A few days ago we told you probiotics may help you prevent high blood pressure. It could be one of the easiest things you do to help protect your heart.
But the benefits of probiotics go way beyond heart health… It’s a long list of perks—from a whiter smile to easing allergies.
Getting enough probiotics isn’t always easy. Most people rely on yogurts. They don’t provide nearly enough and are usually loaded with sugar. This deletes all the benefits anyway. Some people take supplements. It’s a good idea. But fermented foods are another option. Lucky for us, their rising popularity is making them easier to find.
Here are our top five probiotic-packed fermented foods:
1. Kimchi: This popular Korean dish uses fermented Chinese cabbage as its base. But it gets mixed with probiotic-feeding foods like garlic and onion. This means more potent germs. It also comes with a lot of heat from hot pepper flakes. But studies show that kimchi can help obese subjects lower their blood pressure, shed body fat, and even stabilize blood sugar.1
Another study found that men who ate kimchi helped lower LDL cholesterol. And the more they ate, the lower their numbers dropped.2 This fiery food is also rich in vitamins A, B, and C. But most important of all, experts claim it has 1,000 times the amount of probiotics you’ll find in most yogurts.3
2. Sauerkraut: Think of it as kimchi’s helpful—but less exciting—cousin. It might not have the added flavor and benefit of ingredients like garlic and onion… But sauerkraut may be just as valuable as kimchi when it comes to supporting your health. It may even help reduce breast cancer risk. That’s because it’s rich in glucosinolates. These are potent anti-cancer enzymes.
A study of Polish women found that their breast cancer risk nearly triples after immigrating to America. Researchers found that the women living in Poland were 72% less likely to develop breast cancer. And the key difference in their diet was eating about four-times more sauerkraut each week.4
3. Kombucha: This one may be the strangest of them all… Kombucha is a type of fermented tea. It comes from a “mother” strain of bacteria that brewers use to make batch after batch. And it may remind you of beer. It has a light carbonation and a foamy head…even a small amount of alcohol from the fermentation process. But it also comes with serious health benefits.
Researchers found that Kombucha’s antioxidant power was just as effective as the prescription drug omeprazole in healing ulcers in mice.5 Another study revealed that Kombucha is a strong detoxifier. It helped boost the immune systems of rats exposed to lead acetate.6 Making this one on your own can be difficult—even dangerous. But you can find raw, organic Kombucha teas in most health food stores.
4. Miso: This seasoning is a staple of Japanese cooking. You’ve probably come across miso soup before. This is the product of fermenting barley, brown rice, or soybeans with koji. It’s a fungus that also goes by the name aspergillus oryzae. Koji has an antimicrobial and antibacterial effect. It has potential to be a safer, natural alternative to the antibiotics commonly found in chicken feed.7 But more important, miso contains dipicolinic acid (DA). It binds to heavy metals and helps carry them out of your body.8 Try to find a probiotic miso paste that comes from rice or another grain and soy-free source.
5. Kefir: It’s a beverage that comes from fermenting goat, cow, sheep, or nut milk and mixing it with live bacteria. Kefir looks like a cross between milk and yogurt. And the taste takes some getting used to… It’s a little bit like sour milk with a squeeze of lemon juice. But the benefits make kefir worth trying.
It may help support liver, gallbladder, and heart health. It may even boost blood and oxygen supply to your brain.9 Some research suggests that kefir may help prevent cancer. It does this by acting as an antioxidant. Kefir also helps slow down the enzyme activity that converts pro-carcinogenic compounds to carcinogens.10 You can make your own… But most grocers now carry at least one variety. Always go with the plain version with no added flavoring.
It may take you a while to warm up to fermented foods… Kefir definitely isn’t for everybody. But they all offer probiotic support. They also come with important health benefits. But start slow. Try adding some sauerkraut to your dinner. There are also some nice-tasting Kombucha products that won’t overpower you.
Research links it to genital deformations in young boys, and leukemia, lymphoma and ovarian and thyroid cancers, but the US still allows it to be in your water and food. A whopping 75 percent of Americans have detectable levels of this and similar compounds in their urine. Here's one way to help your body break it down.
