Kimchi

Kimchi is a traditional Korean food consisting of fermented vegetables, most commonly using napa cabbage or Korean radish. Eaten as a side dish it goes well with most foods. Fermented and full of probiotic bacteria it is great for gut health. Previous studies have found that Lactobacillus brevis and L. plantarum isolated from kimchi had an anti-obesity effect.

A recent study using data from 115,726 individuals with an average age of 51 from Health Examinees (HEXA) study (the HEXA study is a large scale genomic cohort study conducted in South Korea), found that eating kimchi was linked to a lower risk of obesity for men. The research also found that eating kimchi was also linked to a lower prevalence of midriff bulge in both men and women.

NOTE: Kimchi is beneficial to health but be careful to choose varieties that are not high in salt.