These bacteria make up the bulk of your immune system (>70%). If this is a new concept for you, let me regress. Our guts with the help of intestine permeability determine what gets in our body. These bacterial badasses are what keeps toxins, germs, allergens and viruses from entering your body. But if you have a weak gut flora, you and your immunity may be compromised.
There are many factors that will affect the integrity of your bacterial buddies in our everyday lifestyles including diets high in refined carbohydrate, antibiotics, low fiber diets, stress and overconsumption of wheat. I could talk for days about the gut-immune connection, however, I am getting a hunch that it would be wise of me to talk about probiotics. specially about the role they play in gut health restoration.
The term probiotic comes from the latin words "pro"meaning before and "bios" meaning life; to all of my naturopathic medicine classmates - language of medicine does have a purpose, finally! Moving along, these good bacteria help with digestion and absorption of nutrients. Don't get them confused with pre-biotics which are food for the probiotics. Some real food examples of probiotics include: yogurt, kefir, fermented cheese, kimchi and sauerkraut. It would be wise to combine probiotics with pre-biotics if you're a healthy individual. Pre-biotics come from the oligiosaccharides family of sugars in food sources such as yams, garlic, oats and the almighty artichokes.
Gut health is becoming one of the top modern research topics in the 21st century. Probiotics are showing up in studies far and wide with promising results in: athletic performance recovery, irritable bowel syndrome and mental health. In Daphne Miller's book Farmacology, she references a study of mice; the gut biomes of obese mice were transplanted into average weight mice, the skinnier mice became obese weeks after obtaining the new gut biome. I realize that we are not mice but just something to keep in the back of your head. Well I can lead a blog reader to probiotic information but I can't make them drink bacteria, can I? If you're sick of bacteria talk, I won't be offended if you go back to facebook but if you're interested in making some sauerkraut, scroll down for a quick tutorial. Ill show you how to make your own lacto-fermneted probiotic for a fraction of the price of the creepy probiotic pills you buy at shopper's drug mart.
Cheers
You need 3 things to become a probiotic fermenting pro
A jar - I use a wide mouth mason jar
A head of cabbage
2 tbs Sea Salt
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| Cabbage, salt and caraway seeds (optional)
The first step is to dice the cabbage up into approximately 1/4 inch pieces.
Place the cabbage in a big bowl with the salt
Mix around with your hands for five minutes and then smash with a potato masher for 5 minutes - releasing all the wonderful juices of the plant
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| Mashing the cabbage
Once you have released some juices put your cabbage into your mason jar or other glass ware (make sure it has a good seal). If there is not a layer of liquid soaking the cabbage, add some filtered water until nearly covered.
Your done. Now the waiting game starts. Your cabbage should be ready within a week but some wait for 3-6 weeks for optimal flavour. You can play around with ingredients and spices if you wish as well. I made a batch of Kimchi inspired sauerkraut which includes: radishes, cabbage, chilli powder, onions, honey and ginger.
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