Friday, February 13, 2015

Eating more Fermented and Cultured Foods will make you Smart, Slim and Healthy




Fermented foods contain beneficial probiotics, digestive enzymes, and health boosting nutrients. Fermented foods have the unique ability to ease digestive discomfort related to having either too much or too little stomach acid. When the production of hydrochloric acid by the stomach is low, fermented foods help increase the acidity of gastric juices. On the other hand, when the stomach produces too much acid, fermented foods help protect the stomach and intestinal lining.
As we get older, our production of the digestive juices and enzymes required for proper digestion begin to decrease. Eating foods like sauerkraut, buttermilk, and pickled vegetables can help make up for this loss. The key is to eat a small portion of traditional fermented foods on a very regular basis. Once or twice daily with meals is best.

Including a few probiotic-rich foods in our daily routine, we can greatly improve mental and physical well-being — all without unpleasant fad diets. Adding Fermented foods to your daily diet helps increase the movement of the bowel, and can alleviate constipation problems. It also helps improve the release of digestive juices and enzymes from the stomach, the pancreas, and the gallbladder.

If you feel your current weight is far from ideal — and would like to shed a few pounds — probiotics can help. Researchers discovered in a recent study that women who consumed a strain of lactic acid bacteria called Lactobacillus rhamnosus lost twice as much weight as their non-probiotic counterparts. Over the course of 12 weeks, half the women were given two probiotic pills per day, while the other received a placebo. At the end of the study, the researchers observed that the weight of the women in the placebo group remained stable, whereas the probiotic group continued to lose weight, totaling 5.2 kg per person. Probiotics might help preventing the chain reaction that leads to glucose intolerance, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.

Weight loss isn’t the only advantage of increasing your intake of probiotics; they might actually make you smarter too. If you find yourself struggling with brain fog, depression or anxiety, the problem may lie in the gut. But we can easily correct this issue by enjoying more foods like:

unpasteurized sauerkraut and kimchi,
kefir,
beet kvass,
traditional sourdough bread,
Ethiopian injera,
tempeh,
miso,
traditional buttermilk and
kombucha.

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