Fermented foods, the new gut health craze
When I first heard someone say we should eat more fermented foods my stomach turned and I couldn’t imagine anything worse. In my mind I was imagining food that had completely gone off, but I was so wrong. Fast forward a few years later and I am loving fermented foods!
The health benefits are endless as these foods contain natural probiotics, which are absorbed by your body far more easily than probiotic supplements. Fermented foods include:
- Kefir – similar to yoghurt, but with far less refined sugars
- Sauerkraut
- Kimchi – similar to sauerkraut
- Kombucha – made from tea, yeast and good bacteria
- Pickles
I have taken to making my own Kefir at home, by buying some kefir grains and letting them ferment in milk overnight. Many lactose intolerant people can still consume kefir made with regular milk, because the bacteria eat the lactose, thus reducing the chance of having an allergic reaction. My husband and mother in-law both cannot consume cow’s milk products, but are fine with kefir, and amazingly their allergic response to gluten and other foods they are intolerant to seem to have improved.
Your gut health effects your whole system. Think of your body as a lake, containing its own ecosystem. If one part of a lake becomes polluted, all of the life within that part of the lake will die, and this will spread to the rest of the lake over time if it is not rectified. The same applies to our bodies, if our gut health is unstable and compromised, this will have an effect on the rest of our body, from our immune system to our nervous system, including moods and sleep.
If you let gut health is not optimal, you should try this.
