However, most people do not have a comprehensive understanding of probiotic foods. They think that "as long as it is fermented food, it is good", "food with bacteria is fermented" and "the advantage of fermented food lies in whether there are live bacteria". Therefore, chasing sticks and even spending a lot of money on these foods will not achieve the expected health care effect, but will ruin health. This issue of Food and Mind will show you the common fermented foods and pseudo-fermented foods in our daily life, and provide scientific reference for you to understand and buy fermented foods.
1. The most popular fermented food-yogurt
Yogurt may be the favorite fermented food at present, and it has been commercialized earlier, and eating yogurt has even become a fashion. Yogurt is delicious and attractive in color, which is welcomed by people of all ages. Some people even give themselves or their children a lot of sweet and delicious yogurt every day, thinking that yogurt contains probiotics, which can promote health. The more you eat, the better, but the result is often counterproductive.
A large number of studies have found that active probiotics in yogurt can promote human health, and long-term consumption can improve intestinal barrier and enhance immunity. However, it should be emphasized that fermented yogurt containing active probiotics has such efficacy, while inactivated probiotics or probiotics destroyed by various food additives have been difficult to exert their health care efficacy, and these substances that harm probiotics (various food additives) will also destroy beneficial microorganisms that originally existed in the stomach after being imported. Those lactic acid bacteria drinks that contain no live bacteria and are blended are more harmful.
Therefore, when purchasing yogurt, the healthiest and safest order should be: yogurt without live bacteria (such as sugar-free plain yogurt), yogurt without live bacteria (such as domestic plain yogurt) and yogurt with live bacteria (all kinds of delicious yogurt). Be especially wary of yogurt with a particularly good taste, because naturally fermented yogurt will not have such a taste.
At the same time, low-temperature yogurt is better than normal-temperature yogurt. Generally, yogurts that need to be refrigerated at low temperature all contain live bacteria, while normal-temperature yogurts basically do not, because yogurts with live bacteria will continue to grow and produce acid at normal temperature, resulting in poor taste and can only be stored at low temperature, while yogurts without live bacteria will be very stable at normal temperature.
2. The most expensive fermented food-cheese
Cheese, also known as cheese, is mainly fermented by lactic acid bacteria and white mold or Penicillium. It is very popular in Europe and West Asia and enjoys a high reputation all over the world. Although cheese is high in calories and rich in active metabolites of probiotics and bacteria, it is beneficial to human body. Scientists believe that although the diet contains a lot of saturated fatty acids, the habit of eating fermented cheese every day is one of the main reasons why their incidence of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases is lower than that of other countries.
Generally speaking, the better the fermentation, the more unique the taste and the higher the price, such as the French favorite blue cheese.
Unfortunately, this kind of fermented cheese containing probiotics is hard to buy in China, but there are many industrialized non-fermented cheeses (such as American cheese and cooked cheese), such as pizza cheese, bread cheese and various delicious cheese sticks that are popular now.
In countries with developed dairy industry, fermented cheese is a traditional food that everyone is familiar with. In the Netherlands, everyone eats 30-50 kilograms of cheese every year on average. However, in China, which is not rich in dairy resources, the first cheese that most people come into contact with is American industrialized cheese. For example, the cheese in your familiar pizza and hamburger is American cheese. This kind of cheese is really delicious, with high protein content, but high fat content and no probiotics at all. On the contrary, it contains a variety of food additives and trans fatty acids. It is harmless to eat this kind of delicious processed food with high calorie occasionally, but it is harmful to eat it in large quantities for a long time, which will not only disturb the intestinal flora and destroy bacteria.
Therefore, although cheese is power, don't blindly supplement this cheese product to your family and children. You must first determine whether there are probiotics and additives in it, and then decide how much to eat. European cheeses, such as those from the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Denmark, are usually fermented cheeses (live cheeses, which claim to be soulful foods).
Milk tofu, which people often eat in nomadic areas of China, is made by boiling fresh milk (or goat's milk, camel milk's milk and yak's milk), removing the skin and butter (ghee), fermenting the rest, boiling to evaporate water, and finally molding. Milk bumps are naturally air-dried milk tofu residue. Milk tofu and milk pimple on Mongolian grassland are basically free of live bacteria, with extremely low fat content, which are basically metabolites of lactic acid bacteria fermentation.
3. The most neglected fermented food-sour soybean milk
Bean is one of the most commonly used foods for fermentation, and it is also another food that can naturally enrich lactic acid bacteria besides milk. Sour soybean milk is made by natural inoculation or artificial inoculation of lactic acid bacteria to ferment cooked soybean milk. At present, there is no such product in China, but it is very popular among vegetarians as a substitute for yogurt in the United States and Japan. Friends who want to cook their own food can refer to the method of healthy breakfast for a week (49)-sour soybean milk/cereal pulp/rice pulp.