Story at-a-glance
Atrazine is the second most commonly used herbicide in the U.S., with more than 73 million pounds being applied to golf courses, lawns and food crops each year
Testing reveals 85 percent of male smallmouth bass in American wildlife refuges now carry eggs. The lowest incidence of feminization or intersex was 60 percent; the highest was 100
Atrazine is the one most commonly found pesticide in U.S. drinking water, and studies have linked atrazine exposure to impaired sexual development, some cancers, birth defects, insulin re
October 19, 2016
By Dr. Mercola
Atrazine, which was approved for use in 1958, is the second most commonly used herbicide in the U.S. More than 73 million pounds of it are applied to golf courses, lawns and food crops each year.1 As just one example of its prevalence, as much as 80 percent of all the herbicides used in Vermont are atrazine-based.
Meanwhile, Europe banned atrazine in 2005 due to suspected health concerns and environmental damage, including the high risk of water contamination.
Indeed, research clearly shows that atrazine has a potent "gender-bending" impact on marine life, including fish, alligators, turtles and frogs, and many scientists suspect it may be equally harmful for humans.
Most recently, testing reveals a shocking 85 percent of male smallmouth bass in 19 American wildlife refuges, including the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge located near the U.S. and Canada border, are carrying eggs.
Gender-Bending Chemicals Are Turning Male Fish Into Females
In other words, a vast majority of the male fish are turning into females, and the primary culprits are estrogenic compounds such as those found in birth control pills, bisphenol A (BPA, a chemical used in plastic) and the herbicide atrazine.
Smallmouth bass are known to be very sensitive to pollutants, hence researchers use them as an "indicator species" when evaluating the ecological impact of environmental pollutants. In the case of water pollution with endocrine disrupting chemicals, the situation appears severe.
The lowest incidence of feminization or intersex in the wildlife refuges tested was 60 percent. The highest was 100.2
While some fish species are hermaphrodites, meaning they can change sex in order to protect the continuation of the species, non-hermaphroditic fish that turn into females do not contribute to species survival. On the contrary, it contributes to sterility.
By lowering immune function, this type of endocrine disruption also contributes to infections, diseases and die-offs. According to National Geographic:3
"Over the past decade, feminized male fish have been discovered in 37 species in lakes and rivers throughout North America, Europe and other parts of the world.
Experts say the new discovery in protected wildlife refuges is worrisome because it suggests that pollution may be even more pervasive than previously thought.
'There are no truly untouched areas. I think the take away here is that everything we do, everything we use or put on the land, ends up in the water at some point,' says Luke Iwanowicz, a U.S. Geological Survey fish researcher … who led the wildlife refuge study."
Intersex prevalence among largemouth bass at these 19 sites were about 27 percent, and in previous testing done at eight U.S. river basins, including the Mississippi, Rio Grande and Columbia Rivers, about 33 percent of male smallmouth bass had changed gender.
Atrazine Is a Common Pollutant in Drinking Water
Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that in wildlife refuges, there are no identifiable sources of the contamination, which means the pollutants are spreading into the environment far more readily and/or in ways currently unknown.
This in turn raises serious questions about the extent of human exposure, and the potential effects of such exposure. As noted in the featured article:4
"Exposures to endocrine disrupting chemicals in drinking water, food and household products have been linked to health problems in people too, including reduced fertility, developmental delays in children and some cancers."
In fact, as far as pesticides go, atrazine is the one most commonly found pesticide in U.S. drinking water. In 2012, Syngenta AG and its U.S. subsidiary were ordered to pay $105 million to filter the chemical out of Midwestern community water treatment operations providing drinking water to 52 million Americans.5,6
The legal proceedings revealed that as many as 1 in 6 Americans were drinking atrazine-contaminated water. The $105 million settlement was really just a drop in the bucket when compared to the actual cost of filtering this chemical.
