What the heck are fermented foods? Well, fermentation actually refers to the fact
that most lower life forms like yeast and bacteria have to make energy by a
process called glycolysis. And we won't take you back to high school biology. But essentially we take, they take, sugar
molecules which are a source of carbon. And through a process called
glycolysis, they make ATP. The energy currency. Glycolysis is actually a very
inefficient process for making ATP. And you and I don't use glycolysis. We use mitochondria and the
electron transport chain. But glycolysis is basically fermentation
and fermentation takes sugar and turns it into energy for the bacteria or
the fungus or the mold or the yeast. And what's left over is actually
what are called post biotics. And just to review probiotics are friendly bacteria. Prebiotics are the foods that probiotics ferment.
During the process of fermentation, you
produce compounds that are called post biotics. And if we had to do it all over again, we
wouldn't use these names, but sorry about that. We're stuck with it. So, vinegar, for instance, is a product
of fermentation. For that matter, wine is a product of fermentation. For that
matter, beer is a product of fermentation. And what's fascinating is
almost all ancient cultures preserved their foods or made their foods
edible via the process of fermentation. So, fermentation of foods have been
practiced actually for past recorded history. There's evidence that the Egyptians
were fermenting foods10 000, years ago, really around the time,
beginning of agriculture. One of the reasons we think that fermentation
happened was number one, there was no storage system, there wasn't refrigeration, there
was no way to actually keep food fresh. And in the process of just storing food, fermentation was a natural process that would
start regardless of what you expected to do.
What's interesting is many,
many, many cultures actively used fermentation to make their
food probably far more edible. And interestingly enough, as many of you know,
fermentation in general breaks down lectins. Believe it or not, a lot of
bacteria love to eat lectins. They think they are delicious
and they will eat the lectins, for instance, in quinoa. Fun fact, the Incas
always fermented quinoa before they ate it, they let it rot and then they cooked it. Now unfortunately, that's not on the
packaged directions. In memorial, beans were always soaked for
a considerable period of time. And most people, if they bother to look,
notice that if you soak your beans, foam will appear on the top of the water. And that foam is actually the carbon dioxide produced by the native bacteria
on beans, fermenting the bean. And so traditionally, beans were diminished
when their lectin content because they were soaked for a considerable period
of time.
And onward and onward. So, not only does fermentation really reduce
lectins, but fermentation gives you post biotics. And it's the miracle of these post biotics
that I've mentioned in my last two books. But now in Gut Check, which will be out in
January, you really get to see how important these post biotics that have occurred from fermentation really are among the
main things that fermentation does. One of the main post biotics
is short-chain fatty acids. Now, many of you have heard me talk about butyrate, one of the most important short
chain fatty acids there is. And as you've heard about in my previous books,
but you're gonna see even more in Gut Check, butyrate is really the single
most important short chain fatty acid for your health that you can imagine. Now we hopefully have bacteria
that can make butyrate out of fiber, but it gets much more complicated than that.
And let me give you a study that I've
mentioned before and I mentioned it in Unlocking The Keto Code, a husband and
wife team of researchers at Stanford, the Sonenbergs, did a fantastic study with
human volunteers that was published last year. We've known for a very long time that
fiber is really good for you, right? And fiber is prebiotics. And we've known for a very long
time that our gut bacteria really, really, really like prebiotic fiber. And the thought was that our gut bacteria can take prebiotic fiber and make all these
wonderful post biotics like butyrate. And if they do this, everything gets
better and our immune system gets better, et cetera, et cetera. Not so fast, say the Sonnenberg. So they took human volunteers:
half got a lot of soluble fiber, the other half got the same soluble fiber but they were given fermented foods primarily
in the form of yogurt or kombucha or Kiefer. And then they watched what happened
to their gut microbiome diversity. Diversity means lots of different species.
And as you'll learn in Gut Check,
the more diverse your microbiome, the more different members of that
community, the better your health. And they looked at the immune system,
they looked at inflammation markers. Lo and behold, what was shocking was the folks
who got the fiber alone actually didn't improve their microbiome diversity, nor did it have much
effect on the immune system, on inflammation.
