Should You Eat Saukerkraut Every Day? (Here’s What Science Says) | EP 399.C

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Dr. Gundry Podcast

Episode: Should You Eat Sauerkraut Every Day? (Here’s What Science Says) | EP 399.C

Host: Dr. Steven Gundry
Date: April 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dr. Steven Gundry explores the science behind fermented foods, particularly sauerkraut and kimchi, focusing on the impact of eating them daily for 30 days. Drawing on clinical research and longstanding cultural practices, Dr. Gundry breaks down the benefits to gut health, inflammation, and overall wellness, and provides practical advice for those looking to incorporate fermented foods into their diets. He also addresses common concerns, such as added sugars and fermentation's effect on plant defense compounds.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power of Fermented Foods

• Fermented foods as ancient staples:

  • Fermenting cabbage has preserved food for centuries, particularly before refrigeration ([01:21]).
  • Kimchi and sauerkraut are cultural mainstays in Korea and Europe, respectively.

• Quote:

  “Sometimes the simplest foods can have the biggest impact on your health. Fermented foods like sauerkraut have been used for generations. But what happens when you eat them every single day?”
  — Dr. Steven Gundry ([00:10])

2. How Fermentation Works

• Biochemistry of fermentation:

  • Bacteria and yeast eat sugar, turning it into energy and, as a byproduct, alcohol, acids, and beneficial compounds ([01:36]-[06:00]).
  • Whether the bacteria in fermented foods are alive or dead matters less than previously thought.

• The importance of postbiotics:

  • Postbiotics are the leftovers of the fermentation process: dead bacterial cell walls and fermented products ([05:00]).
  • These carry important information to your gut microbiome.

• Quote:

  “It really doesn’t matter whether those bacteria are living or dead... it’s the cell wall of the bacteria that actually carries the information that tells our gut microbiome who's in the house.”
  — Dr. Steven Gundry ([04:23])

3. Science Behind Sauerkraut & Kimchi

• Relevant study:

  • Referencing research from the Sonnenbergs at Stanford, Dr. Gundry explains that fiber alone doesn’t increase gut bacteria diversity or decrease inflammation—fermented foods (with postbiotics) are necessary ([06:40]-[08:10]).
  • When prebiotic fiber is combined with postbiotics, there’s a significant improvement in both diversity and inflammation markers.

• Quote:

  “When the prebiotic fiber was combined with the postbiotics from the fermented foods... the gut microbiome diversity bloomed... and the markers of inflammation plummeted.”
  — Dr. Steven Gundry ([07:53])

4. Fermentation Neutralizes Plant Defense Compounds

• Lectins & oxalates:

  • Fermentation breaks down plant defense compounds (e.g., lectins in peppers), making foods safer and more digestible ([11:10]-[12:30]).
  • Kimchi made with red pepper flakes is safe because fermentation neutralizes these compounds.

• Quote:

  “The fermentation process eats the lectins, even in the peppers. That’s why hot pepper sauces that have been fermented are perfectly safe to eat.”
  — Dr. Steven Gundry ([12:09])

5. How to Start a 30-Day Sauerkraut/Kimchi Habit

• Start slow:

  • Dr. Gundry advises starting with small amounts to avoid digestive discomfort ([13:20]).
  • Gut bacteria produce gas and bloating as they adapt to new fiber and fermented foods.

• Practical tips:

  • Avoid eating a whole jar at once.
  • Gradually increase portions over 30 days.

• Quote:

  “Please, please, please don’t eat the whole jar the first day. I don’t want cards and letters coming in saying, ‘What’d you make me do that for? I’m miserable.’ Start slow and then work your way up.”
  — Dr. Steven Gundry ([14:19])

6. Watch for Added Sugar

• Many commercial brands add sugar:

  • Some manufacturers add sugar to make fermented foods more palatable to Americans, which can reduce health benefits ([15:00]).
  • Dr. Gundry recommends using allulose (a calorie-free, prebiotic sweetener) instead.

• Quote:

  “Read the label, look for added sugar content. It’ll surprise you how many of these companies have added a lot of sugar to make you like the product.”
  — Dr. Steven Gundry ([15:24])

7. Extra Benefits from Garlic and Scallions

• Compounds like allicin:
  • Fermented foods with garlic and scallions provide additional compounds that help repair the lining of blood vessels ([16:00]).

