In every trendy big city or town in the United States, hipsters rave about kimchi and insist that you try it and add it to your diet.
Kimchi is so popular and hip that even non-Korean American restaurants are adding it to their menus.
Okay, so we know kimchi is cool, but what the heck is it?
Let's find out!
What is Kimchi?
Kimchi is a salty, tangy and usually spicy fermented food made with cabbage, ginger, garlic, fish sauce, gochugaru (chili powder), and other vegetables like cucumber, carrots and radish.
With its distinct flavor--resulting from pickling, marinating and fermenting the vegetables--Kimchi is a Korean side dish that has been eaten and enjoyed for thousands of years.
Koreans used fermentation to keep vegetables edible longer, especially through the colder seasons when they weren't available. The fermentation process is what makes kimchi so tasty and beneficial to your health.
In the wintertime, the culture and festivities of preserving, sharing and celebrating kimchi is known as gimjang or kimjang.
If you've ever eaten at a traditional, authentic Korean restaurant, then you would have likely been served kimchi among many other appetizers and little side dishes known as banchan.
How Did Kimchi Become So Popular in The West?
Though Koreans have been eating kimchi for thousands of years, you've likely only heard about it in recent times, provided that you are a Westerner.
One thing that we Americans like to do is scour the planet in search of culturally significant things and make them cool and trendy in the U.S.A.
Kimchi is no different.
If you're not eating kimchi, you're not hip or cool. I'm kidding! (Sort of.)
Kimchi actually has a very good reason for becoming so popular in the United States and around the world; it's delicious and it has enormous health benefits.
Let's find out what those are.
The Probiotic Health Benefits of Kimchi
While you should be careful about how much sodium you're consuming (kimchi has a lot), there are unmistakable health benefits of eating fermented foods like kimchi and raw sauerkraut.
Fermented foods like kimchi contain probiotics; living microorganisms that live in the food and become a part of your gut microbiome when ingested.
The microbiome is comprised of trillions of living microorganisms all competing for real estate inside of your body.
Kimchi and other fermented foods are important to eat to provide a source of good bacteria to fight off fungi and bad bacteria in your stomach and digestive tract.
You need good bacteria living inside your colon, your stomach, your intestines, and your body. Otherwise, you will be more prone to illness and disease.
When you first start eating kimchi and raw fermented sauerkraut, you may notice some heavy bloating and gas. What you're experiencing is the probiotics going to war with the bad bacteria in your gut. When the bad bacteria are killed, they produce gas exchange.
Over time, as you regularly consume kimchi and other fermented foods, the bloating will become less and less. That's because there aren't as many bad bacteria to kill off.
You're getting healthier when you regularly consume kimchi!
Eating Kimchi is an Excellent Way to Lose Weight
Adding kimchi to your diet is critical if you're carrying a lot of extra fat around your midsection.
Storing visceral fat around your gut is a telltale sign of poor digestion and poor absorption of nutrients in the digestive tract.
To make weight loss less challenging, you must fix your gut microbiome, and eating kimchi can certainly help.
The body requires different strains of good bacteria to be able to effectively turn your food into chemical energy; a process commonly known as digestion.
If you're not digesting your food properly, you're doomed to carry the excess weight indefinitely.
Even if you're counting calories and exercising properly, losing weight will be almost impossible if you haven't restored your gut health.
Your gut is your second brain. Your stomach is one of the most important vital organs you have. You must take very good care of it.
Personal Testimony of Adding Kimchi to My Diet
Like many other single dudes in their 20s, I partied constantly and had an atrocious diet in my younger years.
Over time, I killed my gut health. My microbiome was destroyed and functioned at a level comparable to that of a 99-year-old man.
Throughout my 30s, I tried to regain control over my weight and health. It was a struggle beyond belief. I exercised constantly and worked towards eating a better diet.
But something was critically missing. I wasn't getting tangible results because my gut health was never healed properly.
As a 41-year-old man, I became educated about fermented foods and the importance of having food-sourced probiotics regularly in my diet.
When I first started eating kimchi and raw unpasteurized sauerkraut, I was so bloated and gassy I couldn't believe it. My wife told me I was turning into sauerkraut because the smell was leaking through my pores.
But what was actually happening was the side effects of war. The good probiotics were going to battle with the bad bacteria in my gut.
After only a few days of eating fermented foods, I started noticing a big difference in how my stomach felt. I didn't get queasiness or heartburn. My stomach felt pretty damn good thanks to the kimchi and sauerkraut.
With mindfulness and a good diet and exercise plan, the kimchi helped supercharge my results. An inch came off of my stomach within the first week of daily fermented food consumption.
And when I say daily, you only need a little once a day. Don't eat too much kimchi or sauerkraut. An ounce or two per day will do you fine.
I'm grateful that I added kimchi and sauerkraut to my diet!
The Bottom Line
Kimchi is a tangy, salty and spicy Korean side dish made with fermented napa cabbage and other vegetables and has been a part of Korean culture for thousands of years.
Eating kimchi and other probiotic-rich fermented foods will help you restore your gut microbiome and improve your overall health.
Eat kimchi!
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