However, most people don't 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", etc. Therefore, chasing sticks and even spending a lot of money on these foods will not only fail to achieve the desired health care effect, but will ruin the health. In this issue, Food and Heart will show you the common fermented food and pseudo-fermented food in our daily life, and provide scientific reference for you to know and buy fermented food.
1. The most popular fermented food-yogurt
Yogurt may be people's favorite fermented food at present and commercialized earlier, and eating yogurt has even become a fashion. Yogurt with delicious taste and attractive color 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 that 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 an effect, while inactivated probiotics or probiotics destroyed by various food additives have been difficult to exert their health care effects, and these substances that harm probiotics (various food additives) will also damage the beneficial microorganisms that originally existed in the stomach after being imported. And those lactic acid bacteria drinks that contain no live bacteria and are blended are even more harmful.
Therefore, when purchasing yogurt, the healthiest and safest order should be: yogurt without added live bacteria (such as sugar-free original yogurt) > yogurt without added live bacteria (such as domestic original yogurt) > yogurt with added 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, yogurt that needs low-temperature refrigeration contains live bacteria, while normal-temperature yogurt basically contains no live bacteria, because yogurt with live bacteria will continue to grow and produce acid at room temperature, resulting in poor taste and can only be stored at low temperature, while yogurt without live bacteria will be stable at room 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 very high reputation all over the world. Although cheese is high in calories, it is rich in probiotics and active metabolites of bacteria, but 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 cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases are lower than those in other countries.
In general, the better the cheese is fermented, the more unique the taste and the higher the price, such as the French favorite blue cheese.
Unfortunately, such 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 cheese for pizza, cheese for bread, and various delicious cheese sticks that are popular now.
In countries with developed dairy industry, fermented cheese is a traditional food familiar to everyone. In Holland, an average person eats 30-50 kilograms of cheese a year. However, in China, which is not rich in dairy resources, the cheese that most people come into contact with at first is American industrialized cheese. For example, the cheese in pizza and hamburger that you are familiar with is American cheese. This kind of cheese is really delicious, and its protein content is also high, but its fat content is also high, and it does not contain probiotics at all. Instead, it contains a variety of food additives and trans fatty acids. It is harmless to eat this high-calorie delicious processed food in small amounts occasionally, but it is harmful to eat it in large quantities for a long time, which will not only disturb the intestinal flora and damage bacteria.
Therefore, although cheese is power, don't blindly supplement this kind of cheese products to your family and children. You must first determine whether there are probiotics and additives in it, and then decide the consumption. European cheeses, such as those from Holland, Belgium, France and Denmark, are usually fermented cheeses (active cheeses, which claim to be soulful food).
Milk tofu, which people often eat in nomadic areas of China, is made by boiling fresh milk (or goat's milk, camel's milk and yak's milk), removing the skin and butter (ghee), fermenting the rest, boiling to evaporate water, and finally molding. Milk pimple is naturally air-dried milk tofu residue. Both milk tofu and milk pimple on Mongolian grassland basically contain no living bacteria, and the fat content is extremely low, which is basically the metabolite of lactic acid bacteria fermentation.
3. The most neglected fermented food-sour soybean milk
Beans are one of the most commonly used foods for fermentation, and they are also another food that can naturally enrich lactic acid bacteria besides milk. Sour soybean milk is made by fermenting cooked soybean milk with lactic acid bacteria through natural inoculation or artificial inoculation. At present, there is no commodity in China, but it is popular among vegetarians as a substitute for yogurt in the United States and Japan. Friends who want to make their own food can refer to the method of healthy breakfast for one week (49)-sour soybean milk/cereal pulp/rice pulp.
In many areas of China, beans are used to make sour juice and paste. For example, the sour bean juice in old Beijing is made from mung beans. After starch is filtered out to make vermicelli and other foods, the remaining residue is fermented and then cooked like porridge. The paste noodles in Luoyang area are fermented green soybean milk or pea pulp, and then used to cook noodles and even make hot pot bottom material.
These traditional sour soybean milk are heated and eaten after fermentation, which contains lactic acid bacteria metabolites, but no longer contains live bacteria. If you want to safely supplement active probiotics through sour soybean milk, it is best to make and eat yogurt in a way similar to that of yogurt, that is, to add lactic acid bacteria with definite types for fermentation, and not to heat, refrigerate or eat at room temperature.
4. Develop the most fully fermented food-natto.
Natto is a food produced by the fermentation of cooked soybeans by Bacillus subtilis. It contains not only living bacteria and nutrients of soybeans such as vitamins and lecithin, but also active products of bacteria such as nattokinase. It is reported that it has certain thrombolytic, anti-tumor and blood pressure lowering effects. At present, there are many soybean health products sold 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. It is also very convenient to buy natto in China at present, generally around 4 yuan 1 box. It's easy to make your own. There are special natto bacteria and natto machine to choose from online, and many friends who eat and care like to make natto at home.
