Probiotics are gaining more attention as a whole food or supplement-based addition to a healthy diet for intestinal health aiding in digestion as well as immune support. An interesting article in today's New York Times talks about the help vs. hype of probiotics in supplements or in supplemented foods like national brands of yogurt.
See "Probiotics: Looking Underneath the Yogurt Label" by Tara Parker-Pope here.
What are they? Probiotics are live microorganisms that provide a health benefit to the environment that hosts them. Another way to think of probiotics is as good bacteria - similar to what is naturally found in our stomachs. But if they're in our stomachs already, why would we need to worry about taking more of them?
Our diets, it turns out, do not make our guts good hosts for friendly bacteria. Typical Americans eat too much sugar and too many refined starches. We may have had a bout or two with illness that was treated with antibiotics, which strip bacteria - good and bad - from our bodies, leaving our digestive systems in less than perfect working order.
While the article in the NYTimes discusses the quality of probiotics in supplements or supplemented foods to determine the strength of the culture or strain of bacteria, I want to steer the discussion towards whole food options for bringing probiotics into a regular food routine.
Basically, I like to choose natural food sources for wellness before I look anywhere else, and I think probiotic foods have an important place in our food choices for health. For probiotics I look to yogurt and other fermented foods like kefir, Korean kimchee, Japanese miso, Indonesian tempeh and eastern European sauerkraut. I think it's a good sign when we hear about something that is "good for us" and then find examples in foods that have been in local diets from a wide variety of global cultures for a long time.
So you get all this information, and where do you start? For the digestive benefits from probiotics, I begin with something that is easy to incorporate into my diet, like yogurt or kefir.
I look for an organic, whole milk yogurt that is made close to home to increase the percentage of healthy bacteria surviving the trip to the store shelves and my refrigerator. Choose a yogurt that does not contain sugar - and stir in your own natural sweetener to please your palate instead, with a little local raw honey, real maple syrup, or agave nectar. Spoon it over a bowl of fresh fruit, oatmeal, maple-sweetened granola, or cereal. Or choose kefir, which is thinner than yogurt and easier to pour over breakfast cereals or fruit. Both make an excellent base for a quick morning smoothie.