In 2010, the plaintiffs' attorney, Stephen Tillery, said the 16 cities included in the original lawsuit had already spent about $350 million to filter it out. Since 2012, at least 1,085 other compensation claims over atrazine contamination have been filed against Syngenta, suggesting the problem is incredibly widespread.7
Atrazine Linked to Harm in Humans
The legal limit for atrazine in drinking water, set by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is 3 parts per billion (ppb). This is the equivalent of three drops in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Syngenta and other atrazine proponents insist that atrazine is safe for the simple fact that it's been used for over 50 years, but mounting research suggests otherwise. For example:
Research has linked atrazine exposure in utero to impaired sexual development in young boys, causing genital deformations, including microphallus (micropenis)
The evidence also suggests atrazine exposure may contribute to a number of different cancers, specifically ovarian cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, hairy-cell leukemia and thyroid cancer8,9,10
Elevated concentrations of atrazine in drinking water have been associated with abdominal birth defects, including gastroschisis (in which the baby's intestines stick outside of the baby's body) and others
Animal research also suggests long-term exposure to atrazine may induce insulin resistance and weight gain by lowering energy metabolism11
Endocrine disrupting chemicals like atrazine are also implicated in lowered fertility and infertility12
EPA's New Risk Assessment Acknowledges Serious Hazards
On June 6, 2016, the EPA released a new risk assessment for atrazine.13 Its current view of the chemical suggests the agency might lower allowable levels and issue tighter regulatory limits on the chemical. There's even the possibility of an eventual ban.
The risk assessment concluded the chemical may cause reproductive harm to mammals, fish and birds, with the level of concern surpassed nearly 200-fold using real-world scenarios for mammals. (An EPA "level of concern" describes the threshold above which a chemical may be expected to cause harm.)
For fish and birds, atrazine exceeded the level of concern by 62- and 22-fold, respectively. A number of organizations, including the Organic Consumers Association14 (OCA) and Beyond Pesticides,15 created petitions urging Americans to push for a complete ban on atrazine. As noted by Beyond Pesticides:
"In July, California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) announced that atrazine, its chemical cousins propazine and simazine, and its breakdown triazine compounds would be added to the list of chemicals known to the state to cause reproductive toxicity for purposes of the state's Proposition 65.
The evidence is clear. Atrazine harms wildlife, persists in soils and moves easily through waterways."
Big Ag Fights to Keep Atrazine
The EPA's public comment period ended on October 5. Time will tell whether the agency will take appropriate measures to protect environmental and human health from this pernicious endocrine disruptor. Not surprisingly, the pesticide and agriculture industries are up in arms over the EPA's new assessment.
ChemChina, which has bid to acquire Syngenta, said the EPA's report "contains numerous data and methodological errors and needs to be corrected."16
The Iowa Corn Growers Association has also spoken out against the report, saying it would "effectively ban the product from most uses" if finalized as currently written. As noted by Journal Sentinel:17
"Farm groups, including the Wisconsin Corn Growers Association, the Cooperative Network, Wisconsin Pork Association, Midwest Food Processors, the Dairy Business Association, Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation and the Wisconsin Soybean Association, have asked farmers to contact the EPA and urge the agency to reconsider its position …
'For more than 50 years, atrazine has been a safe and effective crop protection tool to control the spread of resistant weeds and improve crop yields. … EPA's action would drive up the cost of production to Wisconsin corn growers and would reduce our yields,' said Casey Kelleher, president of the Wisconsin Corn Growers Association."
Harmful Toxin or Conservation Aid?
A ban on atrazine would be the BEST scenario for farmers and consumers alike, yet some farm groups have gone so far as to say the EPA's plan to limit atrazine's use would actually HARM the environment! According to Tom Liebe, president and CEO of Cooperative Network, an alliance of co-ops in Wisconsin and Minnesota:18
"Atrazine plays an important role in conservation tillage,19,20 a farming practice that reduces soil erosion and runoff. An atrazine ban would require more soil tillage to control profit-robbing weeds and will be a net-negative for the environment."
