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As if you need more reasons to eat sauerkraut besides the flavor and crunchy texture it adds to recipes like a Ruben sandwich or sausages and sauerkraut here are 22 additional reasons to eat sauerkraut on a regular basis.
This list has one caveat. The sauerkraut must be naturally fermented. It must have living lactic acid bacteria (LAB) in it to reap many of the following benefits. This is because it is the LAB which produces a digestible good for you sauerkraut.
The industrially produced vinegar soaked version which is available in the grocery store isle do not benefit you nearly as much as the type you can make yourself or get in the refrigerated section of the grocery store.
1. Contains potassium
Potassium is an essential mineral your body needs to maintain good health. Its list of benefits are impressive
- Helps maintain strong bones
- Reduces the risk of heart attack
- Reduces the risk of stroke
- Helps maintain muscle mass
- Reduces the formation of kidney stones
Potassium is a vital mineral for maintaining your electrical system which our nervous system relies on to operate.
2. Is versatile
Sauerkraut is used in sandwiches, pasta dishes, in salads, eaten plain. With a simple web search you will find hundreds of traditional ways to use sauerkraut. I even found one which uses it to make chocolate cake!
To get the most out of this probiotic rich food serve it fresh with a minimum of cooking but anyway you use it sauerkraut will give you a health boost.
3. Can be made a variety of ways
It can be made out of any type of cabbage you have on hand, green, purple, even savoy makes a nice sauerkraut. All of which have a different flavor, texture and nutrient content and along with that comes a variety of probiotic bacteria which helps keep the gut in good health.
You can add any spices, additional vegetables and use a variety of salts like sea salt, Himalayan pink, course ground even normal table salt will do in a pinch.
4. Contains folate
Folate is one of the B complex vitamins which we find difficult to get. It is used to maintain and produce new cells as well as protecting your DNA. Damage to your DNA increases your risk of cancer and other debilitating diseases. A one cup serving of sauerkraut contains 9% of your daily RDA.
5. Source of Vitamin C
Vitamin C is a vital vitamin to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It is used to help repair and grow body tissues, form collagen, and is a key vitamin in supporting your bones and teeth.
It was the vitamin which the sailors lacked on long sea voyages which lead to scurvy. It was found that if each sailor ate some sauerkraut everyday this dreaded condition was avoided.
Sauerkraut is high in vitamin C and one serving contains 35% of your RDI. With the added benefit that it is a natural source which contains all the needed micro-nutrients which help its absorption.
6. Contains magnesium
Magnesium is needed by many body processes from bone building to cardiovascular health magnesium is used throughout the body. It helps those who are suffering from depression, type 2 diabetes and can even improve athletic performance.
7. Has probiotics
The benefits of probiotics are too numerous to write in a blog post but basically they help to maintain a balanced intestinal flora which can promote health. Having a wide variety of probiotics in your food helps to keep the pathogenic bacteria at bay.
Naturally fermented sauerkraut is packed with a wide variety of LAB which are valuable in maintaining a proper PH in your gut. This helps you to digest and use more of the food you eat and helps to use some of the sugars which would otherwise feed unwanted organisms which are present in your system.
8. Has vitamin K2
This vitamin is important for the preservation and maintenance of your bones. You cannot produce it yourself but the LAB in sauerkraut can. Eating some sauerkraut every day not only provides you with some K2 but it also contains the living probiotics which continue to produce it as it passes through your digestive track.
9. Reduces the risk of cancer
Sauerkraut has sulfur in it which is a recommended compound for cancer prevention. It is the sulfur in the sauerkraut which gives it its strong smell and particular taste. It also contains dithiothiones which have similar effect on your body.
It also helps to reduce inflammation due to its probiotic content which have a positive effect on intestinal balance. This also has positive effects on cancer risk.
10. Reduces risk of heart disease
Heart disease is the cause of one in four deaths in North America. This is due to the poor diet of the typical North American. To avoid this disease eat more sauerkraut. It helps to reduce inflammation and the deposit of arterial plaque which lead to hardening on the arteries.
11. Reduces anxiety
Again this is due to the probiotic content of sauerkraut. The probiotics have a positive effect on the gut and help to maintain a healthy environment.
The gut is said to be the second brain containing a dense concentration of nerve endings. These nerve endings are connected to the brain through the gut brain axis communicating with the brain how the body is doing.
When the gut is happy the brain has a much easier time maintaining an even emotional keel. Sauerkraut also helps in the digestion of sugars. Sugars are a necessary component of the diet but the refined white sugar which is ever present in our diets can cause health problems within the gut.
12. Supports digestive track
This is due to a number of reasons.
- It contains probiotics which help to maintain good bacterial flora in your gut
- It lowers the PH in the gut which makes it difficult for the pathogenic bacteria to proliferate
- It provides fiber which helps to remove unwanted toxins in your system
This benefit is not always noticed when you first start eating sauerkraut, especially if you overdo it in the beginning. The effects of it are sometimes uncomfortable as it tends to stir things up causing discomfort caused by gas and bloating. To alleviate this start with a little sauerkraut and build up as your tolerance improves.
