You could be forgiven for thinking that fermented foods like kefir, kombucha kimchi and sauerkraut are just the latest in a long line of “health food” fads. However, with origins reaching back over thousands of years, they’re not really a fad at all; instead we should think of them as forgotten foods that are having a well-deserved renaissance. In fact in the East, to this day, fermented foods are a common part of the diet: Russians regularly consume kvass and kefir, while kimchi and other fermented vegetables are staples of Korean and Japanese cooking. Over the last hundred years, we’ve begun to understand that these foods are so good for us because of the probiotic microbes they contain. These can help us by improving our gut health – helping with the diversity of species in our own guts, and making compounds that we need.
These days when probiotics are available in an easy to swallow capsule, you might wonder why we still need to go to the bother of making them ourselves…. Here’s the definitive list of why functional foods can beat a capsule in the boxing ring…..