Conservation tillage refers to the practice of applying atrazine to suppress or kill leftover vegetation in the field before the new planting season. The use of the chemical allows farmers to till the soil less, which reduces soil erosion and related problems. As explained by Penn State's introduction to weed management for conservation tillage systems:21
"An important benefit of tillage is weed control. In conservation tillage agriculture, the grower relies on the same weed management practices as in more conventional tillage systems but eliminates most or all of the tillage operations. Therefore, in limited tillage systems, there is greater dependence on cultural and chemical control options …
Chemical weed control remains an important pest management tactic in reduced-tillage agriculture. Regardless of how effective cultural control strategies are, herbicides provide a way to manage weeds successfully with little or no tillage … Chemical approaches are based on timing of herbicide application and include burndown, soil residual, and postemergence treatments."
True Regenerative Farming Is Non-Toxic
The idea that a toxin like atrazine would somehow be necessary for environmental conservation is ludicrous of course, and this is a perfect example of spinning a negative into a positive by appealing to people's growing concern about the harm being done by conventional agriculture.
Some conventional farmers also worry that increased restrictions on atrazine might result in lower yields and loss of income at a time when crop prices are already at a record low. While financial concerns are valid, at some point the greater good really must come into the equation, and when it comes to atrazine, that time is now.
There are other, far safer ways to reduce soil erosion and chemical runoff than using atrazine. Besides chemical application, strategies that facilitate no-till farming include:22
Crop rotation
Pasture cropping
Use of livestock on the land
Mulching
Non-Toxic No-Till Can Work Just as Well
This lecture by Gabe Brown, who is an international leader in soil health and sustainable farming techniques, describes processes that help build healthy soils and the importance of no-till. By 2012, Brown's family farm, which consists of 5,400 acres in North Dakota, had reduced its herbicide use by 75 percent.
His intention is to eliminate it entirely by introducing other weed control techniques. Importantly, from a financial perspective, by cutting input costs, Brown has decreased his production costs, which has resulted in higher profits.
How this was accomplished is described in the Brown's Ranch no-till case study published by the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service in October 2012.23 I've also interviewed Brown on his techniques, which you can read about in my previous article, "How to Regenerate Soil Using Cover Crops and Regenerative Land Management."
The take-home message is that you do not need toxins to farm profitably. Atrazine, which like DDT and PCBs is chlorine-based, can persist in soil for 22 years!24 Considering the clear danger it poses to marine life, and the impact it might have on human health over time, it's unconscionable to suggest atrazine is a farming necessity or a critical conservation aid. It is a toxic pollutant that threatens the entire food chain.
How to Protect Yourself From Atrazine and Other Pesticides
According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 75 percent of the U.S. population has detectable levels of pesticides in their urine, and unless you're a farmer, your diet is one of the most likely routes of exposure, along with your drinking water.25
Eating organic is one of the best ways to lower your overall pesticide burden. The largest study26 of its kind found that people who "often or always" ate organic food had 65 percent lower levels of pesticide residues compared to those who ate the least amount of organic produce. Organic produce also had, on average, 180 times lower pesticide content than conventional produce.27
If you need to prioritize, refer to the Dirty Dozen list and buy organic as much as possible when you're choosing foods that are listed as the most-contaminated. If you shop at farmers markets, which I strongly recommend, you can also ask the farmer directly about pesticide usage.
It's possible to find produce that is not certified organic that may still have a lower pesticide burden than typical conventional produce depending on the farmer. So if you can't find organic produce, look for a local farmer who has eliminated pesticide use (or uses a minimal amount of such chemicals).
Filtering Your Tap Water Is Important to Reduce Atrazine Exposure
As mentioned, atrazine is the most commonly detected pesticide in U.S. water supplies, so I recommend filtering your tap water — both for drinking and bathing. To remove atrazine, make sure the filter is certified to remove it. Fortunately, since it is a relatively large organic molecule it is easily filtered by a quality carbon filter. As noted by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC):28
"Consumers should make sure that the filter they choose is certified by NSF International to meet American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Standard 53 for VOC (volatile organic compounds) reduction and therefore capable of significantly reducing many health-related contaminants, including atrazine and other pesticides."
