Boost Your Immune System with Cultured Foods

Your immune system is involved in many other systems within the body. Your immune system is actively doing its job when you experience hot flashes, stubborn weight gain, or cloudy thinking. Most of us send the immune system mixed signals.

Processed, chemical-laden foods trigger the immune system to act.

Gluten and most grains tell the immune system there is a problem. Water contaminated with toxic chemicals and heavy metals sends off alarm bells.

Your Inner Ecosystem and Your Immune System

Rather than working against your immune system, it’s time to work with it.

If you are looking for a place to begin, the gut holds up to 80% of the immune system. The gut is surrounded by a mass of tissue that makes cells for the immune system. This tissue is called GALT (gut-associated lymphoid tissue). GALT makes sure that anything coming in from the outside world isn’t going to harm you.

While GALT is just doing its job, problems arise when:

• We consume harmful foods.
• The inner ecosystem is out of balance.

A wounded and out-of-balance inner ecosystem can mean many things. It can mean that you don’t have enough enzymes to break down food or that Candida yeast has taken over your digestive terrain like a virulent weed.

Most of the microbes living in the gut are found in the colon, or large intestine.

While it may sound strange, your body welcomes them! When your colon is healthy, you will find a diverse community of bacteria and yeast. For the most part, you share a synergistic relationship with your microbes. They manufacture vitamins. They produce fatty acids that control inflammation. They synthesize chemicals that fight infection, like Candida overgrowth.

When the inner ecosystem is out of balance, these helpful microbes aren’t around. Or if they are around, they have lost their ability to do much good. When the inner ecosystem is out of balance, harmful microbes take control, and the result is an inflamed and leaky gut.

Cultured Foods to the Rescue

Remember how the immune system affects so many aspects of health? And remember how it is found mainly in the gut? As it turns out, good bacteria and yeast living in the gut help the immune system do its job. These microbes communicate directly and indirectly with the immune system.

Cultured foods wrap beneficial microbes in a protective matrix, helping them to safely colonize the lower end of the digestive tract and communicate with the immune system.

In fact, research shows that microbes have a better chance of surviving the harsh environment of the stomach when they are consumed as food—rather than as a probiotic supplement.

We suggest:

1. IMPORTANT: When culturing foods at home, always use a starter culture that contains specific strains of beneficial microbes. This prevents wild and unwanted bugs from growing.
2. Feed your starter culture with a prebiotic. A prebiotic gives your preparation of cultured foods the edge it needs to flourish.
3. Add a pinch of trace minerals or Celtic Sea Salt. Good bacteria love minerals as much as we do! They thrive in a mineral-rich environment.