The Power of Fermented Whole Foods
to Improve Your Health
By Garden of Life Health Writers – Healthy Living
Article
 We’ve
been studying fermented foods and their amazing contributions to our
health for a long time but nowhere near as long as the history of
fermented foods dates. It appears that fermented foods have been an
integral part of human evolution. In fact, fermentation’s ancient roots
predate our written human history and certainly empirical knowledge of
the existence of beneficial bacteria.
Evidence of winemaking in the Caucasus Mountains in the country of
Georgia dates back more than 8,000 years. And jars with wine were found
in the Zagros Mountains of Iran dating back 7,000 years. Throughout
world history, long-lived people have taken advantage of fermented
foods. The long-lived peasants of Bulgaria enjoyed the health benefits
of their traditional yogurt made with the seeming magic of the
fermentation process, observed the Russian biologist Élie Metchnikoff in
the early 1900s. His Nobel Prize-winning research, in fact, touched on
the important immune-health benefits of fermented foods.
Metchnikoff’s research followed that of the French chemist Louis
Pasteur. In 1856, Pasteur was the first known zymologist who connected
yeast to fermentation. Pasteur originally defined fermentation as
“respiration without air.” He hadn’t yet realized that beneficial
bacteria were metabolizing the sugar and in so doing producing other
novel compounds. In examining fermentation of sugar to alcohol by yeast,
he concluded the process was catalyzed by a vital force called ferments”
within the yeast cells.
These ferments are the residue of the beneficial bacteria and include
many of the novel compounds left behind by the beneficial bacteria.
Perhaps you know the names of these friendly bacteria from the label on
your yogurt carton. They are Lactobacillus bulgaricus, L. acidophilus,
L. salivarius, and others.
Fermented Foods Today
Today, researchers have noted that many of the most long-lived people
throughout the globe take advantage of the power of fermented foods to
capture greater health. In Japan, tofu, miso and natto reign supreme. In
Central Asia, kumis (fermented mare milk), kefir and shubat (fermented
camel milk) are consumed. People of India and the Middle East enjoy
fermented pickles, yogurts and torshi (mixed vegetables). Europeans have
sauerkraut, kefir, crème fraiche and rakfisk (salted, fermented trout).
In the Americas we have kombucha, standard pickling and chocolate;
Pacific Islanders have poi (fermented, mashed taro root) and something
called kanga pirau, or rotten corn.
There are many ways that fermented foods help us with our health. For
one, an enormous proportion of the body’s white blood cells are
manufactured within the gastrointestinal tract, and having healthy
bacteria there optimizes our bodily production of immune cells.
The trick here is to remember that these tiny microbes are the good
guys. By taking up residence within your gastrointestinal tract, they
have a strong instinctual desire to crowd out the same bad guys that are
making you feel sick or giving you indigestion. To do so, these
beneficial microbes produce all sorts of novel compounds including
antioxidants, enzymes and many others such as silver to keep their
enemies (and yours) at bay. You are the recipient of this beneficial
battle going on within your gut, and if you supply your body with enough
colonizing friendly microbes and their ferments, you will enjoy superb
gastrointestinal health, which translates into overall well-being.
Fermented foods provide all of this healthy support, which is why
they have been so much a part of human history. We need fermented foods.
You should by all means consume all of nature’s healthiest fermented
foods and enjoy their health-promoting benefits. Kefir, yogurt, miso,
tofu, kimchi, and Braggs Raw, Organic Apple Cider Vinegar — these are
just some of the delicious fermented foods that making part of your
daily diet will help your overall health.
THE POWER OF CULTURED PROBIOTIC NUTRIENTS
 But
now you can also take advantage of the power of fermented foods with
Garden of Life, which has created the leading line of probiotic
cultured multivitamins and dietary supplements, all fermented with
beneficial bacteria to actually make the vitamins and nutrients
contained within all the more bioavailable and usable by the body,
including the
Garden of Life RAW and Vitamin Code formulas.
Garden of Life is the company that Jordan Rubin started in the late
1990s after a near-terminal bout with inflammatory Crohn’s disease in
which he was healed only after learning about the secret of fermented
raw foods.
Garden of Life , from its inception, has popularized and perfected
the art of culturing probiotic whole-food supplements. The experts at
Garden of Life take the most proven probiotic cultures and culture these
with the vitamins and minerals in the formula as well as with raw,
certified organic, whole food ingredients including super foods such as
antioxidant-rich fruits (blueberries, strawberries) and
chlorophyll-filled greens (spinach, barley green, wheatgrass), and many
more nutrient-dense foods. This creates “vitamin code” factors that
provide synergistic and novel cofactors for health, including
antioxidants, enzymes and the most body-friendly nutrients that have
been reverse-engineered back into a more body-ready state.
