The Trump administration is touting sauerkraut and other fermented foods as beneficial for your skin and waistline. Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr. claims that eating beef and sauerkraut is good for your health. Is it true? Kelli Wessinger and Sean Rameswaram report for Vox.
The so-called “carnivore diet” has people eating a lot of steak, eggs, yogurt, kimchi, and sauerkraut. That said, there is no good independent evidence that eating fermented foods helps you lose weight. But, eating fermented foods could help reduce inflammation and aid digestion, if they are “naturally fermented.”
Naturally fermented foods that are probiotics might help strengthen your gut microbiome, reports Kelly Bilodeau for Harvard Health. When stronger, the roughly 100 trillion microorganisms and bacteria living in your digestive tract appear to benefit your health.
That said, only some naturally fermented foods have been found to be beneficial because they contain probiotics. You find them in yogurt and kefir, pickled vegetables called kimchi, and sauerkraut. Pickles also can contain probiotics so long as they were fermented using live organisms and not vinegar.
As for red meat, the overwhelming evidence suggests that the less you eat, the better. According to Harvard Health, eating red meat often increases your risk of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, dementia and premature death
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