In many parts of China, beans are used to make sour juices and sauces. For example, the sour bean juice in old Beijing is made of mung beans. After filtering out starch, it is made into food such as vermicelli, and the remaining residue is fermented and cooked like porridge. The paste noodles in Luoyang area are fermented green soybean milk or pea pulp, which is then used to cook noodles and even make hot pot bottom material.
These traditional sour soymilk are heated and eaten after fermentation, which contains lactic acid bacteria metabolites, but no longer contains live bacteria. If you want to supplement active probiotics safely through sour soybean milk, it is best to make and eat yogurt in a way similar to yogurt, that is, add lactic acid bacteria with definite types for fermentation, and do not heat, refrigerate or eat at room temperature.
4. Develop the most fully fermented food-natto.
Natto is a kind of food made from soybeans fermented and cooked by Bacillus subtilis. It not only contains nutrients such as vitamins and lecithin from living bacteria and soybeans, but also contains active products of bacteria such as nattokinase. It is reported that it has certain thrombolytic, anti-tumor and antihypertensive effects. At present, there are many soybean health products for sale in Japan.
In Japan, the price of natto is very low, and the amount of a meal is 1-2 yuan RMB, which is the cheapest popular food. At present, it is also very convenient to buy natto in China, generally around 4 yuan 1 box. It's easy to do it yourself. There are special Bacillus natto and natto machine to choose from online, and many friends who love to eat and care like to make natto at home.
5. Fermented food-fermented bean curd, which is the most controversial taste.
Fermented bean curd, also known as dried bean curd, is a characteristic traditional folk food that has been circulated in China for thousands of years. Usually divided into three categories: green formula, red formula and white formula. Among them, stinky tofu belongs to Fang Qing; "Big", "red and spicy", "rose" and "tea oil fermented bean curd" belong to "red square"; "Sweet and spicy", "osmanthus" and "spiced" belong to "white flour"; There are also bad recipes with bad rice, drunken recipes with yellow wine, and colorful fermented bean curd with sesame seeds, roses, shrimp seeds and sesame oil.
Sufu is mainly fermented by Rhizopus or Mucor, and monascus enzyme, yeast and Aspergillus oryzae are added to different varieties for fermentation. It not only contains a variety of microorganisms, but also contains a large number of microbial active metabolites, so it has a unique taste and fragrance.
Traditional fermented sufu is beneficial to people, but in order to prevent the growth of mold, manufacturers usually use high-concentration salt and even add preservatives, emulsifiers and flavoring agents, so it is not suitable for eating in large quantities.
Indonesia's douchi is also formed by inoculating cooked soybeans with Rhizopus oligospora (a kind of Rhizopus) for fermentation. Because it is heated, it basically contains no live bacteria.
6. The most commonly eaten fermented foods-miso, lobster sauce, bean paste, yellow sauce, soy sauce, sweet noodle sauce, etc.
Miso (みそ), also known as lobster sauce, is made from soybean, rice and wheat as main raw materials, adding salt, and fermented by lactic acid bacteria, yeast and Aspergillus. Miso is the most popular seasoning in Japan and enjoys a long-standing reputation all over the world. It can be made into soup, cooked with meat, or made into the soup base of hot pot.
Douchi is a traditional seasoning for fermented bean products in China. It is made by using black beans or soybeans as the main raw materials, decomposing soybean protein by Mucor, Aspergillus or bacterial protease, and adding salt, wine and drying to a certain extent to inhibit the activity of enzymes and delay the fermentation process. Soy sauce, commonly known as soy sauce, is mainly made of soybean or black bean, wheat or bran, chaff and salt through oil making and fermentation.
Soybean sauce, also known as yellow sauce and soybean sauce, is made of soybean and flour as the main raw materials, while soybean sauce is made of broad bean and soybean as the main raw materials and fermented by mold (mainly Aspergillus).
Generally speaking, miso, douchi, soy sauce, yellow sauce and broad bean paste are all made by fermentation, and they all contain microbial active fermentation components, but they all ferment to the stage of nutrient depletion and a large number of microorganisms die. Therefore, except for miso, the finished fermented lobster sauce, soy sauce, yellow sauce and bean paste we eat rarely contain live bacteria. The sweet noodle sauce in Peking man's favorite roast duck burrito is made of moldy steamed bread.