Thanks to the alchemy of fermentation, individual nutrients are
reverse-engineered to be in their most potent state through the miracle
of probiotic fermentation, the same process that nutrients go through in
nature. When cultured, the raw super foods and nutrients are artisanally
crafted to be rich in antioxidants like superoxide dismutase and other
phyto-molecules that friendly bacteria have helped to make body-ready.
Garden of Life’s entire RAW, cultured vitamins line includes:
IMMUNE SYSTEM HELP
Many of the pathogens that make us sick enter the body through the
food we eat. This means that an individual with an unhealthy gut is much
more vulnerable to infection than someone with a healthy
gastrointestinal tract.
The activation of immune cells within the huge surface area of the
gut lining is a key to many different disease states, including heart
disease, cancer, arthritis and diabetes. The passage of bacteria and
toxins through leaky gut mucosa may amplify or perpetuate this systemic
inflammation.
There are many benefits from a diet rich in fermented foods.
Allergies and food sensitivities are markedly reduced. Risk for heart
disease, cancer, diabetes and arthritis also decreases—along with
overall bodily inflammation.
Other researchers state, “Studies have shown probiotic bacteria have
potential in the treatment of clinical conditions with altered gut
mucosal barrier functions.”
Interestingly, a lot of sales for RAW formulas come from vegans who
have clamored for supplements of their own that would meet their overall
high standards. Jordan enlisted the help of leading experts in the field
to come up with a concept that could work for everyone, including, of
course, vegans.
Alicia Silverstone makes clear in The Kind Diet that Americans are
moving toward more plant-based diets, which involve eating more live raw
foods. If you want to do this with your three meals, then why do you
want to take some kind of chemically concocted irradiated nutrition
product? Most consumers don’t know that in cheap inferior supplement
products the herbs can be irradiated and acetone stripped until not much
of what it made so valuable is there anymore. There are great formulas
out there, of course, too, but altogether too many are truly too
processed or they just use single chemical isolates formulated in a
laboratory.
 Garden of Life’s RAW antioxidant-rich, super deep-green vegetables,
seeds, sprouts and colorful fruits are never heated, and they are potentiated with probiotic cultures. All are grown organically.
Their cultured, raw concept took off with
Vitamin Code multivitamins
for women, men, prenatal, children and 55-plus categories, then segued
and went into single nutrients such as vitamin C and vitamin D—all potentiated with super deep-green vegetables and antioxidant-rich
complementary fruits and herbs.
So if you want to be part of the
raw, cultured revolution, try some
of these great formulas. Start with
Vitamin Code multivitamins,
including those for men, women and persons 50 and older,
raw Kids
multivitamin, as well as the
Raw prenatal formula and a new raw Liquid
Multivitamin. But don’t stop there. Try the nutrient specific
raw
Vitamin Code formulas mentioned above, as well as clinically studied
Vitamin Code Grow Bone and
RAW Cleanse, the three-stage cleansing
regimen that takes the portals of elimination seriously with ingredients
that are active in the entire digestive tract beginning in the mouth and
ending with elimination. We also suggest the
Raw Enzymes and
Raw
Probiotics to maintain proper G.I. health.
  Garden of Life’s RAW Meal goes beyond organic by providing live
probiotics and enzymes, and Vitamin Code raw food-created vitamins and
minerals, as well as nutrient Code Factors such as beta-glucans, SOD,
glutathione and coenzyme Q10, enabling natural recognition by your body.
Containing 26 super foods from RAW organic seeds, sprouts and greens,
RAW Meal provides 33 grams of protein, 14 grams of fiber and a healthy 4
grams of fat making it an excellent choice for weight-conscious
individuals.
 
Garden of Life’s RAW Protein features14 raw and organic sprouts, is
an excellent source of complete protein, providing 18 grams, or 35
percent of the Daily Value, plus all essential amino acids. RAW Protein
contains Vitamin Code fat-soluble vitamins and supports digestive health
and function with live protein-digesting enzymes and powerful
probiotics.
 
For more information on the benefits of raw and fermented whole
foods, check out Jordan Rubin’s new
“RAW Truth” book. For more
information on Garden of Life’s special culturing Vitamin Code process
check out the
Vitamin Code book.
Resource Links:
Garden of Life Raw and Vitamin Code Products
Legends, Inspiration and the Raw Truth about Your Health
Raw Interview with Jordan Rubin, Author of “Raw Truth”
RAW Power, Enzymes and Raw Food Created Nutrients
Vitamin Code Story - Why RAW Multivitamins?
Cracking the Code – The Vitamin Code
RAW Extraordinary Probiotics - The Next Generation of Digestive
Health
RAW Enzymes: The Next Generation of Enzymes for Digestive Health
Enzyme Nutrition 101
The RAW Revolution
Is Your Multivitamin Raw?
Raw is Good for Your Health
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