By Mary Lou Block, RD at Gothenburg Health

Find yourself with the Winter Blues? Eat some sauerkraut! Yep, you heard me right. Sauerkraut. If this doesn’t do much to tantalize your lunch pallet, yet you are one who struggles with depression, hear me out. Sauerkraut can do more for depression and general health than you think.

Recent evidence links depression with a compromised gastrointestinal track (leaky gut). Stating this another way, anything you can do to prevent or improve a leaky gut, is good for depression.

That being said, if you want to care for your gut, care for the host of microorganisms (microbes) that reside in your gastrointestinal track. They protect your gut from becoming leaky.

How should you protect those microbes? Cut back on the wrong foods and add the right ones. Here are 3 simple tips:

1. Reduce or eliminate sugar which feeds the wrong microbes.
2. Include fiber rich vegetables.
3. Eat fermented foods.

When it comes to fermented foods, sauerkraut is one example. I am not talking about the canned version of kraut we heat and eat with brats. I am talking about the fresh, unheated version available in some grocery store refrigerators. Why? Because it hopefully contains live microorganisms. 

I say hopefully because production and packaging are crucial to the number and viability of microbes delivered. Examine the label:

1.  It should say raw or fresh sauerkraut.
2.  Cabbage should be the first ingredient.
3.  Vinegar should not be present (Vinegar pickles rather than ferments the food.  You are looking for a ferment, not a pickled product.)
4. Avoid additives such as sodium metabisulfite, sodium bisulfite which are used to control the growth of or destroy the microbes in the food product. There is also a question about what these additives do to your own microbiome. 

The better solution to label reading is skip it, and make your own sauerkraut ferment! Chop up cabbage, add sea salt and give that cabbage a massage! Pack it into a jar, make sure it is submerged in its own liquid, cover the jar and wait.  Make it plain or add spices such as caraway, dill or turmeric.

I recently demonstrated making sauerkraut at the hospital Winter Blues Lunch and Learn. I utilized green cabbage with a bit of red cabbage thrown in for color. The red cabbage turned the entire ferment a pretty pink (See pictures). Take note, the color should not otherwise become pink and may indicate something has gone wrong with your ferment!

Fermenting is doable, cheap, and healthy, but involves a bit of a learning curve. If you do it, you will be rewarded with a delicious addition to your lunch menu, and you will help build your defenses against such ailments as chronic disease and depression.

The next time your friend says, “I’m depressed and want to go out for ice cream,” invite them over for coffee and hand them a bowl of your very own sauerkraut ferment! You will surprise them, but isn’t that what friends are for?

Interested in learning more or working with me on your nutrition? Contact me at Gothenburg Health.

Mary Lou Block is a Registered Dietician at Gothenburg Health. To learn more please reach out to Mary Lou: mblock@gothenburghealth.org or (308)-537-3661.

Further Reading:
Recent research detailed in the Journal of Affective Disorders draws interesting connections between depression and gut health. In this study of un-medicated adolescents, depression severity was associated with gut permeability. Gut permeability (leaky gut) seems to affect depression, through both the nervous and immune systems. 

Your gastrointestinal track is 18-22 feet long and a single cell thick. The junctions that connect this single layer of cells, by design, tighten and loosen to serve particular body functions. Many things affect the integrity of these junctions and work to compromise this singe cell barrier between us and the outside world. A compromised barrier (leaky gut) opens the door for chemicals, toxins, undigested food, and microorganisms to enter your body. Each of these unwelcomed guests elicits inflammation.

Inflammation is the proper immune response of your body to a local invasion, such as redness and swelling surrounding a sticker buried in our finger. But as the immune system reacts to a host of invading things (e.g. from leaky gut), inflammation grows in the body. Research on modern day disease concludes that body-wide inflammation is an underlying contributor to many chronic disease conditions, including depression.

In the case of depression, the research published in The Journal of Affective Disorders reveals the double whammy of leaky gut on depression. The inflammation from leaky gut triggers and deepens depression through both the immune and nervous systems.

Increasing evidence indicates your microbiome to be a big player in maintaining the strength of your gut cell junctions. Consequently, it is believed that a strong microbiome improves leaky gut, inflammation and thereby, could help modulate depression.

Eating fermented foods strengthens your microbiome. So if you aren’t a kraut lover, consider becoming one. You will strengthen your microbiome, your health and hopefully help those Winter Blues.

Sauerkraut anyone?

References:
https://kellybroganmd.com/new-insights-on-gut-permeability-and-depression/.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032718321116?via%3Dihub
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4432792/
https://kellybroganmd.com/probiotics-brain/
https://thorax.bmj.com/content/59/7/574.short
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2010.00795.x
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S095816691630266X