Fermented foods are high in good bacteria. Therefore, by including these foods in your diet, you add probiotics and enzymes to your overall health.
Fermented foods are common food items that are preserved using an ancient food preservation process called fermentation. This process is used to improve the food’s shelf life and boost its nutritional value.
What are these nutritional benefits? Read on to find out.
1. Supports Gut Health
Like kefir and pickles, fermented foods help increase concentrations of Lactococcus, Lactobacillus, and Bifidobacteria in the gut. Moreover, these preserved foods offer antimicrobial effects against pathogens and other gut opportunistic microbes, including staphylococcus aureus, salmonella enterica and shigella sonnei, to name a few.
All of these pathogens are harmful to your health. By consuming the right amount of fermented foods, you increase your body’s potential to fight these harmful bacteria.
Therefore, the next time you shop for food, don’t forget to call your pickles supplier for a couple of bottles.
2. Boosts The Nutritional Value Of Foods
Eating fermented foods also provides positive effects on other food items’ nutrient value, such as reducing the antinutrients (plant compounds that block or diminishes the body’s ability to absorb nutrients) components.
For instance, sourdough helps break the gluten in grains, making it less irritating to the digestive health of those people who are gluten-sensitive.
3. Promotes Healthy Mood
The brain and gut are connected. The gut, which is also scientifically called the enteric nervous system, is lined with tiny neurons that influence the person’s feelings and emotions.
Serotonin, the hormone associated with the human mood, comes from the gut and travels to the brain. Therefore, thriving good bacteria in the gut also means a happy and healthy mind.
4. Helps With Weight Management
Fermented foods also help with your body weight. Regular consumption of kimchi can help block the generation of fat cells. Research also suggests that regular yogurt intake is associated with reduced body fat and lower BMI.
5. Helps The Digestive System
Fermentation breaks down the food’s nutrients, making them easier to digest than their unfermented versions. An example of this is lactose, the natural sugar found in dairies. Lactose is broken down into simpler sugars when fermented. As a result, lactose-intolerant individuals are generally fine consuming fermented dairies like yogurt and kefir.
6. Strengthens The Bones
Fermented dairy products are said to boost bone health. While non-fermented milk is already rich in calcium, fermented ones contain more nutrients such as vitamin D, protein and vitamin K2, all necessary for optimum bone health.
7. Boosts Immunity
Your gut health has a substantial impact on your immune system. And since fermented food is great for your gut, it is also safe to say that it boosts your immune system, too.
Due to the foods’ high probiotic content, they can boost your immunity and reduce the risk of infections like common colds. So, if you want to ward off infectious diseases, get more of those pickles from your pickles supplier.
Fermented foods are, overall, great for the body. They are a tested-and-proven part of ancestral diets. These foods offer plenty of health benefits, as well as aroma and flavour that will surely spice up your diet.
