Nutrition

Kimchi: Health And Weight Loss Superfood?

December 16, 2021 read

Kimchi is a traditional Korean food prepared by fermenting vegetables, such as Chinese cabbage and radishes. Since kimchi is fermented, that means it’s loaded with healthy bacteria.

These beneficial bacteria have several health benefits such as: aiding in weight loss, boosting the immune system, helping with digestion, as well as having anti-diabetic effects.

Let’s take a look at a few of the health benefits of kimchi.

Aids Weight Loss

This may be one of the main clues as to why people in Asian countries — especially Koreans — are so famously thin.

Thanks to the number of natural ingredients and fermentation process, kimchi is high in fiber and healthy bacteria. Both fiber and beneficial bacteria are known to help curb food cravings.

What’s more, because kimchi is low in calories, you can eat it without guilt and still meet your weight loss goals.

Helps Digestion

When eaten, the bacteria in kimchi help develop a healthy gut microbiome. And thanks again to its fiber content, kimchi provides a double-whammy of health digestion support.

So why is all this important?

When you have a healthy gut, you’re able to break down and process food efficiently. This means less undigested food stays stuck in the digestive tract, and less toxins built up to cause further harm to your overall health.

Provides Antioxidant Support

Red chili pepper is one of the key ingredients in kimchi, and as you can imagine, is the ingredient that gives kimchi it’s spice.

But more importantly, because red chili pepper has high levels of vitamin C and capsaicin, it’s considered a potent antioxidant.

Not only that, red pepper helps beneficial bacteria stay alive, which helps with all the other health benefits from kimchi’s fermentation process.

Controls Blood Sugar

Kimchi also has good news for diabetics and those at risk of developing diabetes.

The chemicals created during fermentation, along with the antioxidants found in kimchi’s ingredients, can significantly lower blood sugar levels and insulin resistance.

In fact, results from this study¹ show that eating kimchi led to greater decreases in blood sugar, blood cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol.

Conclusion

Kimchi is a Korean food gaining popularity around the world.
Because of the fermentation process, kimchi is loaded with a diverse range of beneficial bacteria.
These good bacteria, along with kimchi’s high-fiber ingredients, have been shown to aid in weight loss, healthy digestion, boosting the immune system, and supporting healthy blood sugar.