Possibly of Use: Miso (and friends)

[swan_tower]

This might be the start of an irregular blog series about stuff I have found helpful, which I'm mentioning it in case it's of use to someone else. Feel free to ignore; I recognize that any time somebody on the internet says "I improved/fixed X problem by doing Y," there's kind of a whiff of proselytization that can turn people off. I know not every solution will work for everybody. But on the other hand, hey, maybe it helps somebody. That would be nice.

Cutting for (non-icky) discussion of digestive health.



For quite a while now, I've had fairly frequent digestive problems. Nothing severe, but happening often enough that I knew I should probably talk to a doctor about it. Which I kind of dreaded doing, because I suspected the doctor would say I had IBS or something -- and just so we're perfectly clear, yes, I'm well aware that "I don't want this diagnosis" is a stupid reason to avoid going to the doctor.

Meanwhile, I keep reading news articles about the research being done on the gut biome, which increasingly makes me feel like we are in fact just the meat cars our intestinal bacteria ride around in. They're being implicated in more and more facets of our health -- not just digestion but psychological things like anxiety. Hell, if you suffer a head injury, that damages your gut biome. What the hell? How do these meat cars even work!

Then one day I think: well, I am an affluent American, which means good statistical odds that I am not going to win any contests for Best Intestinal Flora. I've been taking a probiotic for years, to what benefit I'm not sure, but they also say it's good to eat certain kinds of food that foster the right sort of microbiota. Most of the foods on that list are fermented, and I don't like most fermented foods . . . but I do like miso.

So hey, let's experiment. I am too lazy to make full-bore miso soup with wakame and green onions and little tofu cubes, but I bought a container of fresh miso and some dashi stock, and I started having a cup of miso broth in the mornings.

Within a week, something like 80% of my problems were gone.

I feel like a frickin' clickbait article saying that: This one simple trick doctors don't want you to know! Except they do want you to know, and also, this legitimately seems to work for me. I wouldn't go the miso route if I had to worry about my sodium levels -- I've dialed back to three times a week anyway, just in case -- but there are other foods that get recommended, like sauerkraut and gimchi.

So here ya go: possibly of use to some of you. Certainly easier to arrange than a fecal transplant, which is just a horrifying phrase anyway. Tried in moderation, it's unlikely to hurt, and certainly anybody who's had to take an antibiotic recently could probably benefit from restoring some of what that nuked.

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/ObBmKj)

Comments

[daidoji_gisei]

Interesting you should post this! I’m not suffering from any particular intestinal problems but I’ve also been reading the research on gut biome health. I’ve been a yogurt eater for some time, and last year I started eating raw, fermented sauerkraut from time to time.

I’ve been using miso for years as an occasional seasoning in cooking, but a couple of weeks ago I decided to eat it uncooked as well, on the logic that the microbes have a better chance of staying alive. (Cooked miso will still give you the benefits of all the chemicals the fermentation produces.) Miso-flavored mayonnaise was a mixed success: It tasted good but upon sitting the emulsion broke and I was left with miso mayo sauce. Miso compound butter worked better, and is tasty on steamed veggies.

For salt considerations, my miso cookbook says that white miso has less salt than red.

[swan_tower]

I have a couple of little cookbooks that are all about uses for miso; I need to explore them more. I 100% would eat it on steamed veggies.

I'm usually having awase (halfway between white and red), as it's the one I can most easily find with the dashi already in it, to minimize the prep even more.

[isis]

Wow, interesting! Maybe I'll try this.

Right now it seems that sprinkling chia seeds on my morning yogurt and granola takes care of some of my problems (as typically manifested in the morning) but if I can get my gut biota happier maybe I can take care of the rest of my problems (as typically manifested in the afternoon/evening).

[swan_tower]

The research on the gut biome is bonkers. I will not be surprised at all if thirty years from now we're shaking our heads at how much we didn't understand about this Back in the Day.

[starlady]

I actually stopped taking a probiotic entirely after reading an article in WashPo in which a bunch of gastroenterologists said they just recommend their patients eat more fermented foods. I've been eating a regular helping of kimchi and haven't missed the probiotic at all. I'll have to remember to add miso soup to the schedule.

[swan_tower]

I figure the probiotic is like a vitamin: not nearly as good as getting it properly through food, but better than not getting it at all.

[via_ostiense]

FYI the cut tag isn't working.

Separately, this reminded me I've been meaning to make miso soup - it's nice on the cold days we get in the summer here.

[swan_tower]

Fixed; thanks for the heads-up.

[alessandriana]

...hmm, interesting, thanks.

[mindstalk]

Interesting.

(Some) buttermilk is another cultured food that people may not realize. Though the cheap one I just drank, I dunno if the bacteria were still alive, also salt was added.

For feeding a healthy biome, fiber is recommended. 14 grams per 1000 calories is the current rec; Americans average half that. (If you do math assuming 2/3 of calories refined bread/pasta, 1/3 animal products, you get like 6 grams per 1000 cal.) I switched to a near-vegetarian whole wheat bread (I'd already been doing pasta, but hard to find in Mexico where I was) and lots of beans, averaging 30+ grams/1000 cal, diluted by plant fats.

People warn you to increase fiber gradually, to give your biome time to adjust. That's valid; I switched all at once, and had 2.5 weeks of cramps and interesting toilet visits. OTOH I didn't trust myself to keep a gradual increase going, felt better to suffer and get it over with reliably.

[swan_tower]

My household practically runs on chickpeas these days, heh. And I've taught myself to like lentils, too -- I started out life with an aversion to all kinds of bean-type things, and have been slowly working on changing that.

[mindstalk]

I never had that aversion... I prefer eating black beans and chickpeas. Lentils and split peas do have a cooking time advantage.

Black beans and ketchup makes a quick approximation to baked beans, at least to my non-native New Englander taste.

I discovered that black beans freeze and thaw well, but chickpeas not so much. Might not matter if you turn them into hummus anyway, but for straight eating they became an unpleasant kind of mushy.