2627: It’s Alive! The Fantastic Frontiers of Fermented Food by David Cameron-Smith of Les Mills

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[00:01:30] That's wonderfulpastachios.com This is Optimal Health Daily, Episode 26-27. It's alive! The Fantastic Frontiers of Fermented Food by David Cameron Smith of lesmills.com And I'm Dr. Neal, your very own personal narrator. Hey there, welcome to a Thursday edition of Optimal Health Daily.

[00:01:51] This is one of a few shows where we read to you from blogs for free. So you don't have to read them yourself. Except on Fridays that's where I answer your questions. But with that let's get right to today's post as we optimize your life.

[00:02:09] It's Alive! The Fantastic Frontiers of Fermented Food by David Cameron Smith of lesmills.com Fermentation has been around since the beginning of time. But we're only just beginning to truly appreciate the scientific basis of its extraordinary benefits. Partly this is because it's such a mysterious process.

[00:02:29] Take almost any fruit, grain or vegetable, add a little time, some pungent smells, maybe some mold growth and the odd gas bubble, and a magic transformation occurs. The secret lies in the actions of particular microorganisms including bacteria, mold and fungi.

[00:02:47] These tiny bugs begin the process of digesting the food, but in so doing they make a whole new cocktail of interesting products, not least alcohol. Early civilizations, probably through many years of trial and error,

[00:03:01] were able to combine the cultivation of plants and fruit with the actions of wild yeast and bacteria. The earliest successes were in the production of the original home brews. Archeologists regularly find pottery used in the making and storage of either mead, which was made from honey,

[00:03:17] beer made from grains, or wine made from grapes. Soon after came fermented dairy products and eventually cheeses. As societies grew and became more elaborate, so too did the sophistication of fermentation. Special caves were devoted entirely to making particular moldy cheeses,

[00:03:36] entire monasteries brewed beer, and whole villages grew around the chopping, storing and preparation of complex fermented foods such as kimchi. Living in our modern, antiseptically clean world, the thought of eating food deliberately infected with microorganisms can be challenging.

[00:03:53] However, fermentation was originally widely used to make food safer and for preservation, long before modern technologies including pasteurization, sterilization and refrigeration sent such traditional practices into obscurity. Only a few generations ago everyone was eating and drinking products that were prepared by natural fermentation methods.

[00:04:14] Thankfully, a few traditionalists, many in Asia, have clung to the ways of the past to keep the art and skills of fermentation alive. Three reasons fermentation is fabulous. Probiotic powerhouses. The human gut microbiome refers to the many trillions of bacteria living in the large intestine.

[00:04:34] These bacteria convert undigested food into a complex array of vital chemicals we need for our health. Some of the live bacteria in fermented food make it past the acid and digestive enzymes to arrive ready for action in the large intestine.

[00:04:48] Their value in helping recovery from diarrhea and fungal infections is well established. More subtly, probiotic bacteria reset the optimal balance of the gut microbiome. Exactly how this occurs remains a scientific mystery and it is one of the exciting frontiers of nutritional research right now. Fermentation factories.

[00:05:09] Along with the bacteria themselves, fermentation produces many interesting chemicals. Unlike our bodies, bacteria can synthesize an array of vitamins. Most fermented foods are rich in B-group vitamins and vitamin K. These bacteria also trap minerals including iron, manganese, magnesium and calcium delivering a vital and tasty mineral boost.

[00:05:32] Taste the difference. The wonder of fermentation is how it takes bland foods and beverages such as milk, grapes, soybeans and cabbages and turns them into something completely different. The unique properties of the fermentation bacteria generate complex, alluring and undeniable flavors. Life would be bland and boring without bacteria.

[00:05:54] Five familiar, fermented superfoods you can enjoy now. One. Yogurt. Before yogurt was mixed with fruit, there were the Greek and Bulgarian varieties. This traditional mixture of lactobacillus bacteria and full cream milk was set into a thick and tart yogurt.

[00:06:12] The famous Nobel Prize winning Russian bacteriologist, Professor Elie Metzhnikov, identified the link between the longevity of Bulgarians in the early 1900s and their regular intake of yogurt. Working in the then recently established Pasteur Institute in Paris, Metzhnikov was amazed that yogurt contained live, edible bacteria.

[00:06:31] His discoveries began the probiotics revolution and put yogurt back into vogue. He would be unimpressed by the sweetened pale limitations of the hearty yogurt he consumed his entire long life. Two. Kefir and Lussi. Essentially these are variations of drinking yogurt made from sour milk.

[00:06:50] Unlike traditional yogurt, each contains a complex mixture of bacteria and fungi, often consumed as a pre-dinner appartif to prime the digestive tract. Three. Traditional cheeses. The care and devotion involved in the production of small batch artisan cheeses is astonishing.

[00:07:09] The deliberate inoculation of molds including those that either grow on the rind or throughout the cheese, in the case of blue vein, generate cheeses that are truly alive. Many of these ancient practices cannot be replicated anywhere other than the specific region or cave of their origin.

[00:07:26] Four. Sauerkraut and Kimchi. During the long days of northern summers, cabbages grow and ripen. Fermentation techniques were independently developed in Germany and Korea to produce the pungent flavors of sauerkraut or the spiciness of kimchi. This was not only a great way to deal with excess cabbages,

[00:07:45] but a flavorsome way to position the poor old cabbage as the star of the meal. And five. Miso and Tempe. Soybeans have been cultivated throughout Asia since the beginnings of human civilization. Many different techniques are used to ferment soybeans to produce a staggeringly complex range of traditional products.

[00:08:05] Western supermarket shelves carry only a tiny few including Miso from Japan and Tempe from Indonesia. You just listened to the post titled, It's Alive! The Fantastic Frontiers of Fermented Food by David Cameron Smith of lesmills.com and I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:08:27] Dr. Neal here for my commentary. Now let's say you don't like any of those foods and you still at the same time want to get plenty of probiotics into your diet. Well, talk to your doctor about whether supplementing with a probiotic is right for you.

[00:08:43] If they agree, the next step is to make sure that the one you buy is a good one. So let me give you a bit of advice on how to do that. As I've mentioned many times before,

[00:08:53] the supplement industry is kind of like the Wild West right now. Supplement manufacturers are creating products that aren't being tested by independent third parties. So some of them are putting fillers in their products and marketing them as supplements.

[00:09:07] It's very possible that you could go out and purchase what you think is a probiotic supplement, but if we were to actually analyze the product to see what it's truly made of, we might find it contains no good bacteria at all.

[00:09:19] Or if the product does contain good bacteria, there aren't enough of them to make a difference. Most studies suggest that getting doses of 1 billion live probiotic cultures may be what's required to see any benefit at all. Also, some supplements require refrigeration,

[00:09:36] whereas others may be stable at room temperature. It really depends on the brand and the probiotic strains. So carefully read the packaging to find out how best to store the product. And then once you've found one, you've read the packaging, you know how to store it.

[00:09:52] Look at the label to find out how much you should be taking. And then of course, again, double check with your doctor to make sure they agree with that dose. All right, that'll do it for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:10:04] Thank you for being a subscriber or follower of the show. I hope you have a great rest of your day and I'll see you back here tomorrow for another Friday Q&A where your optimal life awaits.