Both fermented and probiotic foods are made with microorganisms. However, not all fermented foods are considered probiotics. Only probiotic foods have enough live organisms to deliver a proven health benefit when used in adequate amounts.
What Are Fermented Foods?
Fermented foods are foods or beverages that are produced by controlled microbial growth. It may come as a surprise, but these foods have existed for thousands of years. Even though they were initially valued because of their long shelf life, and organoleptic properties, research has also allowed us to understand their potential health benefits.
Depending on the food, certain species of bacteria, yeasts and moulds will carry out fermentation.
Microbes that carry out fermentation can still be alive in some of them. However, other foods that undergo fermentation are processed by pasteurization, smoking, baking, or filtering, destroying the active microbes.
Consumption of fermented dairy foods such as yoghurt has been scientifically studied. Health benefits include:
- Improved ability to digest lactose
- Improvement in bone health
- Weight management
- Improvement in blood pressure
- Reduced risk of developing heart disease
- Reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes
- Reduced risk of developing colon cancer
Do Fermented Foods Contain Probiotics?
Fermented foods are generally not sources of probiotics. Despite the famous assertion, very few of these foods contain microbes that fit the criteria to be called probiotics. But this fact does not mean that these foods are bad for you. To uphold the intent of the word probiotic and explain how fermented foods are healthy, we need to find better ways to describe the benefits of these kind foods.
Fermented milk, such as some yoghurts and kefir, contains probiotics. Still, not all fermented foods contain live cultures, and even if they do have live cultures, these cultures may not meet the definition of a probiotic. In conclusion, you should always be informed about the kind foods you are consuming and work with a healthcare professional if you are looking to add fermented foods to your diet to treat a specific ailment.
Probiotics are living microorganisms that confer a health benefit on the host when administered in adequate amounts. This current definition reflects minor updates offered by an expert consultation of scientists convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization. As evident from the definition, a microbial strain is not a probiotic unless a health benefit has been found with its use. At a minimum, the strain should be proven beneficial in at least one randomized controlled trial (RCT). Probiotics must also be defined at the strain level through genome sequencing.
Fermented foods, on the other hand, have no requirement to improve health. These kind foods are foods and beverages made through desired microbial growth and enzymatic conversion of food components. Scientific experts recently formulated this definition to affirm the common properties of all foods of this type and to differentiate foods that may look or taste similar but are not made using microbes. Fermented foods encompass foods made from animal and plant-sourced ingredients and produced from all types of microbial metabolism. The desired characteristics of these foods are how they look, smell, and taste. There is no expectation in this definition that fermented foods alter health in any way.
Probiotics Vs Fermented Foods
Many people will refer to probiotics as supplements or capsules. At the same time, fermented foods are foods. Still, the technical definition is that a probiotic is a product that contains a characterized bacteria which confers a health benefit when consumed in adequate amounts. Probiotics must be described and have clinical evidence of health benefits when consumed in sufficient quantities.
A fermented food is simply food that has undergone a fermentation process. Not all fermented foods are probiotics, and not all probiotics are fermented. Some fermented foods contain live microbes, but they may not fit the specific definition for probiotics because they know the bacteria or the health benefits. However, some fermented foods may not even contain live microbes because factors during processing may have killed off any live bacteria.