The Power of Kimchi

Each morning, as I stumble into work, squinty eyed and weary, I pull up yahoo and facebook to get a jump start on my day. I tend to skip over the news section and see whose been missing me on the other side of the world, flipping through emails and messages from those back home.

However, today something caught my eye. An article on the yahoo.com homepage- "How to fight colds and flu: What works and what doesn't". Well, I tend to get sick come flu season, so I better check this out. While some of these ideas were quite practical (Do: Probiotics; Don’t do: Vitamin Water “Defense”), other ideas were quite interesting (Do: Vitamin D). As a biology major, this obviously caught my attention, so I plummeted full force into the article. Half way through probiotics, you’ll notice the staple food of Korea: Kimchi.

Your standard side dish of kimchi.

Although rumored to be quite distasteful, most foreigners adapt to the initially stringent taste of the spicy, pickled cabbage, and eventually find themselves enjoying the side dish at every meal (myself included). On the contrary, some never really develop a liking and tend to steer clear. However, as a rule (within my circle of friends), before departing the 대한민국 (tae han min guk, Republic of Korea) peninsula, you must devour a whole side dish of Kimchi in one sitting.

Perhaps, after reading this article, Kimchi might go down a little easier for those who disfavor the treat. Mentioned as a probiotic (a product that gives “good” bacteria to the body and helps fight off “bad” bacteria), Kimchi is referred to as a healthy food that can help ward off unwanted diseases and flu.

Upon mentioning this astonishing (as in, an American wrote this article but knows about the power of kimchi) news to my Korean co-teacher, she mentioned that Koreans, as well as some (Korean) scientists actually believe that Kimchi helped prevent that deadly SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) disease from catching like rapid fire on the Korean peninsula, quite unlike their westward neighbors, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

YES, the made a cartoon out of the power of kimchi.  Meet Kimchi Warrior

And here's Kimchi Warrior taking on the the Bird Flu, obviously kicking butt (if you're Korean, that is).

In more recent years, Kimchi was thought to have helped avert H1N1 from hastily stretching throughout the country.

But, where’s the evidence?  Currently, there’s none.  However, with the hype of the value and capability of their precious food, I’m willing to bet there’s some in the making.  Nonetheless, there’s no doubt that kimchi isn’t a powerful health food, but whether it’s strong enough to ward off pungent ailments, such as SARS and Swine flu… who knows?  

So maybe that Kimchi doesn’t taste so bad after all, eh?

For more information on this, just google “Kimchi and SARS” and you’ll get a vast amount of articles, all of which point to the fact that no, there is no scientific evidence that kimchi prevents SARS, but yes, every Korean will tell you that it does!