By Kennedy Shelley
I have seen lots of ads for apple cider vinegar. I still keep wondering, what is all this hype about and is it really important?
Well, it turns out that it can be important to your diet, but probably for reasons you would never expect.
Actually, it isn’t more magic than any other fermented food. But fermented foods are really good for you, but that’s where the magic really exists.
Nearly any fruit or vegetable can be fermented. If you crush grapes and age the juice, you get wine, age it some more and it turns into vinegar.
Cut up some cabbage, store it for a while and it ferments into sauerkraut.
Fermentation is and was an important way to store perishable vegetables that would rot if just left alone.
All fermentation is the chemical process of breaking down an organic compound using enzymes, bacteria or yeast.
It breaks down the carbohydrates which are why most fermented foods are sour even though the original food was sweet.
Most people eat it this way during their life in some limited quantity.
Yogurts, sauerkraut, kimchi and pickles are all fermented foods.
These fermented foods seem to improve your gut health.
We don’t know exactly how, but the microbiome, which is made up of five pounds of 500 or more germs and bacteria that live in your gut.
It is becoming clearer that these bacteria help control our health in very unexpected ways.
All of these are being cataloged and sorted out, but it does seem safe to say that you want a healthy environment for these important bugs to flourish.
If you would like more information about the importance of gut bacteria on your health, see this article in Freedom Health News.
Which brings us back to apple cider vinegar.
All kinds of vinegar are fermented food. Balsamic vinegar is made from overly fermented wine. It originates with grapes.
So, taking apple cider and fermenting it, makes the apple cider vinegar that many swear by.
Taking a few teaspoons will do nothing to your blood sugar. It has no fat or carbohydrates.
But it does help feed the microbiome.
It also seems to help some people get over GERD and chronic heartburn because it is slightly lower pH than stomach acid, but it doesn’t lower stomach acid so much that you can’t digest food. See this article for more information.
But when apple cider vinegar is feeding your gut bacteria, your blood glucose and insulin levels go down, which reduces inflammation in the body.
This helps protect us from heart disease, and other inflammatory diseases.
So, when you see the incredible claims about apple cider vinegar this is all going back to having a healthier metabolic system.
And in this case, the claims are based in fact. Now does this mean that apple cider vinegar is the only way to achieve these results? Absolutely not.
Many have found that a low carbohydrate diet will get them there. Other people have moved away from processed foods, sugar, and industrial seed oils. Some have gone as far as a carnivore or KETO diet.
But what is clear, adding fermented foods, including apple cider vinegar to your diet is a way to improve your overall health.
