The Probiotic Kitchen: More Than 100 Delectable, Natural, and Supplement-Free Probiotic Recipes – Also Includes Recipes for Prebiotic Foods

Amazing, tasty, practical probiotics!
I love what the book does – offers up easy to make, delicious and creative dishes using ingredients that are rich in gut-healthy probiotics. What makes this book truly remarkable is that these recipes stand on their own – probiotics or not. The sauces are creative and versatile enough to take and make your own on many different dishes and the book covers all meals and drinks.As for the dishes, my favorite is the kimchi and avocado omelet and the citrus-miso salmon, two meals to bookend the day in a healthy way!

Recipes all incorporate some pre-purchased probiotic product
I have tried to increase the probiotic foods that I eat and I like having this as a resource. There are articles out there, but I have to weed through so many ads to get the info and recipes. This is a beautiful book that includes attractively designed pages with photos scattered throughout.I like that the recipes are simple. I don’t have time to ferment the foods or make the cultures. So this works for me. But if you’re looking for a cookbook that teaches you how to make foods that have probiotics, this isn’t the one for you. Instead, consider it a resource book for how to incorporate probiotics in my diet.It also includes recipes for prebiotic foods. I wish it had spent more than a paragraph explaining how prebiotics are beneficial. It simply defines them as food for the microorganisms that enhance probiotics.My biggest challenge is that many of the recipes are more gourmet than I would make. Some of them are fairly simple. For example, the Mediterranian Stuffed Sweet Potatoes is doable. But most are not something I would just whip up on a weeknight. They have ingredients I don’t have in the refrigerator already. And they use kimchi a lot! I would love to see some variety there. There is quite a bit of kimchi, kefir, and kombucha.I think it would be nice to have recipes for the basic probiotic ingredients that are used throughout the book: kombucha, kimchi, kefir, yogurt…I make my own kombucha and I’d love recipes for how to flavor it, get it fizzy, etc.Overall, this is a good starter book if you want to try to incorporate more of these purchased foods into your diet in additional ways. For me, I think I’d like more of the info about health benefits and tutorials. But for the person who knows what the book is about before purchasing, it could be an excellent resource.

Needs more culture
First, the good: the recipes are great; the photos are colorful and inspiring. There is a good diversity of probiotic and prebiotic foods used in these recipes. They are definitely beneficial to adding more culture to your diet.The criticism: I thoroughly read the chapters preceding the recipes, then scoured the rest of book and there is not one mention of a single strain of gut-friendly bacteria. If I missed it, then it’s too obscure. I consider myself an informed consumer and the only tip that Foster offers for buying true probiotic food is, “look for the mention of live active cultures on the label.” For a book written about the probiotic diet there should be mention of common strains like Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. This is probably more nerdy than what most people care to read, but people buy books like this for exactly that information, and so they can make better decisions when buying food or making their own. I really wanted a chart of what strains can be typically found in which foods, or a list at the end of each recipe. I know that this varies depending on the process of manufactured food item, but there are some strains that grow naturally and are common to the process.Why is it important that people interested in increasing their probiotic intake know these names? Because each strain has a different benefit to the body. I buy one specific yogurt brand because it has eight different strains, and I use this as a starter to make my own (I also make kimchi and sauerkraut). It’s not enough to know that it just has ‘live active cultures.’ The body needs diversity and more information would facilitate better balance. Some are better at balancing gut health; others are beneficial for oral health; others help to combat inflammation; inhibit the growth of pathogens, and so on.Granted that not all bacteria is beneficial to different bodies in the same way, but there is a science to it, much like vitamins and minerals and what they potentially offer the human body. Would you buy a supplement that just claims it has non-specific vitamins if your intention was to increase your vitamin intake? I am pretty sure most people want to know what vitamins they’re buying and for what benefit. Knowing your vitamins is also the reason why people choose almonds over tomatoes, or bananas over spinach. I consider it the same for probiotics strains. Kraut or kimchi today?Additionally, as far as I could see, there is no important tip to advise that cooks should not heat their probiotic food and in turn kill the probiotic value. Most of the recipes are careful to top the food with yogurt, fold in cottage cheese after cooking, or garnish with kraut. There are a couple that involve cooking miso or searing tempeh. People need to be taught how to be mindful in preserving the integrity of their food. Live food dies at 115°F.I do appreciate that there is a brief mention of lacto-fermentation in Foster’s 5-recipe chapter on how to make your own probiotics, but there is no further explanation that this process encourages the colonization of Lactobacillus strains of probiotic bacteria. To me this seems incomplete when she introduces the terminology without definition.This is not marketed as an educational book, and indeed it is a recipe book. However I do feel that those who choose to write a book geared toward a specific audience who is in search for specific solutions, like adding more probiotics to one’s diet, have a certain responsibility to inform more fully and empower those with knowledge, not just give recipes and hope that people will trust the magic.I find that this is a good supplemental book as a probiotic recipe book, but for more information about probiotics and what the different strains are, and to be more proactive in what probiotics you choose to ingest, do check out The Living Food Diet by Case Adams, and go to the end of the Cultured Foods chapter subtitled “Cultural Supplementation.” It’s rather dry, but it’s definitely a good foundation for the pro/prebiotic lifestyle, and you’ll be able to better understand the empirical value of books like this.

Very clear instructions on how to make recipes etc. Illustrated well. As a senior novice I have found it has added to my knowledge base.