Finally, if you know you have been exposed to pesticides, eat fermented foods like kimchi. The lactic acid bacteria formed during the fermentation of kimchi may actually help your body break down pesticides. In addition, there is some evidence that the antioxidant lycopene, found in watermelon, tomatoes, red bell peppers and more, may protect against some of atrazine's toxic effects.29
You’ve decided to be good to your stomach, so you start taking probiotic supplements. Maybe you’ve been prescribed an antibiotic and want to protect yourself from stomach upset. September 28, 2015 Maria L. Marco, PhD, University of California, Davis
You’ve decided to be good to your stomach, so you start taking probiotic supplements. Maybe you’ve been prescribed an antibiotic and want to protect yourself from stomach upset. Perhaps you’ve already experienced a bout of diarrhea from a stomach “bug” and want to get right again. Or you just want to give your gastrointestinal tract a healthy new start.
So you buy a 30-day supply of probiotic supplements, and start to take them each day with a glass of water. So far, so good. But what if there were a way for the probiotic to work better…and faster?
The trick isn’t to change the probiotic itself but to wash it down with something else—milk. The research is new, and the study was done on animals rather than humans, but it suggests that we should not only choose our probiotic supplements wisely, but also pay careful attention to how our diets affect their ability to help us. Here’s how…
WHAT HEALTHY GERMS LIKE TO EAT
Researchers at the University of California, Davis examined one of the most studied probiotic species, Lactobacillus casei (L. casei), often used to ferment dairy products such as yogurt and kefir. Strains of L. casei in supplements have been shown to help with many gastrointestinal conditions including constipation, antibiotic-caused diarrhea and even more serious inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel disease (IBD). Popular brands that contain L. casei include Yakult and DanActive.
The Davis scientists looked at the effectiveness of a specific strain of L.casei called BL23, which has been shown to improve ulcerative colitis in animal studies and is almost identical to the kind used in the manufacture of many fermented dairy foods. Ulcerative colitis is a disease that causes disabling pain and increases risk for colon cancer for more than 500,000 people in the US.
In the study, one group of mice got L.casei in milk, while a second got it in water and a third, just milk (no L. casei). The amount of milk or water was equivalent to about six ounces for humans—what’s in a typical juice glass. Then the mice were given a solution that impaired the lining of their colons, induced inflammation and mimicked ulcerative colitis.
The mice that got the probiotic in milk did best, showing…
• Superior survival of the L. casei bacteria in the intestines—five times greater than the mice that got the probiotic in water
• Less diarrhea and rectal bleeding than the other two groups
• Less weight loss (a good outcome in this context)
• The lowest disease score. On a scale of 0 (no disease) to 18 (the worst disease), the milk/probiotic group scored 6, while the water/probiotic group scored 11 and the milk-only group scored 9. That means much less inflammation in the intestines.
In short, taking the probiotic in milk rather than water led to more beneficial bacteria surviving and thus greater protection of the lining of the intestines against the inflammatory disease. It didn’t cure the disease, but it did protect the mice from its worst effects.
HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR PROBIOTIC’S EFFECTIVENESS
It makes sense that a beneficial bacteria that thrives in dairy foods would do better in your gut when you take it as a supplement along with dairy. That doesn’t mean that all probiotics would do better with a glass of milk. We need more studies—this is one of the very first to look at the dietary “matrix” in which probiotics are consumed.
But it’s smart to hedge your bets. If you’re generally healthy, choose your probiotic wisely. If you have a specific medical condition, such as IBD or Crohn’s disease, be sure to work with an educated health-care provider to select the right probiotic for your needs and to make any changes in your diet.
And here’s good general advice for ways to make your probiotic work better…
• Even though you are taking a supplement, make sure you are eating probiotic-rich foods such as yogurt and kefir as well as sauerkraut, miso and kimchi. That way, you’ll be working to improve your population of healthy gut bacteria from several directions.
• Eat plenty of prebiotics, too—fiber compounds that “good bugs” thrive on. These include onions, leeks, garlic, asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, bananas, whole wheat, yams and sweet potatoes. (Again, these foods may not agree with you if you have IBD or even the less severe irritable bowel syndrome/IBS.)
If the probiotic you’re taking with water every day doesn’t seem to be helping you, try taking it with a small glass of milk to see if that makes a difference. If milk doesn’t agree with you, try cheese, yogurt or kefir. You may even want to add your probiotic supplement to a fermented dairy food, such as yogurt or kefir.