5. Fermented food-fermented bean curd, which is the most controversial taste.
Sufu, also known as soy bean curd, is a traditional folk food with characteristics that has been circulated in China for thousands of years. It is usually divided into three categories: green recipe, red recipe and white recipe. Among them, stinky tofu belongs to "Qingfang"; "Big", "red and spicy", "rose" and "tea oil fermented bean curd" belong to "red square"; "Sweet and spicy", "osmanthus" and "spiced" belong to "white side"; There is also a bad recipe added with bad rice, a drunken recipe added with yellow wine, and a colorful fermented bean curd added with sesame seeds, roses, shrimp seeds and sesame oil.
Sufu is mainly fermented by Rhizopus or Mucor, and fermented by adding monascus enzyme, yeast and Aspergillus oryzae to different varieties. It contains not only a variety of microorganisms, but also a large number of microbial active metabolites, and thus has a unique taste and fragrance.
Traditional fermented sufu is beneficial to people, but in order to prevent mold from growing, manufacturers usually use high concentration of salt, and even add preservatives, emulsifiers and flavoring agents, so it is not suitable to eat in large quantities.
Tempeh in Indonesia is also formed by inoculating cooked soybeans with Rhizopus oligosporium (a kind of Rhizopus) for fermentation. Because it is eaten by heating, 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 Douchi 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 has a long-standing reputation all over the world. It can be made into soup, cooked with meat, and 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 from soybean or black bean, wheat or bran, chaff and salt through oil making and fermentation.
Soybean paste, also known as yellow paste and soybean paste, is made of soybeans and flour as the main raw materials, while bean paste is made of broad beans and soybeans as the main raw materials, which are fermented by molds (mainly Aspergillus).
Generally speaking, miso, douchi, soy sauce, yellow sauce and bean paste are all made by fermentation, and they all contain microbial active fermentation ingredients, but they are all fermented to the stage where nutrients are exhausted and a large number of microorganisms die. Therefore, apart from miso, the finished fermented douchi, 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.
In general, there are fewer additives and live bacteria in miso that need to be refrigerated. The miso that has been 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 it is heated and eaten. It is suggested that most of the douchi, soy sauce, yellow sauce and bean paste that need to be preserved at low temperature contain viable bacteria, but those preserved at room temperature basically do not contain viable bacteria, and may also contain a variety of additives for seasoning, tone and fragrance and preservatives to enhance the shelf life. Therefore, you must look at the label before buying, and the price of brewed products and prepared products may be 3-4 times different, but it is recommended to buy brewed products.
7. Pickled vegetables (such as sauerkraut, pickles and spicy cabbage, etc.)
Vegetables are another kind of food that is most suitable for fermentation besides milk and bean products. Pickled vegetables with local characteristics are found in different parts of the world, such as pickled olives in the Mediterranean, pickled cabbage in Germany, kimchi in East Asia, pickled cucumbers and pickled vegetables in various regions of China.
At present, pickled foods are mainly divided into pickled foods and fermented foods. The pickled foods are mainly made of seasonings such as vinegar, sugar water and soy sauce, and basically contain no viable bacteria, so preservatives and seasonings are needed to prolong the storage time. Fermentation types such as kimchi, Sichuan pickles and Northeast pickles are mainly preserved by lactic acid bacteria. Food and heart have also shared the practice of pickled vegetables containing active probiotics. A healthy dinner for a week (63)-how to catch 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 boiling noodles or shabu-shabu with pickled vegetables, such as sour noodle with unique flavor. This method of eating is very healthy, but there are no living bacteria when eating.
8. Pseudo-fermented foods (such as mushrooms and Cordyceps sinensis)
Most fungi belong to microorganisms, such as Rhizopus, Aspergillus and Yeast, which are used for fermentation. We often eat mushrooms and auricularia, which belong to large fungi, not fermentation products of bacteria, and their value to human health is mainly determined by the nutrients contained in them. As for Cordycepssinensis, it is a complex of its daughter and the larva's corpse, which is parasitic on the larva of the family Batmoths 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 human body are completely different from those of probiotics, so they cannot be confused.
9. Controversial fermented food-alcohol
Wine, a unique alcoholic beverage produced by fermenting high-sugar foods such as rice, sorghum and fruits with lactic acid bacteria, yeast and yeast, is undoubtedly a fermented food and contains a variety of 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 controversy lies in alcohol, the main and key substance in wine. Although alcohol is produced by microbial fermentation, its harm to human body cannot be ignored, and 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 suggestion of food and heart is: friends who don't like drinking should not drink. When they like drinking or have to drink, try to choose brewed 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, in recent years, enzymes, which are all the rage, have completely tampered with their original intention. They refer to products with specific bioactive components (including polysaccharides, oligosaccharides, protein, polypeptides, amino acids and vitamins) made from animals, plants, fungi and so on, with or without auxiliary materials.
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 industrially produced enzymes are the enzyme products on the market, and the main functional components are the active metabolites of microorganisms, not active probiotics. The benefits of industrialized edible and feed enzyme products are uncertain. As long as there are no clear toxic components, they can pass and be put on the market.
Food and heart don't recommend that you make enzymes at home and give them to your family or pets. Because most of the self-made enzymes are non-directional fermented in an environment rich in sugar, such as using various fruits and vegetables and adding sugar, such raw materials are usually suitable for the growth of various microorganisms (regardless of 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 after exhausting nutrients and release a large number of resistant substances. There have been cases of liver and kidney failure caused by long-term drinking of homemade enzymes in China and Japan for more than ten years.
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