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

Adding fermented foods to daily meals

0:00Hello, 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.

0:10Fermented 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.

0:45So maybe 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, 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.

1:18That way you've got two ferments, easily done. And that's because the yogurt's one and the kefir's the second. Yeah, and they're separate. They have different microbes in them. They both count, do they? They both count. So it's a win. You can get two before you leave the house. 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.

1:49But even Philadelphia cream cheese, I did a study. We looked at that. That's got three microbes in it. So cream cheeses are 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, you just pour in some more kefir or yogurt.

2:21That'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.

2:56But it's still, let's give it half a point for that one, Jonathan. And 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.

3:29So 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.

4:04Just get used to those flavors. Water kefir 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. So the Zoe cookbook has got plenty of ways you can incorporate it into recipes as well. Tim, you've been pitching this to me for a while, and I think, like everything you've pitched me, I slowly start to try and introduce it.

4:35And 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. Even people who don't like dairy, so I often ask this in my talks, oh, I don't have dairy, so I can't have these. No, there's plenty of vegan kefirs and yogurts. The coconut ones are really good. It's a slow journey, and I think people will pick the foods and tastes that they like, and people have a different spice threshold, certainly, and a different sourness threshold.

5:09Some people immediately love it, some people it can take more time. But I can tell you, you go to Japan or Korea, you don't find people who don't have either miso or kimchi. So in a way, everyone can train their palate.

Making fermented foods at home

5:24Now, I'd love to wrap up with the idea of fermenting yourself at home, because I know that you've really got into this, haven't you, Tim? I have, yeah. Well, I had to. I'd write a book on it, so I've got to be an expert. And I think you have brought some examples of what is literally in your fridge today that you've cycled over with. A small sample of what's in my fridge, yeah. Oh, how many have you got in your fridge? Oh, far too many. At least 20 pots, I'd imagine. So now we understand why your wife is very upset about your fridge. So could you maybe take the first one out, explain what it is, and maybe start with what you think would be a good place to start?

6:01Well, let's go with the simplest ferment everybody can do, because, oh, I can't do this. Well, even you could do this one, Jonathan. This is raw, unpasteurized honey, a clear jar, and you put about 10 or 12 cloves of garlic in it exactly like this. And amazingly, after a few days, the microbes in the garlic transform the honey. They start eating the honey, and that produces the perfect environment for these microbes.

6:32They soften the garlic. They take away the hard taste of it, and it's a delicious either hors d'oeuvre, or you can blend it up, and it's perfect for a salad dressing. Can I have a smell? Well, you've got to try one. Oh. Just try one, Jonathan. Don't be scared. I am a little scared. I know. It looks like something that has been... Oh, they're quite hard, aren't they? They're hard. All right. Just go for it. I'm going to go for it. All right. I'm not sure that I'm going to be invited back in the house later tonight.

7:03That's pretty good.

7:06Nothing like as strong as the garlic is if I'd eaten that raw. Well, that's how microbes transform foods into something completely different. And the honey tastes different as well. Yes. They're both different. I didn't add anything to that. You literally just threw garlic in honey. That's it. That's the recipe even I could do. Exactly. So everyone can ferment if they really want to at home. That's really surprising. So this is where you're saying these microbes do these amazingly complicated things. You just put it in the jar and you left it.

7:37It's mixed. You know, the microbes and the garlic sitting there bored, doing nothing, but you wake them up with surrounding them with honey and they go crazy and they come out and they transform the honey and that in turn transforms the garlic into something, a completely different dish. And I tell you, you blend that up and you have that in your salad dressing. It's an amazing flavor. What's next? What's next? We've got some sauerkraut. This basically is nothing more than cabbage chopped up and weighed and you add 2% salt and then

8:15you put it in a jar and you leave it for a week. That 2% salt changes the environment so much that you then get exactly the right microbes leaking out of the cabbage. They eat the sugar that's been leaking out because the salt has released it from the cabbage and the flavors are amazing and you get all the acidity and it's perfectly safe because they've made it so acid, nothing, no bugs that you don't want in there will live.

