Most replayed moment: Why fermented foods are the future of gut health | Professor Tim Spector

Jonathan Wolf (0:01)

Hello, and welcome to ZOE Recap, where each week we find the best bits from one of our podcast episodes to help you improve your health.

Fermented foods have evolved from a niche health trend into a supermarket staple. Kefir, kimchi, kombucha, our shelves are now filled with products rich in beneficial bacteria. But with so many options to choose from, it can be difficult to know where to begin. Today, Professor Tim Spector shares simple, practical ways to incorporate fermented foods into your daily meals. He'll also show why fermenting at home is much easier than most people think. Taking us inside his fridge to demonstrate how to make four of his favorite homemade ferments.

So, let's start for people who are new to this, and then as far as they're aware they're not eating any fermented foods a day.

Tim Spector (0:53)

Where would you start?

I'd start with breakfast. Always a good place to start because you're at home, you're near your fridge. Start with my classic breakfast, get some full fat yogurt. When you're starting off, mix it with some milk kefir, because some people find when you start milk kefir it's a bit too sour, but if you mix it with yogurt, that should be fine. You can sweeten it by adding fruits to it, berries, etc. That way you've got two ferments easily done.

Jonathan Wolf (1:23)

That's because the yogurt is one and the kefir is a second.

Tim Spector (1:25)

Yeah, and they're separate. They have different microbes in them.

Jonathan Wolf (1:27)

They both count, do they?

Tim Spector (1:28)

They both count.

Jonathan Wolf (1:29)

So as a win, you can get two before you leave the house?

Tim Spector (1:32)

Before you left the house, you've got two, exactly. Then it's very easy in your lunch.

You can either have some cheese, which as long as you get anything that isn't completely plastic, avoid things like children's cheeses or pizza cheeses. But even Philadelphia cream cheese, I did a study, we looked at that, that's got three microbes in it. So you can, cream cheese is actually quite good. Any other cheddar or basic one, or raw milk cheese even better, that would be your third one. But add to it some pickle, some basic beetroot kraut or some sauerkraut on it. If you're having an evening meal, any form of soup, instead of adding cream to it at the end, just pour in some more kefir or yogurt. That's an easy win. Into your salads, you can put again these krauts and pickles. I would ask everyone to swap their stock cube for some miso paste. You can buy miso paste. It lasts a long time, which is this fermented soybean paste that gives an umami flavor that's fantastic. I never use stock cubes anymore, and I've just replaced that with a teaspoon of this miso paste, which if you're using it in cooking, it would be dead, but it's still, it gives you, let's give it half a point for that one, Jonathan.

Then just think that when you're having a salad, can you put in some fermented vegetables into there and start experimenting? You know, I don't expect you to eat kimchi straight away because it's quite spicy, but start experimenting with small amounts.

And if you want to start thinking about kimchi, get some toast, put some cream cheese on it, and then mix in the kimchi with the cream cheese. So actually you're giving a mellower flavor to it and you're getting used to it. I managed to convince Davina McCall to start eating kimchi this way, and now she's an absolute addict. So usually people won't like it the first time. It's a bit like toddlers with some new food. You've got to keep going at it, introducing it, doing it in a mild way. And then start thinking about other drinks you can have. So kombucha, the first ones might be a bit sour, but there's some nice fruit ones to start on, and you can wean yourself off the sweetness or the artificial sweeteners. Just get used to those flavors. Water Cafe is another one. Tibikos, it's not as common as kombucha, but it has just as many microbes in it, and is an easier fruit or flavor for the novice starting off. They're just some of the things that you can do. ZOE Cookbook has got plenty of ways you can incorporate it into recipes as well.

Jonathan Wolf (4:28)

Tim, you've been pitching this to me for a while, and I think I'm like everything you pitch to me, like I slowly start to try and introduce it, and I definitely didn't grow up with eating any of these sorts of fermented foods, apart from yogurt and cheese. It's now really easy to buy them, and these things, honestly, I just don't think they were available at all 10 years ago.