Why Eating Fermented Foods Will Help You Lose Weight

Eating fermented foods has been making a huge comeback among people in-the-know these days. Most of these foods have a sour and savory flavor, and although sour is not a taste we’re accustomed to in our modern diet, these foods are in fact delicious and extremely good for your body. The reason is simple. Fermenting anything, especially vegetables, creates healthy probiotic bacteria that are essential to a healthy and functioning digestive tract.

Sustainable Weight Loss Depends on Healthy Digestion

You can be eating all the healthy foods in the world, but if the digestive tract isn’t working right, your body isn’t going to see a dime’s worth of benefit. This is why probiotics are thought to be even more important than vitamins.

By promoting friendly intestinal bacteria, fermented foods help…

• Aid digestion
• Support immune function
• Increase B vitamins (even Vitamin B12)
• Facilitate omega-3 fatty acids,
• Produce digestive enzymes, lactase and lactic acid
• Fight off harmful bacteria and even cancer cells
• Expel toxins and heavy metals from cell tissue.

How does this help with Weight loss?

All of the health benefits listed above help reduce the overall inflammation of our body, which is is particularly important when it comes to weight loss.

You may have heard of the conditions called ‘leptin resistance’ and ‘insulin resistance’. One of the factors that causes these fat-gaining conditions is inflammation. Inflammation, more specifically ‘proinflammatory cytokines’ which are the hormones that cause inflammation, activate your body’s FAT triggers. These inflammatory hormones cause the cells of your body to become resistant to ‘leptin’ and ‘insulin’, the two most important fat regulating hormones. Anything that can reduce chronic inflammation helps address one of main causes of obesity.

Studies are coming out all the time now linking unfriendly gut bacteria with obesity. It’s no surprise then that more and more physicians are using probiotic therapy to treat obesity, diabetes, depression, and heart disease as well as a host of other conditions.

What Are Fermented Foods?

Fermented foods are foods that have been through a process of fermentation in which natural bacteria feed on the sugar and starch in the food. This process has been used for centuries to preserve food, and we now know that it also creates beneficial enzymes and various strains of probiotics. When most people think of fermented foods, things like pickles, marinated peppers, mushrooms, cucumbers, artichokes, and even cheese might come to mind. While these foods were traditionally fermented and incur some form of fermentation, they are not the type of beneficial fermented foods that assist in digestive health and weight loss.

Warning! Not All Fermented Foods are Created Equal

Most canned or jarred foods in the supermarket (and even cheese) are processed for mass consumption through a process called pasteurization. Pasteurization is a heating process that kills bacteria. This is useful when prolonging the shelf life of a product but not useful when trying to preserve the healthy bacteria that is so essential for your digestive health.

The Best Fermented Foods For Weight Loss

That’s just one example, and there are so many other fantastic healthy foods that are easy and fun to make. Get creative, have fun, dip your toe in the water, (or brine as the case may be) and start, healing your gut, your body, your mind, and solve your weight problems.

The key with all foods and the relationship to weight loss is to keep inflammation down in the body. Fermented foods are one of the best ways to ensure that your digestion is healthy and resilient. A resilient body is more able to respond to changes in your life, environment, or food choices and still help you sustain a healthy weight. Since food is the best way to assimilate nutrients, versus supplements, eat your fermented foods every day for healthy weight loss.