8:45All right. I'm going to try Tim's sauerkraut.

8:50Smells like sauerkraut. And there's two types of sauerkraut. Obviously, the one with vinegar, which is the common cheap one, which doesn't have anything like the flavor and complexity. Oh, it's delicious. Yeah, there you go. So I've now had two ferments. But anyone can make. I mean, that's the key. So they're the two ones that are so easy. Chop a cabbage and you've got to be able to weigh it. That's about the two skills you need. This one is slightly more advanced. This is my blob.

9:21And if you're not watching this on YouTube, it looks disgusting. And Tim is now reaching into what looks a bit like tea water and pulling out something that looks a bit like a bit of a squid or an octopus or something. What is that? It is called a jellyfish in some countries, Russian jellyfish or Japanese jellyfish. This is a scoby, which is a kombucha mother.

9:53Okay. So this is made by the microbes. It's like a shell. They produce themselves. So there's about 50 different microbes in here. Living inside that sort of jellyfish thing. Yeah, they live inside there and they produce it for themselves. It's like a little protective shell that they live in. So this allows them to live for years. I've had this for about 10 years. This one. It has babies and I give it to special friends. I'd note that I've never been a special enough friend to get given your baby scoby.

10:24But on the other hand, it looks disgusting. It looks disgusting, but when you add it to sugary tea, so you make a big pot of sugary tea, you just add that to it, leave it for a week, you will get kombucha and a completely different flavor. And again, once you've got this sorted out, it is actually much easier than it looks. And that goes from sugary tea, and we know anything that's just like full of sugar is not healthy for you, to kombucha, which is a sour, complex, some say it's the closest

10:58you can get to beer. And it's good for me? And it's very good for you. Yes, lots of studies show it reduces blood pressure, helps your blood sugar level, all kinds of benefits. So again, having this in the house, the drinks of kombucha, but buy it in the stores first to see what it should taste like. But this is incredibly cheap and easy to make. And so that, I guess, is a brilliant example of the magic of these bacteria moving something really terrible, like water and sugar on one hand, into something that suddenly is actually

11:32healthy for me. And it actually produces a bit of alcohol as well, usually below 1%, so you can't feel it. But it's just giving you an idea of what these microbes are doing. There's yeast in there, and they make CO2 and alcohol. So it's very complicated. And finally, your advanced lesson, Jonathan. So this is miso. I was going to say something that looks even more disgusting than a kombucha. All right, so I'm looking at it, and it's a sort of brown paste.

12:04If anyone has had a small child who maybe ate their food and then regurgitated it, I'd say it looks a bit like that, Tim. It's not the most appetizing thing. What have I got in front of me? What you've got is fermented soybeans mixed with koji fungus, okay, and salt. So I've got fungus, fermented soybeans, and salt. So basically, I boiled up a whole bag of soybeans for four hours, and then I got some koji fungus,

12:36which is coated on white rice from the internet, mixed them together, added a whole load of salt, and put it in a jar, pressed down, left it for three months. So this is more professional. It's definitely different to the garlic and the honey. It took me a while to pluck up the courage to do this, but I was so into my miso, I was spending a fair bit at the store on miso. I thought, I can do this myself. And actually, it's really easy to do if you just know the essentials and you've done a

13:09bit of fermenting first. So the incredible taste of that compared to just a boiled soybean is amazing. So I want you to just dip your little finger in there. All right. And this is a jar full of fungus, but Professor and Dr. Tim Spector says it's safe and I can try it. Yes, you can. All right. And this is what you should be using instead of your stock cube. Smells good, actually.

13:33Tastes pretty great. It does. And it just shows you. And if you just had boiled soybeans, they are virtually inedible. And so this just shows you how the microbes and the salt and the fungus in the right conditions just, given time, will convert this into an absolutely delicious dish. And it's definitely like a layer that tastes a bit like soy sauce within this. Yeah. Well, it's the same basic principle. So there you have it. That's from the easiest to perhaps one of the more complex ones that you need three or six

14:05months to make. But you've now got all the tools you need, Jonathan.

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