Hi there this is Monica Reinagle and you're listening to the nutrition

diva quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous these tips are provided for your information and

your entertainment but they're not intended as medical advice. Because everyone is

different, please work with your health professional to determine what's

right for you. Today's quick and dirty nutrition tip

is to eat foods containing beneficial bacteria

on a regular basis for a healthy digestive system.

I try to eat bugs almost every day. I'm not talking about insects. I leave the sauteed crickets and

batter-fried ants to those nuts on the travel channel. Now I'm talking about microscopic

bugs, the beneficial bacteria that are naturally present in foods like

yogurt or Kefir. When you think about it, every traditional cuisine has developed some

sort of naturally fermented or cultured food. There's Japanese mezzo, Bulgarian

yogurt, Polish sourcrowd, Indian lassie, and Korean kimchi, and each of these

plays a central role in that culture's cuisine and for very good reason.

All of these foods contain lactobacylus bacteria, which are extremely beneficial to your health.

In fact, in the days before antibiotics and other drugs

eating these cultured and fermented foods was absolutely critical to staying healthy.

The friendly bacteria found in these foods actually set up housekeeping in your gut where they do all kinds of good things for you.

They help digest your food.

They produce certain vitamins for you.

They keep the lining of your intestines slick and shiny and most of all they make it much harder for unfriendly bacteria to take hold and make you sick

Our digestive systems work best when they have a healthy population of beneficial bacteria

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