Do you ever notice how some low-carb proponents emphasize fermented foods? This seems strange in my book. It's two completely different topics that somehow get packaged together.
Jeff Leach writes about low-carb diets and gut flora in this post. He references a study that shows as you reduce the amount of carbs in your diet, you reduce the amount of bacteria in your colon. This is not a good thing, as it changes the pH of your colon.
I wonder if people on low-carb diets are indirectly trying to feed their gut flora through fermented foods. Doing it this way though is inefficient. If you eat plants that contain prebiotic fibers, the fibers will ferment and feed the existing gut flora. Otherwise you have to continually consume good bacteria (lactic acid bacteria) through fermented foods. I talked more about this in an earlier post.
Therefore, instead of restricting carbohydrates and then adding bacteria back in through fermented foods, you could instead ditch the carb restraints and eat lots of fruits and vegetables. This is how our ancestors did it.