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Listener Q&A & Practical Advice

Alternatives to Wheat Germ Topping (16:20)

• Dr. Gundry’s recommendations:

  • Use chopped nuts (walnuts, pistachios, macadamia, hazelnuts, pecans) instead of wheat germ or almond skins, which may contain harmful lectins.

• Quote:

  “Wheat germ is one of the highest concentrations of wheat germ agglutinin, which is one of the worst nasty lectins I’ve ever found.”
  — Dr. Steven Gundry ([17:08])

Supplements & Health Priorities (17:23)

• A listener shares appreciation for Gundry’s supplements, comparing investing in health to a car payment.
• Dr. Gundry responds:

  “This is the only house we’re ever going to live in: our body. And if we spend as much time and money on taking care of our house, our body, that we do for our car... it’s amazing what happens.”
  — Dr. Steven Gundry ([18:50])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Sometimes the simplest foods... can have the biggest impact on your health.” ([00:10])
• “Fermented foods like sauerkraut have been used for generations.” ([00:13])
• “It really doesn’t matter whether those bacteria are living or dead.” ([04:23])
• “When the prebiotic fiber was combined with the postbiotics... the diversity bloomed.” ([07:53])
• “Start slow and work your way up.” ([14:19])
• “Read the label, look for added sugar content.” ([15:24])
• “Wheat germ is one of the highest concentrations of wheat germ agglutinin, which is one of the worst nasty lectins I’ve ever found.” ([17:08])
• “This is the only house we’re ever going to live in: our body.” ([18:50])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Topic | |-----------|--------------------------------------------| | 01:21 | History & basics of fermented foods | | 04:10 | Alive vs. dead bacteria - Postbiotics | | 06:40 | Sonnenberg study & gut microbiome diversity| | 10:20 | Fermented foods' “one-two punch” | | 12:09 | Fermentation and plant defense compounds | | 13:20 | How to start a fermented food habit | | 15:00 | Dangers of added sugar in sauerkraut/kimchi| | 16:00 | Benefits of garlic and scallions | | 16:20 | Listener Q&A: yogurt toppings | | 17:23 | Listener review: investing in health |

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Summary

Dr. Gundry’s central message: Incorporating sauerkraut or kimchi daily—slowly, mindfully, and with attention to sugar content—can profoundly improve gut health, reduce inflammation, and harness benefits that science is only beginning to fully understand. The fermentation process, by creating postbiotics and neutralizing plant defense compounds, transforms these simple foods into powerful tools for health.

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Best For:

• Anyone interested in gut health, fermented foods, or starting a healing journey from within, motivated by both tradition and cutting-edge clinical science.

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Transcript

[Unknown Male Speaker]

Foreign.

[Dr. Steven Gundry]

Sometimes the simplest foods can have the biggest impact on your health. Fermented foods like sauerkraut have been used for generations. But what happens when you eat them every single day?

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Today we're taking a closer look at

[Dr. Steven Gundry]

what happens of 30. 30 days of sauerkraut eating can do for your gut and overall wellness. I'll walk you through the potential benefits, what to expect, and whether this daily

habit is worth it.

So stay tuned. Craving something decadent like a double fudge brownie lasagna or an Almond Joy muffin that's secretly good for you? Then you'll love my Dr. Gundry newsletter. Each week I send out an exclusive recipe that not only tastes incredible, but also supports your gut, your heart, and

your long term health.

From snacks to desserts, these recipes prove you don't have to give up flavor to eat right. You just need the right ingredients and a little guidance. So go ahead, treat yourself to food

that loves you back.

Sign up for my free newsletter using the link in this episode's description.

