 1970s and early
1980s.

Dr. Higa's EM cultures were, from the start, made using a combination of
commercial monoculture microbial cultures procured from microbial type
culture collection vendors, and this has remained true across the years for
the various members of the family of fermented SAM Type 4 microbial
consortia culture products that have emerged from his original work and his
early publications and teachings in his graduate-level university classes
in horticulture. However, it is worth noting that in the vast majority of
cases, the process employed for fermentation during production also
allows/allowed some wild naturally-occurring ingredients to become
incorporated in the consortia as well.

*A Final Note: Does Jim Martin's Famed Microbial Culture/Microbial Catalyst
Fall into the SAM Type 4 Microbial Consortia Category?
*In the SAM Type 5 section to be found a bit later on this page, you will
be introduced in greater depth to a maverick self-educated inventor from
Arizona (he spent many of his later years in Texas) named Jim Martin and
the microbial culture/microbial catalyst products (I deliberately employ
the plural here because there is a lot of evidence that Martin's culture
product evolved and morphed into several different products (each, however,
sharing certain common traits) across the years that he produced it) that
he developed in the early 1950s and actively promoted across the US
Southwest from the mid-1950s until his death in 1975. The exact composition
of his microbial soil treatment and soil remediation product/products was
something of a mystery, but it is worth noting here that some modern
observers have claimed retrospectively that, based upon most reports from
the 1950s, 60s and 70s of Jim Martin's microbial culture product and its
appearance and abilities, it must have contained not only PNSB but also
lactic acid bacteria (LAB) in a consortium (which would therefore, qualify
it as a SAM Type 4 microbial consortium.).

My own view on this matter -- and I have been fortunate enough to have had
access over the years to documents and samples that have not been available
to most modern-day researchers trying to divine exactly what Jim Martin had
done, and also to samples of a number of successors (all originating from
small producers located in Texas) to Martin's products -- is that it is
highly likely that at least some versions of Martin's culture product
contained PNSB, while other versions likely did not contain PNSB but rather
other photosynthetic (aka phototrophic) microbes such as purple sulfur
bacteria (PSB) and cyanobacteria (often called by the name *blue-green algae
*.) However, regarding the assertion that the Martin's culture products
also contained lactic acid bacteria (LAB), I maintain that there is
extremely little evidence that this was so, and rather, there is a lot of
evidence -- including particularly the nutrients that he employed and the
nutrients that he did not employ in the fermentation process, and the
ingredients that his successor products employ, and notably, do not employ,
and also an analysis of a number of latter-day successor products to
Martin's product -- that Martin's culture products could not have contained
any significant quantities of LAB (nor any other organic acid-producing
microbes.) Rather, it appears, from all available evidence, that the other
beneficial microbes present in the culture beyond PNSB or PSB were not LAB
nor other microbes that produce organic acids. Thus, I maintain that it is
highly likely that Martin's microbial culture/microbial catalyst products
largely did not consist of a microbial consortia containing PNSB and LAB
along with other microbes, and thus, I suspect that his product did/does
largely not fall into the category of SAM Type 4 microbial consortia.


*SAM Type 5 - Microbial Consortia Containing non-Organic Acid-Producing
Microbes and PNSB as Primary Dominant Members
*This category consists of microbial consortia that contain PNSB in
community with beneficial microbes other than those which produce
significant quantities of organic acids (e.g., LAB microbes and others).
Typical exemplars of this consortia tend to include one or more species or
varieties of PNSB in community with one or more species and varieties
of *Bacillus
subtilis* and/or other microbes such as yeast or certain SAM-type
beneficial fungi.

*Commercial Applications
*There have been several waste remediation and odor control products
available in the commercial waste treatment and wastewater treatment
marketplace which have employed this consortia since at least the very
early 1950s, and a few commercial and consumer-type odor and stain removal
products, particularly for removal of pet odors and pet waste stains, have
at times employed consortia of this type.

*Jim Martin and His Microbial Culture/Microbial Catalyst
*An Arizona-born and self-educated inventor named Jim Martin developed a
strange and magical "soil detoxifying and conditioning" microbial product,
an often-times purplish fermented liquid, in the early 1950s, and claimed
that it contained special fermentative microbes plus special microbial
nutrients, primarily exotic trace elements; he marketed his fermented
products at times as microbial cultures, but more frequently as microbial
accelerators or microbial catalysts, choosing to place emphasis upon what
he claimed were special nutrients, including trace elements, in the liquid,
which, he claimed, greatly accelerated the growth of beneficial microbes in
any setting . Jim Martin marketed and attempted to promote various
formulations of this product across the Southwestern US, but primarily in
Arizona and Texas, for use in treating dead farm soils, detoxifying toxic
wastes, and in managing odors, and he often promoted his products in
concert with any of several various partners and backers. His ceaseless
efforts to promote his fermented microbial product started in the early
1950s and persisted through the early 1970s until his death in 1975.

Martin believed strongly that his strange fermented microbial brews could
eventually save the earth and revolutionize the fields of agriculture,
human and animal health, and waste management. Jim Martin often claimed
that his product was created by a special process that employed, among
other ingredients, seawater collected from a specific spot on the
coastline, cow manure, urine from pregnant mares, and several other exotic
ingredients. Interestingly, several observers have pointed out that in the
time since Martin's death in the mid-1970s, a number of microbial products
formulators and vendors, almost all located in Texas, have emerged with a
rather wide range of products all of which seem to be based upon Jim
Martin's magical microbial formula; many of the vendors claim this
explicitly, while a smaller percentage deny a direct connection between
their microbial product and Martin's product. While there is general
agreement in the field that there is rather wide variance and divergence
across these modern-day microbial product offerings, it seems that at
least one or two of Martin's primary original formulations contained PNSB
in a consortium with non-organic acid producing microbes, along with some
exotic micronutrients, thus qualifying it to be included under the umbrella
of this SAM Type 5 category. (Another variant, as we shall see in the SAM
Type 7 section, seemed to contain some varieties of yeast and other non
acid-producing microbes in a consortium with PSB and cyanobacteria
(aka *blue-green
algae*), along with some exotic micronutrients.)