Eat fermented cabbage and drink a litre of olive oil a week
Kate Quilton travelled the globe to countries with 80 per cent obesity, and one where a village has found the secret of eternal youth (two glasses of wine a day helps)
Spam, lovely Spam: Kate Quilton at a typical 'Mom and Pop store’ on Majuro, in the Marshall Islands. Many Marshallese cannot afford fresh fruit and vegetablesPhoto: BOUNDLESS PRODUCTIONS
I’m in hospital to see my dad. He’s sitting up and chatting away like he’s propping up the bar at his local – but he’s here because his heart has failed. Dad drinks, smokes and eats a poor diet. The kind of diet I wouldn’t serve to a dog. But he is not alone. He is surrounded by some very sick people who are also in hospital because they have bad diets. My dad is skinny on his; most are large on theirs.
On the next ward, a patient is morbidly obese. He’s served hospital food three times a day and tops it up with snacks from the tuck trolley. Brimming with brightly packaged sugar and fat bullets with a shelf-life beyond the apocalypse, the trolley offers an array of saturated fats, hidden sugars, salt and thousands of ingredients that are more at home in a laboratory than a kitchen. He buys himself a selection for the day that most of us couldn’t eat in a week.
This is an extreme example, but it’s a snapshot of modern Britain. On the one hand, the food revolution of the past 50 years has brought us choice and convenience; on the other, we’re facing a global epidemic with obesity.
Now, I love food. It’s fuel, it’s medicine, and it’s delicious. So when I was asked to go on a journey to find the world’s best diet, I was excited. I eat pretty healthily, but I could definitely do better – and when my dad’s not looking, I’m nicking his Jaffa Cakes. So which countries hold the secret to a longer and healthier life? Might it just be possible that I could find a diet that will ultimately prolong my life? And will I still be able to eat the odd Jaffa Cake?
What I found along the way was not only surprising, it also had the potential to change my life. And if a few of these lessons could be applied on a national – or even global – scale, then they could help towards making the world a healthier place…
MARSHALL ISLANDS IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
Peering out of the aeroplane window, it looks as though we’re touching down in paradise: azure waters lapping a sun‑soaked shore dotted with palm trees. But once the wheels sink into the greasy tarmac, it becomes quickly apparent that we have landed in one of the most obese places on the planet.
In 2013, the International Diabetes Federation found that more than 80 per cent of the adult population is overweight. And you can see it. Baggage handlers, airport security and the chaps at passport control are all demonstrably carrying extra pounds. And with all this weight come some very grave consequences. The Marshallese have the third highest prevalence of diabetes in the world – 50 per cent of people aged over 35 have the disease, and amputees can be seen island‑wide as a result.
So where did it all go wrong? Fifty years ago, the Marshallese suddenly changed their diet. After the Second World War, the islands became a trust territory of the United States. The US began trading with the islands, and as a result the Marshallese diet shifted from fresh fish and coconuts to an imported, processed “Western” diet of flour, white rice, sugar and fatty meats. And this is the diet they still eat today.
One evening I ate with a local family at home – mum, dad and five beautiful children. On the menu were two types of white rice – one with sugar and one without – and turkey tails. Turkey tails are essentially a turkey’s derrière. And, I quickly discovered as turkey fat dripped down my chin, they don’t pack much muscle in their trunk, since their tails can contain a staggering 73 per cent fat. So much fat that they have been banned in countries such as Samoa.
And with a watermelon costing $38 in the local supermarket, there wasn’t a fruit or vegetable in sight. The island is a coral atoll, so growing fruit and vegetables is nigh-on impossible. And on the average wage of $2 an hour, imported fruit and vegetables are a luxury most people can’t afford.
Rice, flour, sugar and fatty meats are a lethal combination if you don’t add any fibre in the mix. Without it, diabetes is almost an inevitability.
