Kimchi? Most Westerners have never heard of this type of fermented cabbage, which has been a staple of the Korean diet for centuries. The South Koreans, who eat 1.6 tons of this side dish each year, like to spice up their banchan with other vegetables like onions, garlic, and red hot chili peppers. It’s the spicy peppers that have gotten me when I’ve tried kimchi because I’m not a spicy-food kind of guy. I prefer the less-spicy sauerkraut, but kimchi is definitely one of the healthiest foods you can eat. It’ll clear your sinuses in a hurry.

Low in calories, high in dietary fiber, kimchi is rich in vitamin A, thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), calcium, and iron and is an excellent resource for lactic acid bacteria that aids in digestion and could retard cancer growth. Kimchi, along with sauerkraut, are prime examples of fermented foods that rarely find their way onto American plates. About the only non-dairy fermented foods that Americans eat these days are pickles.

The first time I ate kimchi was after my health troubles in the mid-1990s. I was living with my parents, and they liked to try new, exotic foods, so I gave it a go, but like I said, it’s too spicy for my taste. Another Korean dish I didn’t particularly care for was fish eyeballs. I attended a conference on probiotics one time, and the person putting on the conference—a Korean—planned the banquet menu for the conferees. We were served a traditional Korean meal include a dish with fish eyeballs. All I can remember is that they were all white—and you couldn’t see any sort of pupil.

I prefer food without eyeballs, and even though I’m not a big kimchi fan, I still seek out some type of fermented cabbage regularly, like sauerkraut. Thousands of years ago, the Israelites discovered that fermenting foods made them healthier and easier to digest, as opposed to today’s preservatives, which rely on chemical compounds to keep the food from spoiling.

Americans think that every household in the world has a refrigerator, but in various developing countries, as well as significant pockets of Europe, Asia, and South America, refrigeration is reserved for the well-to-do. Everyone else relies on fermentation to preserve foods and beverages as a means of protection from dangerous bacteria. People may not realize this, but it wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t have any refrigeration, so people had to find some way to preserve foods, which was fermentation—the intentional growth of bacteria, yeast, or mold.

The Chinese have fermented cabbage for centuries. The Romans also learned to ferment cabbage, or what is known today as sauerkraut. Eastern Europeans discovered ways to pickle green tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce. Every sauce and condiment has its beginnings as a fermented food, and throughout history has always been healthy.

The Chinese are generally credited with inventing ketchup, which started out as a fermented fish brine sauce known as ke-tsiap. When sailors brought stone jars of ke-tsiap home to England, they added pickled cucumbers (another fermented food) with kidney beans and oysters. Then English settlers in New England added tomatoes in the late 1700s, and before you knew it, McDonald’s was handing out ten-gram packets of ketchup by the millions.

Okay, that’s a little joke, but if you’re feeling adventurous the next time you’re in an Asian restaurant, skip the fish eyeballs but ask your wait person if they serve kimchi as a side dish. You may have a greater affinity for the spicy food than I do, and if so, you’ve discovered an incredibly healthy food to eat. A great source for kimchi and sauerkraut, as well as organic nut and seed butters, is Rejuvenative Foods out of Santa Cruz, California. Check out their website at www.rejuvenative.com for more information.