The Best & Worst Fermented foods Your Gut Health | Sadhguru
"Sadhguru reveals the ultimate guide to fermented foods for optimal gut health, separating beneficial probiotics from harmful culprits, and sharing ancient wisdom for a balanced microbiome."
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Sadhguru chants Nadi Stuti
00:14Little fermentation adds fuel to the existing stuff.
00:21Some fermentation will multiply that biome.
00:28If you ferment it beyond a certain point, then it creates a biome of its own, not support your biome.
00:40I know this is a dangerous terrain to walk into in Western world.
00:45These are all the most terrible things to eat.
00:52What is the effect of fermented foods on one's ability to perceive?
00:57Is it something that we should avoid in certain cases?
01:00A recent study has shown that actually people that eat a large variety of fermented foods,
01:05compared to a group that optimized fiber intake,
01:10that the group with the multiple fermented food components
01:14had a better gut ecosystem and less inflammatory markers from that.
01:19I would recommend to everybody is as important as to eat a largely plant-based diet,
01:24is to incorporate several fermented foods.
01:28See, any animal-based fermentation, when I say animal-based fermentation,
01:33there are cultures where meat is fermented, literally rotting, is considered gourmet.
01:41There are parts of the world where it is eaten like that.
01:46This is the worst way to eat it.
01:48But in those cultures, it's become gourmet because these were cultures which were in extreme cold
01:56or removed from the rest of the world for large parts of the year.
02:00If they had to eat food, they had to learn to eat and enjoy rotting meat,
02:06otherwise they would be dead probably in those days.
02:10Similarly, I know this is a dangerous terrain to walk into in Western world.
02:16Cheese, which is also comes from that kind of thing, when winters came,
02:21people would have nothing to eat to keep their calories going, the only way was cheese.
02:28These are all the most terrible things to eat, if you ask me, if you are thinking of perception.
02:34When we look at perception, the way to look at it is,
02:37whatever makes your body heavy and opaque in your experience,
02:42makes you feel the body is lumbering, to digest that, that's not good for your perception.
02:48Because body is made like this, if any one activity takes too much energy and effort,
02:54the other activities will recede, it's as simple as that.
02:59Suppose you're using your phone playing too many videos,
03:03when you want to make the call, there's no power, the battery is out, it's just like that.
03:07You're using it too much on one level, another level goes down.
03:12So to keep the digestive process being a survival process,
03:16to keep it at where it should be, nothing more, nothing less is important.
03:21Some fermentation will multiply the gut biome in many ways.
03:28So, when it comes to fermented food, it should be under your control.
03:32For example, in Southern India, one fermented substance which is consumed daily in breakfast is idli, dosa.
03:40If you go North of Bangalore, we will not touch it, at least I will not.
03:45Because one thing, the idli feels like a golf ball.
03:50In the South, idli feels like a flower.
03:53As you go North, it becomes a golf ball, you could play with it.
03:57And they don't know how to ferment, they have over fermented it all the time.
04:03So in South, every… it's becoming difficult there also.
04:08Otherwise, every woman at home would know, she'll just always with little finger, they touch it like this.
04:14No, this can't be used.
04:17They would simply know.
04:19Or if you are not very sensitive, if you smell it,
04:23if it's gone beyond a certain point, you will know it's fermented beyond a point where you should not eat.
04:28So this kind of fermented thing, we always go and offer to our flowering plants,
04:33because they flower better when they get this fermented down.
04:37But once we see that it's fermented beyond that, we don't eat.
04:41The next thing is the curd or what you call as yogurt.
04:45It is just overnight fermented, it must be still sweet.
04:49If it be… it's becoming sour, little sourness is okay, if it crosses that, we won't eat.
04:55Because if you ferment it beyond a certain point, then it creates a biome of its own,
05:03not support your biome.
05:05Little fermentation adds fuel to the existing stuff that is…
05:10Your stomach or your alimentary canal is fermentation.
05:14But it is a certain… fermentation is a certain culture, all right?
05:18Is it the right word, sir? It's a culture.
05:22It is a certain culture.
05:24So you want to culture this in a certain way that's beneficial for you,
05:29not simply culture it whichever way.
05:31If your stomach feels like a beer factory, then what?
05:38You're talking about perception.
05:40If you're talking about perception,
05:43your stomach should send signals to become more and more alert and sharp.
05:48If it makes you like this, then where is the perception?
05:52So one thing is, any animal food which is fermented, we normally don't eat at all.
05:59If you must eat, a little bit of curd, but that is only overnight fermented, six to eight hours.
06:05If it's summer, just four to five hours.
06:08That's how we ferment, very carefully.
06:10If… If people want to have a meal at one o'clock in summer, in afternoon,
06:15they will ferment it at morning eight o'clock, nine o'clock, because the temperatures are hot.
06:21If it's cooler seasons, they'll ferment it just before going to bed in the night,
06:26next day it'll be ready.
06:27And this fermented thing, how you treat it.
06:31These days, all this is gone, I'm… people around my table,
06:34I'm always trying to bring some sense to that.
06:38In our homes, if there is a curd which is just caked,
06:44you can't just put a serving spoon like this.
06:46You have to gently take from one side.
06:48Always they would tell us, it's alive.
06:51You have to handle it gently.
06:53Just from one side, you take it and use it, because it's life, it's living.
06:59You can't just plunge it in like that and put it.
07:01See, United States America has to do a lot.
07:06I appreciate why it's become like that, because it's a matter of two-hundred, two-hundred-and-fifty years.
07:11When they came, people came here to a wild land.
07:15They sat and ate wherever, they stood and ate wherever.
07:19Even today they're doing that, they need not do.
07:21They've achieved a certain level of education, civilization, affluence.
07:26Now you must do what's best for you.
07:28I'll tell you my experience.
07:30One day I'm driving in Washington DC in the business district,
07:34not in the political part, in the business where CEOs and lawyers and others are there.
07:38I don't know what these people are.
07:41Maybe CEO… CEOs are all young people, less than thirty-five years of age, all young people,
07:46obviously from Ivy League kind of people.
07:50And looking at their clothes and how they are, they're very well to do.
07:56They're all standing outside, this is around 12.30, 12.45, lunch hour I think for them.
08:01And there is some cot, maybe it's a… I don't know, a hot dog or…
08:06some dog pot or cow pot, something it's selling.
08:11All men and women dressed very well, they're all standing there holding food in their hands and
08:18like this hacking, hacking at their food.
08:21I just saw this, tears came to me.
08:23What's happened to these people?
08:26They're well to do, at least they can sit on the ground and eat properly.
08:31No, they're hacking at food, like even a wild animal won't eat like that.
08:37This is not good.
08:39How you eat something is as important as what you eat,
08:44because you and food are not two separate things.
08:48Your body, the food that you eat, the soil that you walk upon, the water that you drink
08:53and the air that you breathe, these are not different from you.
08:56It is the same stuff here.
08:59It's just giving us an individual experience.
09:02If you treat it with as much love as you treat your children, if you can't see it as divine,
09:07at least if you treat it with as much love as you would treat your children,
09:12it would do fantastic things to you.