SOUTH KOREA
It was way past my bedtime. Armed with a strategic power nap and a box of doughnuts, I shuffled up a back alley. Punctuated with neon, it was like something out of Blade Runner. I arrived at an apartment and a pretty, petite South Korean girl opened the door. Not the racy madam I was expecting. Hyo-Jin tucked the doughnuts under her arm and ushered me into her bedroom. She gave me a slick of red lipstick, smoked my eyes and tamed my mane. We were ready.
I was about to participate in something pretty radical. Eating alone in South Korea is a major social taboo. Mokbang is the antidote. It means “broadcast eating”, something that is taking the country by storm and is earning Hyo-Jin a small fortune. Her live stream is free to watch, but if people are happy with the service they can give a donation. We tucked into an array of South Korean delights: kimchi pancake, fried pork in soy, and something a little more familiar, fried chicken. In just an hour of eating on a webcam, we’d made a few hundred dollars.
With such a passion for food, it is perhaps surprising that South Koreans are some of the slimmest people on the planet. In 2012, a report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development found that they have the lowest level of obesity in the developed world. So why are they so healthy? Firstly, and very simply, they eat an inordinate amount of vegetables. They eat more than twice the amount of vegetables we do and grow enough to have 222kg of vegetables per person available every year over our 94kg. Instead of five a day, it’s more like 10 a day. Fresh and often raw vegetables are a staple everywhere, even at service stations. This is a far cry from our roadside Ginsters and packets of crisps.
Second, fermented foods are a major part of their diet. Kimchi – a spicy, fermented cabbage – is eaten at breakfast, lunch and dinner, with the average South Korean consuming a hefty 150g-200g per day in the winter, and 50g-100g in the summertime. Packed with good bacteria called lactobacilli, it helps boost metabolism and aids digestion.
Fit to burst, I rolled out of Hui Jin’s flat. Feeling slightly objectified, I did genuinely believe, perhaps naively, that I had provided company at dinner for a few hundred solo eaters. I asked her what I should do about my bloated tummy. She had a one‑word answer: “Kimchi.”
ITALY
Tucked away in the Italian countryside, just a couple of hours from Rome, stands a magical hilltop. Known by scientists as the “village of eternal youth”, the average life expectancy in Campodimele is 95 years. Compare that with the Italian average of 77.5 for men and 83.5 for women. In addition, their cholesterol levels are some of the healthiest in the world. In the Eighties, the World Health Organisation discovered that the cholesterol in 80‑year-olds was similar to that of newborn babies.
Why are they living so long? There’s no doubt that they have longevity in their genes. Yet it’s what they do with those genes. I spent a day with Geraldo and Liana. They are 85 and 83 respectively, yet look and move like they’re at least 10 years younger.
I ask them to show me what they eat. Geraldo invites me on his Vespa, and I am half-expecting him to take me to the supermarket; instead, we roll down the hill to feed his chickens and check on his wheat fields. As for the supermarket, he laughs and tells me that the closest one is 50 kilometres away and he’s never been.
On returning home, his wife Liana is preparing lunch. A delicious rustic feast of pasta, passata, chickpeas, lashings of olive oil, and a substantial goblet of deep, fruity red wine poured from an old Evian bottle. The difference is that every single element is home-grown and home‑made. Being almost completely self-sufficient, each week this couple spend a few euros on just two extras – milk and coffee.
Geraldo and Liana are not an exception to the rule. Professor Cugini has studied the town since the Eighties and refers to their diet as “hyper-Mediterranean”. It’s all the best bits of the Mediterranean diet, turned up full blast. The villagers enjoy top-quality, home-produced fresh ingredients that are packed full of vitamins and minerals. Their diet is low in meat and almost devoid of red meat and butter.
The people here consume an average of one litre of olive oil a week, the perfect recipe for heart health – washed down with two glasses of red wine a day to offer a daily injection of antioxidant polyphenols.
Despite running water and electricity, the people in Campodimele are living a life much as they would have done 1,000 years ago. This isn’t feasible for most of us, but if we all ate a little more like them, we might just feel the benefits.
One can only hope that somewhere in a parallel universe, the tuck trolley being wheeled around my dad’s hospital ward is loaded with a Campodimele harvest and, rather than crisps and chocolate, it is fresh vegetables and olive oil that are being administered.
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