Beyond Yogurt: Six Healthy Foods Loaded With Probiotics

We tend to think that the freshest foods are best. But now research has found that some of the most beneficial foods aren’t farm-to-table items but are actually fermented products loaded with probiotics.

Yogurt may be the best known of such foods, but many others — including pickles, miso, and sauerkraut — also provide living cultures that keep our digestive systems healthy and our immune systems strong.

Since the gut is the largest part of our immune system, it pays to eat healing foods and shun sugars and refined carbohydrates that cause damage.

“Scientists have found that trillions of microbacterial cells live in our intestinal flora,” Jeff Cox, author of “The Essential Book of Fermentation” tells Newsmax Health.

“They aren’t just passive hitchhikers who’ve found a warm place to live. They are intimately connected to our immune system. They are connected to our brain and guide our moods. They take an active part in digesting our food, reducing it to nutrients that can be absorbed through the intestinal walls.”

Cox explains that maintaining a healthy gut is necessary for life, much as microbes are necessary for soil to become a living organism that feeds the plants that grow in it.

“What makes healthy intestinal flora or a soil microbial community?