But the group that got the
fiber with the fermented foods had much improved gut microbiome diversity
and the inflammatory markers went down. So, what's up with that? Well, it turns out in my research, yes, you
want bacteria to be able to make butyrate. But what's fascinating is many
of the butyrate-producing bacteria actually have to have precursors for butyrate to
manufacture butyrate, basically assembly line. And so one of the shocking
things is that they need for the most part other short chain
fatty acids to do the conversion. So they need like for instance,
acetic acid or propionic acid, acetate or propionate to make butyrate. And yeah, they need the fiber, but they gotta have the precursors to
assemble all the parts to make butyrate. And that explains why it was only the group that
got the fermented foods that had these short chain fatty acids that then when they got the fiber,
they can complete the manufacturing process. It's also amazing in my studies of the longest
living cultures of the world that almost all of these cultures have fermented foods in their
diet and some of them might surprise you.
So let's set the record straight on no-go fermented foods. Yogurt. Now yogurt is a fermented food. The problem with American yogurt in
general is that most of our cows make a protein called Casein A1 which by itself can be a
lectin like compound, a very inflammatory compound. Now, cows and France and Italy, goats and
sheep and water buffalo, have Casein A2. So what I want you to do is try
to avoid American cow milk yogurt. There's plenty of goat yogurt available. There's sheep yogurt available,
there's coconut yogurt available, there's even pili nut
yogurt available called lava. All of these are great options. The other problem with most yogurts in
America is they are loaded with sugar. So you've got to be a wise consumer and actually
look for the amount of added sugar to the yogurt. So look for the unsweetened variety and if
you want them sweeter, just put some allulose in and good news, allulose is a prebiotic
sweetener that feeds good gut bacteria. Now, the second nonstarter is most kombucha. Now, don't get me wrong.
Kombucha is a phenomenal fermented
food that has great post biotics. But kombucha is tangy and Americans
in general don't like tangy things. So companies put a whole lot of sugar in so
many of the popular kombuchas to cover up that tanginess. So please read the label carefully. There are a number of popular
kombuchas that have as much sugar as a soda and that's not what you're looking for. Also remember that sugar isn't going to
benefit your good bacteria at all and it will only feed bad bacteria and
yeast that you really don't want. On the other hand, there are some kombuchas
that are low sugar and they are available, but you gotta read the label and just be careful
of the amount of added sugar in these products. Now, sourdough bread. Years ago when the plant paradox came out, I was
invited on the Doctor Oz show with one proviso. Doctor Oz who's a friend of mine said you're going
to have to give me a bread that people can eat.
Otherwise I'm not having you on the show. True story. So I said, well, there is no safe bread. But if you're going to eat bread, then sourdough bread would be the
safest because it is a fermented bread. We have to realize that almost
all breads traditionally were raised, were given heff by
the addition of yeast and the yeast fermented the sugars and also the lectins
in bread and that produced a even loaf. The Egyptians are the first
credited with doing this. On the other hand, almost all
commercial breads in the United States no longer use yeast to make the the bread rise. It's too inefficient and it's too unpredictable. That's why you get big holes and little holes. You want even holes and that's not with yeast.
So modern American bread doesn't
use yeast to raise the bread. Now, traditionally sourdough bread is made with a sourdough starter which
uses these yeast and bacteria. But most sourdough bread in the United States, it says sourdough because they use sour dough,
but most of the bread was still unfermented. So buyer beware, sourdough
bread in the United States for the most part is not what you're looking for. Ok. So let's get to the good stuff because
there's some easy-to-use good stuff. Number one, best fermented food that's
easy to find and use is vinegar. You've got to give the assembly
line to make butyrate what it needs. And vinegar supplies acetic acid, the
short chain fatty acid that it needs. Now, if you want a deep dive about other
videos all about the benefits of vinegar, go to my youtube channel and check out vinegars. Now, acetic acid is also a communication system
between our gut bacteria and our mitochondria and acetic acid as well as butyric acid are one
of the best ways to uncouple mitochondria.
