Should You Drink Fermented Drinks/Teas?
Probiotics have been all the rage for a while now…It seems they're not just a fad! Healthy bacteria can do so many things, even help you lose weight…right? Today I separate myth from fact when it comes to fermented drinks!!
The first myth is that these good bacteria don't end up in your gut, and thus don't change your gut balance. Not true! There was a study where people who ate yogurt with the good bacteria Lactobacillus fermentum…they lost 3 – 4% body fat in a week! Results like that almost seem too good to be true, don't they? Which leads us to another myth…
That gut bacteria don't actually matter to your health!
Studies also show that this is plain wrong. There are several, but let's look in particular at a 2006 study from the Washington University School of Medicine. They found that there are two basic categories of bacteria in the human gut, and that obese people tended to have an overwhelming amount of one type, while normal weight people tended to have an overwhelming amount of the other type. Technically, there could be another factor at play, but it seems pretty undeniable that bacteria and weight loss / gain are related! And just make the evidence a little stronger, a companion study to this one showed that if the obesity-causing bacteria were transplanted into skinny mice, the mice gained a lot of weight.
Plus, there are further studies showing that probiotics make your body produce hormones that make you feel full, as well as other hormones that prevent your body from storing fat! So basically, probiotics are one of the best ways to get rid of stubborn belly fat and make it FLAT!
Because unfortunately, that comes with a lot of problems, as you already know. Visceral fat is linked to heart problems and cancer, but it's also linked to an inflamed brain, which increases one's chance for Alzheimer's.
If you can sip on fermented drinks and that's all it takes to reduce your chance of getting one of the big three, why not? Are there any downsides?
That question leads us to our final myth: "Fermented drinks are loaded with sugar to make them taste better, so they're actually super unhealthy!"
Well, actually…that one's not a complete myth. Unfortunately, many fermented drinks, like lots of kombucha brands, are chock full of sugar.
The problem is that bacteria also need to eat sugar to survive, which means that all fermented drinks are going to have some sugar, right?
Nope!!
I'd like to introduce you to Pu'er tea. This is basically just fermented black tea like kombucha, but this is a highly valued tea from China’s Yunnan Province — this is important because the trees where do you leaves come from or often times over 250 years old! Yes, you heard that right!
This makes it super unique because the tree roots are obviously so deep in the ground, reaching a huge amount of nutrients. In fact, a study done in 2009 showed that Pu'er extract lowers bad cholesterol in mice, and increases good cholesterol…which also stabilizes blood sugar.
Again, fermented black tea is one of the ultimate sources of long-term health!! Probiotics and antioxidants combine to help reverse the damage we all do to our bodies.
Up until recently, Pu'er tea was mostly just available in China where it was harvested. But it's making its way over to the states, and I'm so excited to be able to share it with you!
Just stay tuned and I'll have more information on how you can get one of the best, most nutrient rich varie-"teas" in the world…