What if you eat sauerkraut or kimchi every day for 30 days? All right, so sauerkraut and kimchi are actually becoming readily accessible. So what the heck is that? Well, if you're new to fermented foods, fermented cabbage has been around probably since the beginning of civilization. Kimchi, as many of you know, is from Korea and has been a staple of Korean cuisine for centuries. Typically, kimchi is made from cabbage. It can be made from radishes or scallions or cucumbers, or often a combination of these vegetables. Sauerkraut traditionally is made from cabbage. What exactly is the reason to do this? Well, several reasons. First of all, remember that long ago there was no refrigeration and so a vegetable like cabbage, which is actually pretty good for storing in a root cellar, eventually goes bad. But if you use fermentation, you actually break down a lot of the sugars into compounds that preserve that food for an extended period of time. Also, the fermentation process produces a lot of hugely, we now know, beneficial compounds that are good for your health. So let's just talk about the fermentation process for a minute. Bacteria and or yeast eat sugar and they turn that sugar into ATP, the energy currency, through a process called glycolysis, which we call fermentation. It's actually a very inefficient process. You and I don't use much glycolysis. We use oxidative phosphorylation, but we won't talk about that. Today. So in the process of glycolysis, you convert these sugar molecules, among other things, into alcohol. That's why when you ferment grapes, you get wine that has alcohol in it. When you ferment yogurts, you actually get a small amount of alcohol in it through the fermentation. And certainly with kombucha, you do get a small amount of alcohol. But the big benefit is that you get what are called postbiotics. Now, postbiotics are the leftover products of fermentation. Those include the dead bacterial cell walls and or the dead yeast cell walls. And if you've read my new book, Gut Check, you know that these dead bacteria or yeast carry information, and they carry information down to your gut after you swallow them, regardless of whether they're living or dead. Now, that brings me to an important point. You will see in, like, whole foods, you will see fresh sauerkraut or fresh kimchi, and you will also find sauerkraut or kimchi in glass jars or even cans where they have been pasteurized. The great news is that it really doesn't matter whether those bacteria are living or dead. Honest, most of the time, when we eat living bacteria in these foods, those bacteria are killed by our stomach acid. They never make it past stomach acid, but the dead bacteria does make it past stomach acid. And it turns out it's the cell wall of the bacteria that actually carries the information that tells our gut microbiome kind of who's in the house. And. And that's really exciting news. This was first proven a few years ago by the husband and wife team at Stanford, the Sonnenbergs. And I've talked about the study again, but it's important to hear this study. We know that prebiotics are really good for friendly bacteria. It's what our probiotics, friendly bacteria, want to eat. And it makes sense that if we ate a lot of prebiotic fiber, that our friendly bacteria would be really happy and our friendly bacteria would make us really happy. Not so fast. The Sonnenbergs took some humans. They gave them a ton of prebiotic fiber, and they looked at whether or not they had improved gut microbiome diversity. The more different kinds of bacteria in your gut, the better. Let's leave it at that. The less types of bacteria in your gut, the worse. So they looked at the microbiome diversity, and all this fiber didn't change the gut diversity, and they looked at markers of inflammation, and all this fiber didn't change the markers of inflammation. And you go, well, what the Heck, I thought that, you know, that's what was needed. So then they took another group. They gave them the same prebiotic fiber, but this time they gave them fermented foods. Now, it was primarily in the form of yogurt and kefirs, but the point is, these had postbiotics in them. Lo and behold, when the prebiotic fiber was combined with the postbiotics from the fermented foods, lo and behold, the gut microbiome diversity bloomed. Lots of new species. And lo and behold, the markers of inflammation plummeted.

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[Dr. Steven Gundry]

