Fermented foods help digestion

Val AllenThe West Australian

Fermented foods provide a pre-digestion technique that has been used for centuries throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia to help civilisation digest and use nutrients more efficiently through the friendly bacteria they produce.

Products such as yoghurt, kefir, sourdough breads, sauerkraut, miso soup, umboshi plums and blue vein cheese have crept into the diets of Australian households as different cultures have introduced us to these foods.

Yoghurt contains friendly fermenting bacteria and we are now familiar with the importance of the probiotic, immune-stimulating effect of yoghurt cultures for our digestion.

Kefir is a fermented milk drink that has been widely consumed in Eastern Europe for centuries; it contains about 30 different strains of friendly bacteria, making it a more potent digestive and immune-boosting product than yoghurt.

Kefir is available from some health food shops and can also be easily made at home using a kefir grain starter; details about this are on my clinic website for those interested in making their own kefir.

The most important aspect of fermentation and digestion relates to grains and our bread industry.

A colleague, Rob Santich, has an interesting theory for the difficulty so many people have digesting bread and the increase of diagnosed coeliac disease.

His theory is that until the 1950s, bakers worked in two shifts and the prepared dough was left to ferment and rise overnight before the second shift baked it next morning.

This dramatically increased fermentation and breakdown of gluten in the flour, making it more digestible.

Once large-scale commercial baking became established, baking was reduced to one shift and the long period of the fermentation process was lost.

Many people find that sourdough bread digests well.

Val Allen has a practice at Perth Natural Medical Clinic

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