Microbiome Video


I like watching psych videos from Dr. Marks. This one was on-topic for this site about diabetes:

The probiotic foods mentioned, yogurt, sauerkraut, pickles, and kombucha, help boost good gut bacteria.

Kombucha is kind of off-limits for diabetics, but if you make your own, it should be OK. The bottled ones have sugar at around 4-8 g per bottle, which isn’t high, but it adds up. If you make your own, the bacteria and yeasts should consume the sugars. The longer it brews, the more the sugars are consumed (and converted into alcohol). It’ll stop tasting sweet, though.

The most plentiful probiotic on the west coast is probably kimchi, which is similar to sauerkraut.

I get most of my probiotics through Japanese pickles. These are made in a pickle press as shown in this video:

The trick here is to make sure that you age the vegetables at least two or three days to develop the fizzy fermented flavor. If you want, you can drain the water and age it for a few weeks, and it’ll turn into a very sour pickle.

Here’s another video about making Korean cucumber pickles. They take a week to ferment, and my best guess is that the sugar drops to almost nothing in that time.

When you buy kimchi or other Asian pickles at the supermarket, you’ll find that they added more sugar, and that they taste sweet.

If you make it yourself, you’ll avoid most of the sugar. You’ll also save a lot of money, and probably have a much bigger load of good bacteria.