So, getting back to sauerkraut and Kim Chi. What's going on? Well, here's the one, two punch. You now have the fermented foods. You have the postbiotics, the dead bacteria, the dead yeast, all the other short chain fatty acids that are made with fermentation. Plus you got oodles of fiber in the various forms of cabbages, radishes, scallions that the gut bacteria then eat because they've been primed with the postbiotics and the fermented food. So that's what these ancient cultures obviously knew. Now, which came first? Did they know that that's why they were doing it? Probably not. We didn't have these really cool tests that we have now, but they, number one, knew that they could preserve foods that they otherwise couldn't store using this technique. And oh, by the way, people through centuries who were eating foods preserved this way were clearly healthier than people who weren't doing it. The other thing that these cultures learn almost from day one, that plant compounds that exist in a lot of foods to prevent us from eating them. And these are the plant defense compounds like lectins, like oxalates. These were eaten in the fermentation process. That actually brings me up to one of the questions that we've gotten about kimchi. Much of kimchi has red pepper flakes in them. And as you know, the peel and the seeds of peppers are loaded with lectins. And yet, I tell you, eat kimchi. What gives? Well, it turns out that the fermentation process eats the lactins, even in the peppers. That's why hot pepper sauces that have been fermented are perfectly safe to eat, whereas hot peppers that haven't been fermented are not safe to eat unless you peel and de seed them. So that explains the paradox of why I would allow you to have those pepper flakes in your kimchi because they've been fermented and rendered harmless. Now, what happens if you eat this stuff for 30 days? First of all, please, please, please. If you're not used to eating fermented foods or you're not Used to eating a lot of fiber. Start slow. Your gut bacteria think fiber is delicious and they ferment that fiber and tell you how happy they are by producing lots of gas and bloating and may even change your frequency of your bowel movements. Now, the good news is if you start slow, you will adapt to that and within 30 days, you'll be up and running on a generous dose of sauerkraut and kimchi. But please, please, please don't eat the whole jar the first day. I don't want cards and letters coming in saying, what'd you make me do that for? I'm miserable. Start slow and then work your way up. Studies have shown that humans who have done this actually have remarkable improvement in inflammatory markers, have remarkable improvements in gut biodiversity. And that's what's going to happen when you eat these foods for 30 days. But please, please start slow. Also, be careful a number of these products, because Americans in general don't like sour and tangy. A lot of these products together, get them more palatable, will put a remarkable amount of sugar into their products. Now, it's okay to add a little bit of sugar to start the fermentation process, but it's not okay to add sugar to make it palatable to you if it really bothers you. The tartness. What I like to do is, is I like to use allulose, which is a true sugar that has no calories, but it is a prebiotic in itself. And so use allulose to make that taste more to your liking. Again, read the label, look for added sugar content. It'll surprise you how many of these companies have added a lot of sugar to make you like the product. The other last benefit, particularly if it's made with garlic and scallions. I've talked a lot about this. There are some really cool compounds in garlic and scallions called allicin, which really helps repair the lining of your blood vessels and your blood brain barrier, which is called the glycocalyx. And so anytime you can get these compounds in you, the better. Now it's time for the question of the week.

A question from Ittle monstrito over on YouTube. On my episode about food products to never eat, they asked, when I was a little girl, my mom used to give me a bowl of plain yogurt with sprinkled wheat germ on top. Since it's a no, any idea what I can top yogurt off with other than fruits or. Well, yeah, top it off with chopped up nuts, particularly walnuts. Pistachios, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, pecans.

List goes on and on.

But please in general avoid almonds if they have the peel on them. So many of my patients react to them. But you'll get the same crunch you're looking for from kind of the granola

wheat germ that you're putting on.

But you get so many more benefits and wheat germ is one of the highest concentrations of wheat germ agglutinin which is one of the worst nasty lectins I've ever found. Thanks for writing.

Now it's time for the review of

the week a Review at Varan Ramastan4095 over on YouTube on my episode about how to take your supplements they said I am taking so many all caps supplements. Most of them are yours Gundry md but also additional ones that have been recommended from your online health service. I used to hate the idea of taking supplements because the costs add up. Now I consider it my body car payment worth every penny because I feel amazing. Just like the commercials. I am still a frugal gal but I make health my priority. Well, thanks for writing. You know I used to say supplements made expensive urine. But after 30 years of measuring the effects of supplements on my patients well being and probably more importantly on markers of health, longevity and overall fitness, supplements supplement a well chosen diet. And it's exciting to see that supplements that I designed for Gundry MD based on the results of 30 years of testing, patients with these products are working for you. And you're right, this is the only

house we're going to ever live in. Our body.

And if we spend as much time and money on taking care of our house, our body that we do for our car or our home or our apartment or even the clothes we wear,

it's amazing what happens.

So thanks for writing. You're right, this stuff unfortunately is expensive and I always try to get you a good deal whenever I can because

I want everyone to have great health.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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[Dr. Steven Gundry]

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[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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[Podcast Outro Host]

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone's life when you take the time to share it with them. There's also the Dr. Gundry Podcast YouTube channel where we have tens of thousands of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long, vital life. Let's do this together.

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