Paradigm Shift regarding Medicinal Effects of Botanical Roots and Seaweeds Our research demonstrated that the immune-modulating effects of many roots and marine botanicals are driven not by phytochemicals or the palnt but by their embedded inactivated microbiome. Using high-throughput screening with 16S rRNA and ITS metagenomics, we separated the inert plant from its active microbiome and found conserved microbial fingerprints dominated in commercial sold products including gram-negative Pseudomonas, Enterobacter, Acinetobacter, gram-positive Bacillus, Clostridium, and specific plant specific taxa These microbial remnants—(debris) persist after food and supplement processing, survive stomach digestion, with high capacity to stimulate pattern recognition receptors in gut immune tissues. This discovery overturns more than a century of assumptions in herbal medicine, reframing microbial debris as the true active ingredient in immune nutrition for 65 defined products and provides the foundation for standardized microbial bioreactor grown future supplements, food-based vaccine adjuvants, and safe dietary immunotherapies.