All fruits and vegetables contain enzymes which help plants grow and self-repair while they are alive. Enzymes work as catalysts to begin or speed up biological processes in plants, so when we eat them they facilitate normal digestion and other functions in our bodies too.

Centuries ago, long before science proved that cooking or processing food kills good enzymes and destroys nutrients such as vitamins, pickling was the traditional way to preserve fresh raw vegetables, fruits and herbs. North Europeans traditionally consumed large amounts of probiotics in fermented foods, while probiotic beverages are still popular in Japan.  

Today, Western people don’t eat nearly enough food with live enzymes, and not everyone fancies fermented foods such as kefir, natto, kimchee, kombucha tea, miso, tempeh, sauerkraut, pickled vegetables, and yoghurt. Only yoghurts with live cultures are probiotic, as the processes of pasteurisation and homogenising destroy most useful micro-organisms that lend probiotic foods their health-promoting powers. Dark chocolate and micro algae are also high in probiotics, but we need millions of probiotics, and 100s of different types, so chocolate alone is not the answer!

Interest in probiotic supplements is rising, along with scientific evidence behind the treatment and prevention of some illnesses with foods and supplements containing good bacteria.

According to Harvard University Medical School, digestive disease specialists are recommending probiotics for disorders that frustrate conventional medicine, such as diarrhoea, irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease. Since the mid-1990s, clinical studies have established that probiotic therapy can help treat several gastrointestinal ills, delay the development of allergies in children, and treat and prevent vaginal and urinary infections. Probiotic treatment works to restore the delicate balance of micro flora in these internal environments.