Are All Fermented Foods Probiotic?

Any food made by fermentation can be called Fermented Food. However, not all fermented foods are probiotic. To be called probiotic, food must contain live micro-organisms that support the functions of the gut flora.

Here are some examples of fermented products that do not count as probiotic food.

Alcoholic drinks –  produced by ethanol fermentation, i.e. conversion of glucose into ethanol and carbon dioxide; even if the production involves a certain amount of lacto-bacteria, they are all killed by the ethanol, being the main product;
update: unfiltered and unpasteurized beer contains brewer yeasts and some people claim that these yeast are probiotic; looks like they are right; however, remember what alcohol does to your gut, so don’t use its probiotic content as an excuse to drink bottles of beer;

Chocolate – cocoa beans, the main ingredient of chocolate, are lacto- fermented but subsequently roasted and processed; roasting kills lacto-bacteria;

Tea – we all heard that black tea is the product of the fermentation of tea leaves; however, what the industry calls ‘fermentation’ is, in fact, enzymatic oxidation;

Coffee – lacto-fermentation is used to remove the mucus on the surface of beans, but all the remaining bacteria are washed out during the further processing;

Cheese – product of coagulation of the milk protein (casein); coagulation can be caused by an acid and in the past it was lactic acid produced by lacto-bacteria in the natural process of fermentation; simply speaking, milk was left to get sauered and then the curds (cheese) were separated from the whey; therefore, this kind of cheese could be qualified as probiotic food, if unpasteurised; nowadays, casein is coagulated primarily with rennet (stomach enzyme); some brands of high-quality unpasteurised cheese may contain lacto-bacteria, though;

Soy sauce – traditionally made by fermentation of soybeans, but most of the brands available currently in Europe are products of the acid hydrolysis of the soy protein;

Sourdough bread – the raw dough is rich in lacto-bacteria and friendly yeast, but they all die during baking, obviously;

In the original version of the post I wrote: “Sausages, like chorizo, salami, pepperoni – produced by lacto-fermentation of meat; but usually contain quite a lot of sodium nitrate and other chemicals that effectively kill the bacteria; scientists work towards developing a technology to produce probiotic meat, though”

However, I had a discussion with Karen from swisshillsferments.com (see comments below) and have to admit that nitrates don’t affect lacto-bacteria very much. So, it implies that fermented sausages are indeed probiotic. Happy days!

Condiments, like Tabasco sauce or Worcestershire sauce – they contain lacto-fermented ingredients, but are usually pasteurised; anyway, a normal person eats only a bit of them in one go;

What Fermented Foods are healthy then?

I believe the following products to be definitely probiotic:

1. Unpasteurised raw lacto-fermented fruit and vegetables, e.g. sauerkraut
2. Water kefir
3. Unpasteurized fermented milk products – kefir, buttermilk, sour milk, crème fraîche, cottage cheese, yoghurt
4. Kombucha – fermented tea drink (however, see the comments section for some controversies)
5. Unpasteurised apple cider vinegar;
6. Soaked grains eaten raw, e.g. as muesli
7. Unpasteurised fermented soya products – natto, tempeh, miso, tofu, soy sauce (not if produced by hydrolysis as I mentioned before);
8. Unpasteurised fish sauce.