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witzvo comments on Are the bacteria/parasites in your gut affecting your thinking? - Less Wrong
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Is eating an effective way to do that? In the world's cultures there's a wide variety of pro-biotic fermented foods. Do these exist merely because people like the taste? Surely they partly exist as a coping strategy for rotten food, but is that all? I doubt it. In some cultures they're eaten regularly. Let's list some:
Diet generally can dramatically affect which bacteria thrive in the gut (e.g. I recall evidence about sugar consumption, but can't find it). [I don't list bread or wine because as far as I know the agents are mostly dead before we eat them. For that matter, I'm not sure how much is alive in commercially available cheese.][Hygiene practices vary substantially too which probably has an important effect.]
One day we will raise the sanity waterline by selling Rationality Yogurt.
This is already sold. It's called humility, but you'll have to import it if you live in the US.
I know humble people outside of US, who humbly visit their church, humbly read their horoscope, or humbly participate in their favorite political movement.
One of Seth Robert's obsessions is with fermented food; his links and posts might be interesting: http://blog.sethroberts.net/category/fermented-food/
Cheese is one of the very few commercial foods you'll be able to find live (fermentation) bacteria living in, but even then many cheeses won't because the producers save expense by pasteurizing instead of more closely monitoring cheeses to make sure they don't develop molds.
But, there are a few companies who do sell high-quality raw fermented foods, like Real Pickles up here in New England. You'll be able to find healthy bacteria on organic farm-bought produce as well; sauerkraut can be made easily by putting some sliced cabbage in a jar with salt, pounding it down, topping off the jar with water, and capping it for a week.
It's not quite probiotic, but the bacteria in sourdough seriously reduce the negative effects of wheat gluten; apparently, bread fermentation was widespread across wheat-eating cultures.
You're right, but note that most store-bought sourdough breads are barely sourdough at all; they're mostly just flavored but don't undergo the traditional fermentation process which takes too long for bread corporations more interested in moving stock. Roman legions actually survived largely off of long-fermented sourdough bread.
What can we do to get some more Cultural diversity into this list of cultured food?
Some people can't digest fructose or lactose, but their gut flora can. The gut flora create gas as a byproduct and certain strains grow because of the extra food for them. This is why lactose intolerant people get bloated and gassy when they eat dairy.