Do Cultured Or Fermented Foods Provide The Best Cancer Protection?

Optimizing Your Gut Flora May Be One of Your Most Important Disease Prevention Strategies

All of this information should really drive home the point that optimizing your gut flora is of critical importance for disease prevention, including cancer prevention. Reseeding your gut with beneficial bacteria is essential for maintaining proper balance here. As mentioned, beneficial bacteria help keep pathogenic microbes and fungi in check; preventing them from taking over. In light of this, here are my recommendations for optimizing your gut bacteria.

    • Fermented foods are the best route to optimal digestive health, as long as you eat the traditionally made, unpasteurized versions. Healthy choices include lassi (an Indian yoghurt drink, traditionally enjoyed before dinner), fermented grass-fed organic milk such as kefir, various pickled fermentations of cabbage, turnips, eggplant, cucumbers, onions, squash, and carrots, and natto (fermented soy). Some of the beneficial bacteria found in fermented foods are also excellent chelators of heavy metals and pesticides, which will also have a beneficial health effect by reducing your toxic load.

Fermented vegetables are an excellent way to supply beneficial bacteria back into our gut. And, unlike some other fermented foods, they tend to be palatable, if not downright delicious, to most people. As an added bonus, they can also a great source of vitamin K2 if you ferment your own using the proper starter culture. We had samples of high-quality, fermented organic vegetables made with our specific starter culture tested, and a typical serving (about two to three ounces) contained not only 10 trillion beneficial bacteria, but it also had 500 mcg of vitamin K2, which we now know is a vital co-nutrient to both vitamin D and calcium. Most high-quality probiotics supplements will only supply you with a fraction of the beneficial bacteria found in such homemade fermented veggies, so it’s your most economical route to optimal gut health as well.

  • Probiotic supplement. Although I’m not a major proponent of taking many supplements (as I believe the majority of your nutrients need to come from food), probiotics is an exception if you don’t eat fermented foods on a regular basis.

Article Summary

  • Bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microorganisms that compose your body’s microflora play a major role in your health, both mental and physical
  • Advanced DNA sequencing is now being used to shed light on the complex interactions of gut bacteria, and how such interactions affect health and the development of disease
  • Even microorganisms you’d typically consider “bad” or pathogenic can play an integral role in the maintenance of health and disease prevention
  • Your microbiota influences your cancer susceptibility. Gut microorganisms even appear to impact the efficacy of various cancer treatments
  • To optimize your gut flora, I recommend a diet rich in whole, unprocessed foods along with cultured or fermented foods. A probiotic supplement may also be appropriate


Check out this 5 star resource for more great research:

This book is simply laid out and you can read about a specific area of health that you are interested in improving or how your whole health is affected by Probiotics. This book has good information for anyone concerned with getting healthy and staying healthy.” “ This book clarified a lot of the confusion that surrounds probiotics.” “There is lots of information on how to treat various illnesses with different types of probiotics. The author is exhuberant about the use of probiotics for maximum health and an avid user in her own life.

The authors:

John R. Taylor, N.D., is a naturopathic doctor and a recognized leader in the field of natural health, nutrition, and enzyme therapies. He is the founder, CEO, and President of Natural Wellness Centers of America, Inc. www.nwcnaturals.com
Deborah Mitchell is a health writer who specializes in books about natural healing and nutrition. She has authored or co-authored more than twenty books and her articles have appeared in both professional journals and national consumer magazines. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

This book has good information for anyone concerned with getting healthy and staying healthy.

Click here  to check out the full article by Dr Mercola

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