Like a youthful man, I recall my grandmother attempting to produce sauerkraut for supper once and making the worst face possible as a result of which my grandmother chuckled and stated, “Sauerkraut isn’t just good, it’s healthy for you!” After I tell my patients about sauerkraut like a health food, they create almost that very same funny face! Lately, however, apparently , grandma’s words were correct – sauerkraut includes a surprising health help to it as being do other fermented foods. Actually, several Polish women were lately studied for his or her rates of cancer of the breast. The audience who ate lots of sauerkraut had really low rates of cancer of the breast.

Health Advantages of Fermented Foods

Fermented foods, like sauerkraut, olives, pickles, sourdough bread have been in existence for any lengthy time. These were produced to assist food keep longer utilizing a natural fermentation process known as lacto-fermentation. Within this process, advantageous lactobacillus acidophilus bacteria (the type living inside your gut which help digest your foods) convert the starch and sugar in foods to lactic acidity. The lactic acidity acted like a preservative so refrigeration wasn’t necessary and food were built with a lengthy shelf existence.

An unexpected, little-known health benefit about these fermented foods ended up being discovered. It appears the same fermentation procedure that both preserves and provides these food types their distinctive sour-tangy taste will also be greater in vitamins and really strengthen your digestion, remove excess fatty foods and cholesterol, and your digestive system happy and healthy.

Actually, these good bacteria contained in naturally fermented food have lately began appearing throughout television ads and health food articles as “probiotics” which restore and keep your intestinal flora, i.e., the amount of good bacteria inside your gut. In situation you did not know this, your colon, the area that houses each one of these advantageous bacteria, may be the very seat of the defense mechanisms. Whenever your advantageous bacteria levels are optimal, you’ve got a healthy defense mechanisms sufficiently strong to defend against infections along with other illnesses.

Many fermented foods, like olives, also contain good Omega-3 essential fatty acids which are advantageous in lessening inflammation during your body.

Not Every Sour Foods Are Naturally Fermented

After I tell my patients about naturally fermented superfoods, they are saying, great I’ll get some in the supermarket! However, most canned sauerkraut, pickles, greek olives in the shops, and buttermilks, yogurts, and kefir inside your dairy portion of your supermarket might not have been produced via a natural fermentation process and could not retain the live bacteria.

Actually, a number of these supermarket types of sour-tasting dairy products are pasteurized, and also the canned-shelf varieties could possibly get their sour taste through adding vinegar (a fermented food by itself) and/or certain preservative-grade minerals like potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate put into extend shelf existence. They have lactic acidity put into them instead of it developing naturally within the fermentation process described above. However, even these supermarket types of “fast” fermented foods give some health advantages additionally for their vitamins, minerals, proteins, fiber, etc, just less than naturally fermented which contain the live culture.