Ever since the dawn of humanity, people have enjoyed fermented foods, but now scientific evidence stressing on the importance of gut health is drawing all the more attention into fermented foods. The probiotics contained in fermented foods are great for digestion and they occupy your gut with healthy bacteria and balance its microbiome.
We often hear about the benefits of probiotic rich foods like yogurt and kefir, another food to add to that list is kimchi (a Korean dish made out of fermented vegetables), which has huge amounts of these gut-friendly bacteria. Incorporating Kimchi into your diet can help to introduce a healthy population of lactic acid bacteria into your body.
The major ingredients of Kimchi are cruciferous vegetables along with other functional foods like garlic, red pepper powder, ginger, and so on. Kimchi is filled with antioxidants, lactobacillus bacteria and large amounts of vitamins and minerals. Kimchi possesses a number of health benefits- anti-carcinogenic, antioxidant, anti-obesity, lipid controlling, anti-diabetic, immunity boosting and antibacterial properties. Another interesting fact is that, consuming only a small amount of Kimchi can help you reach your daily target of fibre quota and provide a good dose of probiotics too!
The longer the kimchi ferments, the greater the health benefits and the concentration of probiotics in the Kimchi. Remember that, in order to keep all probiotics in the Kimchi intact, it has to be refrigerated and unpasteurised. On its own Kimchi can be quite salty, so it is usually served with steamed rice at a Korean meal.
Although Kimchi is packed with health boosting benefits, eating too much of it can bring some unglamorous effects. Having too much good bacteria in your gut is as bad as an excess of bad bacteria! It is a good idea to introduce Kimchi into your diet in small amounts, with just a small teaspoon of it with one meal a day. Once you start to maintain a fibre-rich, whole food diet, you can enjoy about 2 tablespoons of Kimchi with two meals a day!