If you feel inundated with information and advertisements about which probiotic is the best for you, you’re not alone. If you struggle with keeping up with that information or if you’re still confused about how to best improve the normal, healthy gut bacteria, then read on!
The Master Tip to Restoring Normal Gut Flora
Apart from simply avoiding things that kill the healthy bacteria in our bodies (like antibiotics), we can also promote healthy gut flora by eating fermented foods. Fermented foods are evident in many different cultures over the world, and they come in all different forms. We’ll be highlighting nine of the most important fermented foods that will give you more strains of probiotics than taking a supplement. They’re also more likely to stay in your gut and help with digestion, mood disorders, and your immune system.
9 Most Important Fermented Foods
1. Kefir
Kefir is a fermented dairy product made from cow, goat or sheep milk. It’s basically a drinkable yogurt! It’s much higher in probiotics than yogurt, and it also contains high levels of Vitamin B12, calcium, magnesium, vitamin K, Biotin, folate, enzymes, and of course hundreds of strains of probiotics.
2. Kombucha
Kombucha is a fermented beverage made from tea, and it contains a colony of bacteria and yeast that’s responsible for initiating the fermentation process. Due to the fermentation process, you receive hundreds of strains of healthy probiotics. Kombucha also has trace amounts of alcohol, but not enough to get you intoxicated or feel any difference.
3. Sauerkraut
Sauerkraut is one of the oldest traditional foods. It has very long roots stemming from German, Russian and Chines cuisines. Sauerkraut, which means “sour cabbage”, is made from fermented greens, red cabbage, or green cabbage. It is high in fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, B vitamins, as well as manganese and magnesium. Store-bought sauerkraut is decent, but making your homemade sauerkraut is more powerful than store-bought sauerkraut.
4. Pickles
Like sauerkraut, store-bought pickles are not nearly as effective as pickles that you make yourself. Fermented pickles contain a ton of vitamins and minerals, plus antioxidants and gut-friendly probiotic bacteria. There are tons of homemade pickle recipes online that you can try for yourself.
5. Miso
Miso is created by fermenting soy beans, barley or brown rice with Koji, a type of fungus. It’s a traditional Japanese ingredient recipe in Miso soup. It tastes great and it’s high in healthy probiotic bacteria.
6. Tempeh
Tempeh is another beneficial fermented food made with soy beans. When it sets for a day or two, soy bean becomes dense and cake-like, and it contains both probiotics and a healthy hefty dose of protein too. Tempeh is similar to Tofu, but fermented and not as spongy or grainy tasting. It’s quite tasty actually, try it and let us know what you think!
7. Nato
Nato is a popular food in Japan containing fermented soy beans. It’s sometimes eaten for breakfast in Japan, and commonly combined with soy sauce. It contains high amounts of healthy probiotics.
8. Kimchi
Kimchi is a traditional fermented Korean dish that’s made from vegetables including cabbage, plus some healthy spices for your gut like, ginger, and garlic, pepper, and other seasonings. It’s often added to Korean recipes like rice bowls, ramen, or Bibimbap.
9. Yogurt
This is probably one of the most easily accessible probiotic foods you can find! Yogurt is a fermented dairy product made mostly from cows’ milk, although it can also be made from sheep and goats’ milk. It’s recommended when buying yogurt to look for three things. First, that it comes from goat or sheep milk if you have trouble digesting cow milk. Second, it’s made from the milk of animals that have been grass-fed. Third, make sure that it’s organic.
How to boost your healthy gut bacteria
Eating fermented foods can boost your healthy gut bacteria in ways that taking a probiotic supplement simply cannot. However, if you’re looking for a more convenient way of getting your probiotic dose, we’ve created a probiotic supplement called Probiotic T50, which is one of the most powerful probiotic supplements out there. It contains 50 billion organisms, which is almost 10 times as much as most grocery store probiotics. On top of that, it contains 11 strains, whilst most probiotic supplements that you take only contain one, two, maybe three or four strains.
If you incorporated fermented foods into your diet, and take the Probiotic T50 supplement, you can change the dynamic of these important organisms that live in your gut and improve your overall wellbeing.
If you’ve tried probiotic supplements and/or fermented foods, let us know which you prefer and how it’s worked out for you. We would love to hear what’s worked/not worked for you, or just to hear about your favourite fermented food! Let us know in the comments below.
Ever heard about prebiotics? Learn about the difference between prebiotics and probiotics here.
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I believe in the original meaning of the word doctor, ‘docere’, which means teacher. I’m here to help educate you on how to take care of yourself in ways that you may not have heard of before, but that are effective. I always want to hear your ideas and feedback so be sure to leave me comments below!