13. Helps maintain healthy weight
Not only is sauerkraut low in calories but it has the unique ability to make you feel full faster with less food. This is due to one of the probiotics which is present in traditionally fermented sauerkraut which activates a hormone which makes you feel full.
This reaction helps you to eat less when sauerkraut is eaten with the meal. Helpings you to lose those extra pounds.
14. Protects from parasites
Sauerkraut contains a variety of probiotics one of which is acidophilus which produces an acidic environment in the gut which destroys the parasites and produces an environment which in not conducive to them.
In the same manner it helps to keep candida in check as candida needs a basic environment to flourish.
15. Food preservation
When you walk down the isle of the grocery store you see the result of modern food preservation. There are rows of canned goods, chemically and mechanically preserved dry goods and finally pasteurized drinks which need to be fortified with vitamins to have any value at all.
Naturally fermented sauerkraut does not have all these drawbacks as it is fermented by the addition of salt and time. The vitamins in it are not destroyed by heat or chemical reactions. It does not contain preservatives which are designed to kill off bacteria and yeast which are not healthy ingredients for us either.
16. Provides absorbable nutrients
Nutrients are necessary for life and your body is really good at getting nutrients out of any food you eat. Even though you may not eat the most nutrient dense, high quality food your body has been designed to get the most out of everything.
But that doesn’t mean that you should abuse this strength. If you want to have a strong, healthy, disease free body you can’t feed it low quality food.
Sauerkraut is packed full of nutrients which make it one of the best foods you can have. It contains vitamins, minerals and carbohydrates. All of which are easily absorbable because the LAB have broken down the hard to digest carbohydrates and made the minerals much more bio-available.
It also preserves vitamins like vitamin C and produces some B vitamins which may not have been present in the cabbage prior to fermentation.
17. May help reduce risk of Alzheimer’s
The health of the gut is linked with the health of the brain.
Probiotics help maintain the numbers of free radicals in your body. Free radicals can cause oxidative stress which causes damage to the cells affected. As the brain is highly dependent on oxygen it is esspesially suseptable the this type of damage. As cells are damaged the memory is effected, plaque builds up which is one of the indicatons of Alzheimer’s disesase.
Since sauerkraut has a large number of probiotics from the LAB family they are particularly well suited to prevent inflammation in the body.
It has been shown that the addition of probiotics, which sauerkraut is full of, improves the gut brain communication and helps to improve memory.
18. Improve skin
Eat more sauerkraut as it will improve your skin. Not advice you hear everyday!
But it is true. Eating sauerkraut improves your skin through several paths.
- It reduces inflammation which in turn reduces the amount of toxins which your body needs to deal with. Since one of the ways your body cleanses itself is through the skin with the reduction of toxins the skin naturally improves.
- Sauerkraut is high in skin improving vitamins like vitamin C
- Sauerkraut helps to keep the gut healthy by displacing unfriendly bacteria which cause stress on the immune system. With less work to do the immune system can attend to other bacterial invasions such as acne.
19. Has lots of digestive enzymes
When you eat something saliva is mixed in with the food and immediately starts to break the food down into smaller parts.
Probiotics use enzymes to break down their food into usable compounds just like your body does and the great thing about this is that they make more of the food you consume available to you in the process.
20. High amounts of LAB
Lactic acid bacteria are a valuable probiotic which we get in several foods which we eat. They are present on all types of fruits and vegetables but the numbers of them is low in comparison to fermented vegetables.
This is because when we ferment the food we place it in an environment which promotes the growth of the LAB and inhibits spoilage bacteria. This gives the LAB a chance to multiply greatly and produce for us pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi and many other delicacies.
Sauerkraut has been tested to have 9.0 X 10^5 CFU/ml. to trillions of CFU/ml depending on the study. So unless you are looking for a specific type of probiotic sauerkraut is the cheapest way to increase your probiotic consumption.
21. Contains acetylcholine
Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter which is involved in muscle contraction. This means that you need acetylcholine in order for you to be able to walk, talk and move in any way. It is needed for your heart to beat and your digestion to move.
22. Improves blood sugar balance
Today our diets are influenced by several factors which are previously unknown. In the past we would have to eat what was available in season or what was preserved from the harvest. Today most of our food comes from the grocery store which makes its profit on high glycemic chemically preserved foods.
This causes havoc with our glycemic levels stressing our pancreas to maintain an even blood sugar level.
Sauerkraut is one food which helps your body to lower high blood sugar levels. It has been found that cabbage extract can lower the fasting blood sugar levels substantially.
23. Easy to digest
This may sound counter intuitive as it seems difficult to digest cabbage and frequently leads to gas and bloating. Sauerkraut on the other hand has been partially digested by the helpful probiotics which produce some of the valuable vitamins which are found in it. They are also responsible for liberating some of the other vitamins and minerals found in cabbage but are hard for your system to absorb.
Okay if you get to here in this post I will assume you are convinced that sauerkraut is a valuable addition to your diet. Full of probiotics, vitamins and minerals. On top of that it tastes good in a variety of ways.
So it is time to do something about it. Get up and go ferment some cabbage. It is easy and healthy.
If you need a recipe there are thousands of them online, including this one which is the most basic recipe containing only cabbage and salt.
