Vegetables are very essential for human health because all vegetables are packed with vitamins and minerals that are essential for human body metabolism. Unfortunately, vegetables cannot stay long in room temperature, aside from the health benefits of frozen fruit and vegetable even them have expiration date. That is why fermentation process is another option to preserve vegetables.
What Is Fermentation?
Fermentation is a process to preserve foods such as vegetables and fruits that cannot stay long without getting spoilage. There are two types of fermentation, alcoholic and lactic acid fermentations. In vegetables, it falls into lactic acid fermentation by adding sugar or salt. Sugar and salt will break down after sometime and promote the growth of bacteria which responsible to the fermentation process and those bacteria will produce lactic acid. Lactic acid is the compound that responsible in inhibiting the growth of harmful bacteria and instead it keeps the vegetables from getting spoilage in longer time. The fermented vegetables have some health benefits but how about the health benefits of fermented vegetable juice? Should you throw it away or use it?
Values Contained in Fermented Vegetable Juice
The fermentation process is not only producing fermented vegetables but also fermented vegetable juice. Most people may only consume the vegetables and throw away the juice but do you know that even the fermented vegetable juice has its own perks. So, first rule, don’t throw them away, second rule, strain the fermented vegetable juice in the middle of fermentation process which is around the third or fourth of the six days of fermentation and you will get an excellent probiotic drink for your healthy gut. Healthy gut is only one of the health benefits of fermented vegetables juice and below is more lists you should know about.
- Excellent Probiotic Drink
One of the health benefits of fermented foods is the good bacteria contained that could act as probiotic. It applies to the juice of fermented vegetables as well because of the fermentation process the juice could be an excellent probiotic drink.
- Promotes Healthy Gut
When talking about the health benefits of probiotic, healthy gut is the first thing in the top of the list. Probiotic contains healthful or good bacteria which has essential function in optimizing the function of digestive system by helping the nutrient absorption.
- Great for Skin Health
There are some studies that showed a close relation between healthy skin, brain and mental with healthy gut. A journal called Gut Pathogens showed the evidence of the relation. In summary, when your digestive system is in its perfect condition will promote your overall health, including skin condition.
- Natural Body Detox
Probiotic is responsible in making sure the proper amount of good bacteria in your stomach. Good bacteria could act as natural body detox and eliminating all the harmful bacteria from your digestive system to promote optimal function of digestion. Fermented vegetable juice could be an excellent option of probiotic drink because it among the list of foods contain probiotic naturally.
- Prevents Allergies
Some scientific studies showed about the effectiveness of probiotic in prevent allergies. Those studies stated pregnant woman who are regularly drinking probiotic drink during pregnancy are able to reduce the risk of baby born with certain allergies. Furthermore, specific studies about patient with eczema also showed that drinking probiotic could help reducing the symptoms.
- Weight Loss Solution
The key of weight loss is actually not only about what foods to consume or what diet to do. Weight gain and obesity is caused when there is something wrong with your body in which some essential nutrients are not optimally absorbed to help balancing the metabolism process. So, the source of the problem is in the digestive tract and probiotic drink has prominent function to make sure optimal absorption of important nutrients.
- Promotes Urinary Health
There are some bacteria that could cause infection in urinary tract. Some studies have stated that one of the excellent ways to fight those bacteria is by consuming probiotics because the natural enemy of harmful bacteria is good bacteria.
- Excellent Mood Booster
As mentioned in point number three there is a close relation between healthy gut and healthy brain. Scientifically, those who are drinking probiotic regularly are likely able to avoid anxiety and stressful condition in much better way than those who are not. So, whenever you feel stressful, a glass of fermented vegetable juice will do the magic.
- Improves Immunity System
One of the reasons why people are taking probiotic regularly is because they know exactly how important the role of probiotic in improving their immunity system. You could not completely avoid harmful bacteria from entering your body but taking probiotic will ensure you that those harmful bacteria will be removed completely from your body.
- Manages Cholesterol Level
One of the reasons behind the increasing of cholesterol level is when your body has no control to the production of bad cholesterol. Healthy digestion will reduce the production of bad cholesterol and improve the good cholesterol.
- Treats Diarrhea
Diarrhea occurs when there is infection from harmful bacteria in the digestive track. It is a common knowledge that to kill harmful bacteria you need good bacteria. So, drinking fermented vegetable juice is how to prevent diarrhea and treat it naturally.
- Better Nutrient Absorption
One of the main health benefits of probiotic is to make sure optimal absorption of nutrients broken down from food consumed.
Cautions of Fermented Vegetable Juice
One important thing you should note when taking fermented vegetable juice as your probiotic drink is you should know from where the juice comes from. So, it is better to make it yourself instead of buying it somewhere because some cautions below may occurs when you are not really sure about the fermented vegetable juice in your hand.
- It is true that lactic acid could inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria but do you know that salt is not that effective in preventing its growth. That’s why to make sure your probiotic drink is safe to drink, make sure to ferment it without using salt.
- When you have no idea from where the fermented vegetable juice comes from, it means you cannot make sure whether it is hygienist to drink or not.
- Fermented vegetable juice is an excellent probiotic drink but still those who have sensitive stomach should be really careful in drinking it.
For the first time you will feel strange with the sour taste of fermented vegetable juice but in the meantime you could be more creative by mixing several vegetables to be fermented and getting the perfect blend of flavor, texture and health benefits of fermented vegetable juice that you cannot get only by consuming the fermented vegetables.