Generally speaking, there are fewer additives and live bacteria in miso that need to be refrigerated. Miso fermented for a long time also contains live bacteria, which can be stored at room temperature for a long time, but there are no live bacteria when heated and eaten. It is suggested that most of douchi, soy sauce, yellow sauce and bean paste that need to be preserved at low temperature contain live bacteria, but those preserved at room temperature basically contain no live bacteria, and may also contain various additives and preservatives for seasoning, color matching and fragrance enhancement to enhance the shelf life. Therefore, you must read the label before buying. The price difference between brewed products and blended products may be 3-4 times, but it is recommended to buy brewed products.
7. Pickled vegetables (such as sauerkraut, pickles and spicy cabbage). )
Vegetables are another most suitable food for fermentation besides milk and bean products. There are pickles with local characteristics all over the world, such as pickled olives in the Mediterranean, sauerkraut in Germany, pickles in East Asia, pickles and pickles in various regions of China.
At present, pickled foods are mainly divided into pickled foods and fermented foods. Pickled food is mainly made of seasonings such as vinegar, sugar water and soy sauce, and basically contains no live bacteria, so preservatives and seasonings are needed to extend the storage time. Fermentation types such as kimchi, Sichuan kimchi and Northeast kimchi are mainly preserved by lactic acid bacteria. Food and heart have also shared pickles with active probiotics. A week's healthy dinner (63)-How to capture probiotics in the air; One-week healthy dinner (66)-homemade probiotic pickles.
But it should be noted that:
In many parts of China, people still have the habit of cooking noodles with pickles or rinsing vegetables, such as sour noodles with unique flavor. This way of eating is healthy, but there are no live bacteria when eating.
8. Fake fermented foods (such as mushrooms and cordyceps sinensis)
Most fungi belong to microorganisms, such as Rhizopus, Aspergillus and yeast, and are used for fermentation. Mushrooms and auricularia auricula, which we often eat, belong to large fungi, not fermentation products of bacteria. Their value to human health is mainly determined by the nutrients they contain. As for Cordyceps sinensis, it is a complex of its daughter and larval corpse, and it is parasitic on the larvae of Batmoth family by Cordyceps sinensis.
That is to say, although mushrooms and cordyceps sinensis are related to fungi, they are not fermented foods, and their effects on the human body are completely different from those of probiotics, so they cannot be confused.
9. Controversial fermented food-alcohol
Wine is a unique alcoholic beverage, which is made from high-sugar foods (such as rice, sorghum and fruit) fermented by lactic acid bacteria, yeast and yeast. It is undoubtedly a fermented food and contains many microbial metabolites.
Some people think that "alcohol is the essence of food, and moderate drinking helps to prolong life", but more scientific research believes that alcohol causes cancer. The key to the dispute lies in alcohol, which is the main and key substance in wine. Although alcohol is produced by microbial fermentation, its harm to human body can not be ignored. Small workshops and private breweries are technically unable to distill and separate harmful substances such as methanol. A large number of studies show that the safe dose of alcohol is zero.
From the point of view of physical and mental health, the advice of food and heart is: don't drink for friends who don't like drinking. When they like to drink or have to drink, try to brew wine, don't drink blended wine and don't drink too much. For a deeper understanding, please refer to a healthy breakfast for one week (59)-Can moderate drinking prolong life?
10. Harmful fermented food-homemade enzyme
The word enzyme comes from Japanese, which means enzyme in Chinese, that is, protein with biological activity. However, the enzyme, which was popular in recent years, completely tampered with its original intention. They refer to products made from animals, plants, fungi, etc. with specific bioactive components (including polysaccharides, oligosaccharides, protein, peptides, amino acids and vitamins), with or without auxiliary materials.
At present, the popular enzymes are divided into: edible enzymes (for human use), environmental protection enzymes, daily chemical enzymes, feed enzymes (for pets and livestock), agricultural enzymes and so on. This paper focuses on the introduction of edible enzymes for human consumption and feed enzymes for animals.
From the definition of angle in the light industry standard issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, it can be seen that the enzymes produced in industry are enzyme products on the market, and the main functional components are active metabolites of microorganisms, not active probiotics. The benefits of industrial edible and feed enzyme products are uncertain. As long as there is no clear toxic component, they can pass through and put on the market.
Food and Heart does not recommend that you make enzymes at home and then give them to your family or pets. Because most self-made enzymes conduct non-directional fermentation in a sugar-rich environment, such as using various fruits and vegetables and adding sugar, this raw material is usually suitable for the growth of various microorganisms (both beneficial bacteria and harmful bacteria) and can produce various microbial metabolic components (although there may be beneficial components, harmful components are not excluded). Due to long-term fermentation, bacteria will inhibit each other and release a large number of resistant substances after exhausting nutrients. For more than ten years, there have been cases of liver and kidney failure caused by long-term drinking of homemade enzymes in China and Japan.
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Food and Heart will introduce foods rich in prebiotics in subsequent articles, so stay tuned!