Sauerkraut packs a punch, and not just for your taste buds. Famous for its tangy, sour, and slightly salty taste, sauerkraut has long been noted for being both nutritious and healthy, having been tied to a host of anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-carcinogenic activities. Now, a new study in Applied and Environmental Microbiology adds additional support to sauerkraut’s healthiness, showing that the topping may help out your gut, possibly thanks to its wealth of metabolic products, or metabolites.
“A little bit of sauerkraut could go a long way,” said Maria Marco, a study author and a professor of food science at the University of California, Davis, according to a press release. “We should be thinking about including these fermented foods in our regular diets and not just as a side on our hot dogs.”
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The Health Benefits of Sauerkraut
Made of chopped cabbage that is fermented in salt, sauerkraut is full of fibers, vitamins, and minerals that support the body, according to a 2014 analysis in Integrative Medicine & Health. In fact, among these nutrients are vitamins C and K, which support the immune system and aid in healthy healing. Sauerkraut also contains compounds that are tied to anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-carcinogenic activities, according to a 2020 article in Nutrients, meaning that the topping may even assist in the prevention of cancer.
Though these health benefits are well established, the new Applied and Environmental Microbiology study suggests that there may be additional advantages associated with eating sauerkraut, particularly when it comes to the gut. Potentially protecting the intestines from inflammation, sauerkraut and other fermented foods may improve your digestion and fight illness, the study finds, boosting a big part of your overall health.
“A regular serving of sauerkraut,” Marco said in the release, “can help us in the long run against inflammation, for example, and make our digestive tract more resilient when we have a disturbance.” Indeed, the study suggests that incorporating more sauerkraut into your diet, alongside fresh fruits and vegetables, may be a simple — and bold-tasting way — to boost your overall health.
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A Tangy Gut-Health Test
But before you start piling sauerkraut onto your plate — and before you start fermenting the topping on your own, a process that takes plenty of cabbage and several weeks of waiting — how did the study authors arrive at their findings? Comparing the nutrients of cabbage, sauerkraut, and sauerkraut brine, or the leftover liquid from the fermentation of the topping, the study authors found that sauerkraut’s nutrients were better at protecting intestinal cells from inflammation than those of cabbage or sauerkraut brine, at least in a laboratory setting.
Including several types of sauerkraut in their tests, the study authors also found that the intestinal cells were better protected in the lab whether the topping’s nutrients came from lab-made or store-bought jars, suggesting that there are several ways to take advantage of sauerkraut’s gut-healthy effects. “It doesn’t matter, in a way, if we make sauerkraut at home or we buy it from the store,” Marco said in the release. “Both kinds of sauerkraut seemed to protect gut function.”
Perhaps most intriguing were the study’s insights into how sauerkraut may fight intestinal inflammation, however. Comparing sauerkraut with cabbage, the study authors showed that sauerkraut has more metabolites — the products produced during metabolic processes like digestion, including those that are linked to a healthy gut, like lactic and amino acids — than cabbage. The digestive benefits of sauerkraut and other fermented foods may therefore stem from this metabolite discrepancy, the study authors said in the release.
“Some of the metabolites we find in the sauerkraut are the same kind of metabolites we’re finding to be made by the gut microbiome, so that gives us a little more confidence that this connection we found between the metabolites in sauerkraut and good gut health makes sense,” Marco added in the release.
In addition to finding out which metabolites fend off intestinal inflammation best, future studies will show whether sauerkraut’s intestinal effects extend outside of the lab. While you wait for those studies, it can’t hurt to try bottling up a container of chopped cabbage and salt or to try buying a jar at the store. It might give your taste buds a boost and maybe your gut health, as well.
This article is not offering medical advice and should be used for informational purposes only.
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Sam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
