Kimchi has become an increasingly popular food in recent years.
Some people kimchi contains lactic acid bacteria and other probiotics, beneficial to health. But some people say that kimchi contains nitrite, which can cause cancer and is very unhealthy. Is kimchi healthy or not?
How do you make kimchi?
Kimchi is actually a fermented food made of fresh vegetables fermented with salt.
The usual practice is to put the vegetables in a large jar, pour salt water, and then use lactic acid bacteria to ferment and break down the sugars in the food and release acids, so that the pickles are sour, and, The acid produced by fermentation can also inhibit the growth of harmful microorganisms.
Kimchi contains a lot of nitrite, can cause cancer?
One of the most common reasons for saying kimchi is unhealthy is that kimchi contains a lot of nitrite, which can cause cancer.
In fact, this argument is too one-sided, not all kimchi contain a lot of nitrite, kimchi has a lot of nitrite with its fermentation process.
Nitrogen is a widespread element in nature. Nitrogen fertilizer is necessary for plant growth.
The nitrogen absorbed by plants is eventually converted into amino acids in the body, which inevitably produces nitrates. Plants also have reductase enzymes that reduce part of the nitrate to nitrite. So all plants contain nitrates and nitrites.
Kimchi is made from fresh vegetables and naturally contains nitrates and nitrites.
In the process of making kimchi, fermentative bacteria have a great influence on kimchi. The study of kimchi found that fermentation with pure acetic acid bacteria or pure lactic acid bacteria, will not lead to a lot of nitrite, because these bacteria activity is almost non-production of nitrite.
However, in daily life when people make kimchi pickles, there is no pure bacteria fermentation conditions, it is inevitable to pollute miscellaneous bacteria, it is true that there is the trouble of producing nitrite.
But don’t worry too much. As long as the kimchi fermentation time is long enough, nitrite content will not be too much, normal consumption do not have to worry about.
It was found that the content of nitrite decreased gradually with the prolongation of soaking time, and even disappeared at last.
How long will it take? Different kimchi will certainly be different, but usually about half a month. So, as long as you don’t eat pickled vegetables, you don’t have to worry about nitrites.
Kimchi contains lactic acid bacteria, good for health?
The reason why kimchi is healthy is the lactic acid bacteria and lactic acid in kimchi. Many claims that kimchi contains probiotics-lactic acid bacteria, but also contains lactic acid produced by fermentation, eat good health.
In fact, this also exaggerated the role of lactic acid bacteria.
Kimchi does contain lactic acid bacteria and lactic acid produced during fermentation. However, this amount is usually too small, and most of the lactic acid bacteria are in the juice of kimchi, will you drink the fermented broth?
Whether probiotics will affect the health of human products requires three conditions:
- The need for specific bacteria, must be healthy strains of bacteria;
- There are enough, there are hundreds of billions of bacteria in the intestinal tract, the number is small, have no effect, eat more than 100 million live bacteria at a time, it is very difficult to have any health effect, and have to be taken continuously over a period of time.
- Enough live bacteria to reach the large intestine. It’s more important to see if it’s alive and how much of it gets into our intestines.
Over the past few decades, scientists have conducted numerous health studies on probiotics, including promoting digestion, improving diarrhoea, boosting immunity, allergies, cancer, women’s health, and more.
Unfortunately, most of the health benefits of probiotics are not well documented. The European Food Safety Agency’s EFSA assessment also found insufficient evidence for claims that probiotics boost immunity and improve intestinal health.
So if you think a little lactic acid bacteria and lactic acid in kimchi make it healthy, that’s reckless.
Can I have a lot of kimchi?
So does this mean we can eat kimchi indefinitely? Not really.
Because, whether there is nitrite or not, all kimchi have a lot of salt, kimchi is a high-salt food, eat more is not healthy.
Although today’s kimchi in order to meet the needs of consumers will use sugar and preservatives to help preserve, much less salt, but its salt is still not very low.
Also, kimchi is less nutritious than fresh vegetables, and you can’t replace vegetables with kimchi.
It’s important to remind you that some studies have found that regular consumption of pickled vegetables may increase the risk of cancer. Although the current evidence is not very sufficient, but people still want to eat more.
A 2009 review, summarizing studies in Asia, found that people who regularly ate kimchi were about twice as likely to develop esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.
Kimchi countries like South Korea and Japan still have very high rates of stomach cancer, which many people believe may be due to their frequent use of pickled kimchi.
Data on food and health compiled by the Chinese Society of Nutrition shows that eating too much pickled food increases the risk of esophageal cancer, stomach cancer and high blood pressure. It also increases the risk of breast cancer in women. The reason may be that kimchi contains a lot of sodium.
WHO classified pickles as class 2B carcinogens.
So, you can’t eat too much kimchi, otherwise it will have a bad effect on your health.
How should I eat kimchi?
Pickles taste sour, but also increase appetite, many people still want to eat. So, how to eat kimchi healthily?
- Don’t eat too much. The biggest problem with kimchi is high salt content, so eat less.
- Use it instead of salt to cook. Although vitamin C is low, pickles are rich in potassium and dietary fiber, and you can replace some salt with kimchi, a healthy and delicious choice.
How to be Health 