And once you uncouple your mitochondria,
you get profoundly good health. Probiotics, even if they were in vinegar, are long dead. But those dead probiotics also carry information. So for instance, apple cider
vinegar with the mother, the mother is actually all the dead bacteria. And what's left over of the polyphenols in apples. And those dead bacteria also carry information. And it's a really exciting information
that you're gonna learn about in gut check. Dead bacteria tell tales. Now, vinegar is a great way to do this. Vinegars make you actually uncouple
your mitochondria to lose weight. And one of the miracles of weight loss
with vinegars is this uncoupling effect. Now, I love aged balsamic vinegar. It has multiple available polyphenols. It's actually the richest source
of resveratrol that you can get.
I happen to have a brand that I recommend. I have no relationship with them. They're called Napa Valley Naturals
and you want the Grand Reserve. It's really thick and you just need a teaspoon
or a tablespoon to make my famous fake Coke. You use sparkling water. I prefer San Pellegrino. I have no relationship with them and
you put in some balsamic vinegar. Stir it around and presto chango, you have got a health enhancing compound
that tastes really good and it tastes kind of like a fake Coke. Apple cider vinegar,
champagne vinegar, red wine vinegar. Sherry vinegar. Knock your socks off. I've got probably eight different
vinegars that we mix and match in our salads and it's a really easy way
to get these post biotics that you need. Now, here's a shocker. My second best favorite way of getting these
fermented post biotics into you is raw cheese. News, flash, raw cheese. What does raw cheese mean? Well, it turns out cheeses particularly in Europe, do not require pasteurization to
make it into the United States.
The bacteria and the yeast in cheese in milk actually impart great post biotics in
the process of making cheese. And there's particularly some raw cheese
bacteria that actually promote weight loss and surprise surprise. Three of the blue zones that I've talked about
before and you'll learn more about you gut check, three of the blue zones eat large amounts of raw
sheep and goat cheeses as part of their diet. Now, there's also a incredibly
interesting component in whole milk, which is called milk fat globulin membrane. And these membranes surround melt fat and
they actually are one of the strongest mitochondrial uncouplers known to
mankind and it's in whole-fat cheeses. Wow. So you get a double benefit.
Now, here's number three, that is gonna shock you. And this is straight from long lived people. Most people probably don't know that the
longest life expectancy in the world by country is in Andorra now, Andorra is this little tiny country between Spain and France
up in the Pyrenees Mountains. And these guys are sheep herders
and they eat sausage every day. In fact, a nearby town in France Toulouse
basically lives on sausage and Toulouse despite living on sausage has the lowest
degree of heart disease in all of France, despite having this massive
high saturated fat diet. What gives it turns out that traditionally
sausages are cured are aged by the addition of bacteria and bacteria eat the sugar
molecules in the meat and they also fun fact, eat Neu 5gC, which is in beef
lamb and pork, which as many of you have read is a real mischievous
molecule that really harms our health. But fermentation of meat of sausages
eliminates Neu 5gC and it also eliminates Neu 5gC in milk products.
So strange as it may be, traditional sausage
making is a fermented food that has probiotics, fermented things that improve your health. So if you want the world's life expectancy,
eat fermented sausages. Now not so fast. Most sausages in the United
States are not fermented. You can't have a Jimmy Dean's
breakfast sausage and get a benefit. Most sausages with an Italian name applied to
them like pepperoni and salami are not fermented. So buyer beware. But you can find traditionally fermented sausages
that are made in France or Portugal or Italy. And they are findable and those are actually
remarkably good for you. Who knew? So vinegar, aged raw cheeses or aged cheeses from Europe
in general and traditionally prepared sausages. One more last thing. Many of, you know, I have a very good friend,
a three times James Beard award winning chef, Chef Jimmy Schmidt and Jimmy Schmidt produces
sausages and bratwurst and lo and behold, Jimmy inoculates his sausages and
bratwurst with bacteria FDA approved. I may remind you and I was
talking to him one day recently.
I said, what the heck, how did you
know to inoculate your sausages? And he says, are you kidding? That's the only way you could ever
make a sausage legally in Europe. So I'm just continuing a tradition. So if a three times James Beard
award winning chef knows what to do, I'm passing it on to you eat your fermented
foods and buy or be aware which ones to avoid. More amazing episodes just like this one, watch now. Vinegars contain polyphenols. And the exciting thing about vinegars is that
each different vinegar has a different polyphenol..