Enjoy the Benefits of Sauerkraut
An Unlikely Superfood
The Benefits of Sauerkraut are many and will likely surprise you what an amazing superfood it is. It really provides extraordinary health and immune system benefits while being super inexpensive and tasting great at the same time.Sauerkraut is a 'tart' tasting food that has been 'Lactofermented' or cultured with probiotic supplements in the same way that milk is lactofermented into yogurt. Even though the end result looks different, they are actually cousins in terms of benefits that can be derived from eating these raw and living foods full of good probiotic supplements that you need.
Enjoy Improved Nutrition
One of the most interesting benefits of sauerkraut, qualifying it as a superfood, is that culturing the vegetables actually provides an INCREASE in the nutritional content over canned, frozen, dried and even FRESH foods. When you eat cultured foods, you are also consuming the probiotic supplement microorganisms which are actually very rich source of B vitamins.
Even when the original food had no B vitamins at all, the final lactofermented product can be an excellent source of B vitamins, and particularly of Vitamin B12. Since being a vegetarian or vegan is one of the Causes of B12 Deficiency, consuming cultured foods is one way to get the Vitamin B12 that is so often missing.
Another of the benefits of sauerkraut is that the natural lactic acid produced by the bacteria not only prevents spoilage and makes the food extremely safe to eat, but actually 'digests' the food, making sauerkraut easy to digest and making the nutrients more easily absorbed by the body. This makes these foods perfect for those with gastrointestinal problems like Gluten Sensitivity, Increased Intestinal Permeability and Inflammatory Bowel Problems.
Cabbage and a few other vegetables, in their raw state, contain substances called 'Goitrogens'. These goitrogens actually 'block' the action of the thyroid gland, over time creating a hypothyroid situation in those that would eat these foods regularly. But cooking and lactofermentation both inactivate goitrogens, making sauerkraut safe to eat as regularly as you would like- even though eating cabbage raw is NOT safe to do on a regular basis.
The Benefits of Sauerkraut
On the Immune System
One of the MAJOR benefits of sauerkraut, like that of Resistant Starch, is that it can lead to a directly maintenance and improvement the immune system through the action of the probiotic Good Bacteria that it contains. We think of our Immune System as being an amorphous and anonymous part of our bodies that just 'arises' when we need it and it is 'somewhere' out there on duty when we don’t. But this is not the case at all and, depending upon who you talk to, between 60 to 85% of the immune system lies in the digestive tract- much of which is a DIRECT result of the up to 5 POUNDS of Good Bacteria that are present.
Every single time that you eat, you are fighting off millions if not billions of potentially pathogenic organisms that could make you sick. Since the VAST MAJORITY of threats to your health come in through your digestive tract, if you REALLY want to protect yourself from pathogens, forget the chronic Handwashing, which may only serve the opposite goal of WEAKENING the immune system, strengthening the immune system in your digestive tract by keeping it populated with good bacteria from:
- Sauerkraut
- Other Cultured Vegetables
- Kefir Milk
- Yogurt
- Kombucha Tea
and all of the other various cultured foods out there is probably one of the best ways to protect your health that there is. And yes, eating fermented foods is imminently safe. In fact, it can be SAFER than eating raw fruits and vegetables because of the high lactic acid content that inhibits bacterial growth. Remeber, people have been successfully fermenting foods for hundreds of thousands of years.
“Lactic acid bacteria are highly efficient killers of other bacteria,
and they do a marvelous job. This is why vegetable
fermentations pretty much always works.
It’s been working for thousands of years."
Fred Breidt, USDA’s Food Science Research Unit
Bowel Regulation
Aside from the immune system benefits that probiotics provide, one of the benefits of sauerkraut is its ability to regulate the bowels. Probiotic yogurts have been advertised recently as promoting "guaranteed regularity in just 7 days". Well, the 'magic' in these yogurts is the Probiotic organisms that are present which, aside from being an integral part of the immune system, help to regulate bowel motility.
Lack of 'good bacteria' in our diets due to modern processing may be one of the reasons for the widespread problem of chronic constipation. While constipation is often one of the Signs of Magnesium Deficiency, it can also be a sign of not enough good bacteria in the bowels. Providing these good bacteria along with much needed fiber can help to improve constipation and the overall health of the bowels.
The Benefits of Sauerkraut are many and this inexpensive easy to make staple should be a part of your overall diet that is aimed at maintaining and increasing your health. It is no accident that the probiotic organisms that are in sauerkraut and other cultured foods are the EXACT same organisms that we need to make us healthy. Before refrigeration, your ancestors would have cultured foods EXTENSIVELY for longer storage- and eaten them regularly as a result.
While the advent of refrigeration has been a boon for mankind, it also brought about the demise of the probiotic supplements in many cultured foods- to the direct detriment to our health. Learning to make and eat raw living sauerkraut and enjoying the many benefits of sauerkraut is something that is easy, fun and beneficial to your health by providing you with a living probiotic supplement.
But make sure that you ONLY make or buy RAW and UNPASTEURIZED sauerkraut. Many commercial sauerkrauts are pasteurized (heated) to kill bacteria- and the good bacteria are killed along with the bad, making them useless as a probiotic supplement. But if sauerkraut isn't for you, you can simply take a high quality probiotic supplement such as Prescript Assist Probiotic Keep reading to see what benefits these probiotic Good Bacteria can provide for your overall health.
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