Fermented Foods

Fermented foods help to diversify the balance of microbial species, thereby strengthening your microbiome. Miso has more than 160 bacterial strains along with protein, B‐complex vitamins and antioxidants.

steamykitchen.com

Some of the strains of microbes in kimchi include L. mesenteroides, L. plantarum, L. citreum,  L.  brevis, L. curvatus, L.  plantarum, L.  lactis, P. pentosaceus,  W. confusa, W.  Koreensis, and it has vitamin C, carotenoids, and enzymes.

www.chowhound.com

Making your own fermented foods like kimchi or kombucha is very easy, and less costly than buying them already prepared. Homemade yogurt has 100 billion microbes per serving; that’s 100 times more than the 1 billion found in 1 serving of commercial yogurt.

www.olivetomato.com

Kefir is another fermented milk product. It is made by souring milk with a large number and variety of beneficial bacteria and yeast. These strains are able to stay in the digestive tract and help to balance the microbial flora. Yogurt’s beneficial microbes don’t stay in the digestive tract as long.

www.healthstylecenter.com

Other fermented foods include sauerkraut (not from a can), buttermilk, tempeh, and pickles. In fact you can ferment just about any vegetable. There are numerous videos and books on the subject. I highly recommend Nourishing Traditions, it has many traditional recipes.

Feeding your Microbes

It is important to eat a well-balanced, whole food diet in order to maintain healthy colonies of microbial flora. This is due to the varied nutritional requirements of each genus of microbe. If we think in terms of our own nutritional requirements and the consequences of not eating right, we can begin to understand microbial requirements.

humannhealth.com

For instance, if I ate a diet that was devoid of vitamin C, I would become more susceptible to colds, my gums would begin to bleed, I would bruise more easily, and I would eventually develop scurvy. Why? Because vitamin C is an antioxidant, and it is a source of collagen. So I would become unhealthy with a lack of vitamin C. My microbes become unhealthy without prebiotics. Consider prebiotics as microbe food.

www.hsph.harvard.edu

Prebiotics of various types are found as natural components in milk, honey, fruits, and vegetables, such as onion, garlic, artichoke, banana, and barley. Asparagus, beets, chicory, tomato, and rye are sources of fructooligosaccharides (FOS).

www.slideshare.net

FOS do not breakdown during digestion. They are instead metabolized or eaten by beneficial microbes and they create short chain fatty acids. Having FOS in your diet has also been shown to increase mineral absorption, and to decrease serum cholesterol and triacylglycerol.

www.probioticsbrands.net

Some microbes, like Lactobacillus acidophilus have been studied extensively. This probiotic, which is commonly found in yogurt, has been found to help regulate both diarrhea and constipation, IBS, allergies, eczema, allergies, and it appears to improve immune function. But it needs prebiotics to do these wonderful things. It eats FOS and Isomaltulose.

Isomaltulose is a new candidate as a prebiotic. It naturally occurs in honey, sugarcane juice, and its products such as food-grade molasses. It is not found in refined sugar.

healthandfoodadvice.com

Galactooligosaccharides (GOS) and raffinose oligosaccharides are also prebiotics. GOS are found naturally in human and bovine milk. Seeds of legumes, lentils, peas, beans, chickpeas, and mustard are rich in raffinose oligosaccharides. 

Microbes Affect your Mood and Health

There is a growing body of evidence that finds a correlation between the health of the microbiome and its effect on mood, behavior, and memory. Dysregulation in the microbiome is often seen concurrent with states of anxiety, depression, memory and concentration impairment. Fortunately we are able to take an unhealthy microbiome and improve it.

 

www.psychologytoday.com

Microbes change in response to changes in the diet. This includes microbes that produce inflammation. For example Bacteroidetes carry lipopolysaccharides in their cell walls. Lipopolysaccharides promote inflammation. Some studies indicate that a high fat diet can decrease the amount of Bacteroidetes in the colon. This of course would be a diet high in healthy fats (see my 3/23/16 post on foods that improve mood).

www.medicalnewstoday.com

Prebiotics and probiotics can have an effect on the metabolic processes within the microbiome. Research is ongoing in the effort to discover how best to influence the complex relationship between the individual, their microbiome, and the food and nutrients consumed. Limiting or eliminating processed foods, sugar, and transfats is a great place to start. An organic, whole food diet can be supplemented with probiotics and fermented foods.

dailybrainstorms.com

Research has found that consuming fermented milk is associated with changes to midbrain activity, which processes emotion and sensation. Women who consumed fermented milk showed differences in resting brain activity and improved ability in task performance. Fermented milk includes yogurt, cheese and kefir. These are each fermented with different types of microbes.

www.drdavidwilliams.com

The food we eat is converted by intestinal microbes into bioactive compounds that affect your health. Prebiotics and probiotics can modulate the immune system in the intestine, actually improving your immune function. The production of short chain fatty acids is one of the best examples of the way the microbiome works in concert with your immune system.

www.intechopen.com

Research has demonstrated that butyrate and acetate, two short chain fatty acids produced by the microbiome, are intimately involved with immune response. Butyrate improves the function of helper T-cells and improves the strength of the intestinal lining. This is important because a damaged intestinal lining, also known as Leaky Gut Syndrome has been implicated in many types inflammation including autoimmune diseases. Acetate also works to keep the intestinal tract in good health, it does this by reducing the rate of infections. It seems to work particularly well to keep E coli in check.

Tomorrow we'll look at specific microbes and what we can eat to help them thrive.