*SAM Type 6 - Microbial Consortia Containing Organic Acid-Producing
Microbes and PSB and/or Cyanobacteria as Primary Dominant Members
*Consortia of this type are occasionally found in nature, and such
consortia have also been used at times, but rarely, in commercial products
for waste remediation and pond/lake treatments.


*SAM Type 7 - Microbial Consortia Containing non-Organic Acid-Producing
Microbes and PSB and/or Cyanobacteria as Primary Dominant Members
*Consortia of this type are occasionally found in nature, and such
consortia have also been used at times, but relatively rarely, in
commercial products for waste remediation and pond/lake treatments, with
one likely exception which is noted below.

*Commercial Applications
**Jim Martin and His Microbial Culture/Microbial Catalyst
*I mentioned the Arizona-born self-trained inventor named Jim Martin and
some of his microbial culture products from the 1950s and 1960s in the
section above devoted to SAM Type 5 microbial consortia. While it appears
that some of his early cultures fell into the SAM Type 5 category, there
exists quit a bit of evidence (some of it proprietary and confidential)
that another oft-used variant proffered by Martin seemed to contain some
varieties of yeast and other non acid-producing microbes in a consortium
with PSB and cyanobacteria (aka blue-green algae), along with some exotic
micronutrients.
*

SAM Type 8 - Microbial Consortia Containing Bacillus Subtilis with Organic
Acid-Producing Microbes as Primary Dominant Members
*Consortia of this type are occasionally found in nature, particularly in
agricultural settings, and such consortia have also been used at times in
probiotic nutritional supplement products and in commercial products for
waste remediation and odor control.
*

SAM Type 9 - Microbial Consortia Containing Bacillus Subtilis with
non-Organic Acid-Producing Microbes
*Consortia of this type are occasionally found in nature, particularly in
agricultural settings, and such consortia have also been used at times in
probiotic nutritional supplement products and in commercial products for
waste remediation and odor control, and also in specialized waste
management products, including microbial products intended for digestion of
grease (fats).


*SAM Type 10 - Microbial Consortia Containing as Primary Dominant Members
Microbes Other Than Those Listed in Types 1-9
*Exemplars of SAM consortia occurring in nature, or in the laboratory or in
commerce, which fall into the category of SAM microbial consortia which
contain as the primary and dominant members only microbes that were not
listed yet in Types 1 through 9 (above) are somewhat rare. Perhaps the best
examples of such SAM consortia are as follows:

- Japanese researchers and others have found a consortium of about 33
bacteria in a Burmese salted fermented fish/shrimp (prawn) paste widely
sold by traditional brewers/vendors across Burma (Myanmar); the consortium
has been found to exhibit significant antioxidative properties and mild to
moderate syntropic properties.
- some consortia found at times on the borders of hot springs and
mudpots in the wild (and, it has been speculated, around hydrothermal vents
on the ocean floor as well) -- where unique consortia of specialized and
sometimes exotic thermophilic yeast and bacteria can be found -- have been
found by researchers to exhibit significant SAM properties. However,
interestingly, it has been my private observation that if one digs deeply
enough into the makeup of such consortia, one can often find evidence of
the presence of thermophilic varieties of PNSB, PSB or cyanobacteria
included in the community as well, in which cases the consortia should
likely be re-classified as examples of SAM Types 4, 5, 6 or 7, as
appropriate.


*Email List Groups Devoted to Syntropic Antioxidative Microbes (SAM) and
their Applications*
I (Vinny Pinto) operate two email list groups at Yahoo Groups devoted to
syntropic antioxidative microbes and to various applications of SAMs; the
groups are listed below. Please note that both list groups, as is true of
all of my email list groups, are restricted-membership list groups, and
thus, once you have applied to join, you will then shortly receive an email
from the Yahoo Groups mailserver, entitled something along the lines of
"Important – Your Pending Membership in….", which will ask you for certain
information; you will need to send the requested information (including
your first and last name) back to the list group moderators by replying to
the message if you wish your application for membership to be approved.

And here are the email list groups:

*SAM-Apps
*The full name of this list group is "Syntropic Antioxidative Microbes and
Applications". The list group is devoted to discussion of syntropic
antioxidative microbes in general and also to applications in the realms of
human and animal health, sustainable agriculture, waste management, odor
control and industrial applications. Here is more information on the list
group:

The shorthand name for the list group at Yahoo Groups is: SAM-Apps
You may find the list group home page at Yahoo Groups at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SAM-Apps

To subscribe to the SAM-Apps list group by email, you would send an email
to:
SAM-Apps-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

*SAM-Ormus
*The full name of this list group is "Syntropic Antioxidative Microbes and
Ormus". This list groups is devoted to discussion of uses of certain
syntropic antioxidative microbes to create ormus-like products for use as
nutritional supplements or in other applications. Here is more information
on the list group:

The shorthand name for the list group at Yahoo Groups is: SAM-Ormus
You may find the list group home page at Yahoo Groups at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SAM-Ormus

To subscribe to the SAM-Ormus list group by email, you would send an email
to:
SAM-Ormus-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

*
*
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  • [permaculture] Syntropic Antioxidative Microbes (SAM) – a Unique Class of Probiotic Beneficial Microbes, Lawrence London, 03/24/2013

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