From soup to fresh salad dressing, miso is a delicious condiment to add to everyday dishes. The umami flavor with a hint of salty, sweet, richness, makes a fantastic base for a lot of cooking recipes.
Miso is healthy superfood when eaten in moderation on a daily basis. However, due to saltiness, you may wonder if consuming miso has health benefits that you need to be aware of.
What are benefits of miso? In general, miso having a high percentage of protein and micronutrients like essential vitamins and minerals makes it healthy when included in a balanced diet.
In moderate amounts, miso improves digestion, reduces the risk of cancer, and strengthens the immune system. The presence of probiotics serve as good bacteria that support gut flora and provide a number of overall benefits.
However, a small amount of miso should be consumed to enjoy health benefits. Over consuming may have harmful side effects such as heart disease due to excessive amounts of salt.
The benefits can only be achieved when excess quantities of miso are not consumed. Miso contains high salt content, and consuming excess may lead to increased salt in the body that is a danger risk negatively impacting the body.
This article answers frequently sed questions about the health benefits of miso and how to maximize wellbeing without experiencing adverse effects of eating too much.
Why is miso good for you?
Miso is a fermented food that is packed with probiotics, amino acids and essential vitamins and minerals. The condiment is rich in nutrients such as zinc, calcium, and manganese, and vitamins K, providing numerous overall health benefits for the body.
Some of these nutrients, like calcium, are used to form essential supportive structures such as bones. The presence of probiotics maintains supportive bacteria along the intestinal gut, improving digestive health.
These micronutrients also help in boosting immunity since they destroy harmful bacteria.
Miso being free from cholesterol helps eliminate bad LDL, aiding in the ability to maintain moderate blood pressure, reduce obesity, and prevent heart diseases like high blood pressure.
Miso is most often derived from soybeans, and consuming isoflavones on a daily basis may increase the level of estrogen and prevent breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men. [1, 2]
Some essential vitamins in miso promote nerve development, which is crucial in brain health. One can control symptoms like depression, memory loss, anxiety, and stress. [3, 4]
Miso has essential amino acids from protein that can assist in building strong muscles that lean belly fats, thus controlling obesity.
Is miso anti-inflammatory?
Yes, miso is anti-inflammatory. Miso is derived from fermented soybeans, consisting of anti-inflammatory compounds known as isoflavonoids and phenolic acids.
These two are powerful antioxidants that take part in the neutralization of free radicals causing inflammation and cell aging. [5, 6]
The guts breaks down these two anti-inflammatory agents that assist in the prevention of inflammation, thereby reducing chronic diseases such as heart diseases and diabetes. [7, 8]
Is it healthy to eat miso soup every day?
Yes, it is healthy to eat miso soup every day. According to research, consuming one bowl of miso soup with 1 tablespoon of miso and 1 to 1½ cups of water per day is safe.
The soup is associated with numerous nutrients and multiple health benefits for the body when consumed regularly.
Research shows that daily consumption of miso soup lower cholesterol, helps to solve heart disease and blood pressure, improves digestive health, and boosts immunity. [9, 10]
5 incredible health benefits of miso
Not only nutritious and low in calories, miso contains macro and micronutrients from amino acid protein to essential vitamins and beneficial probiotics.
The five core potential benefits of miso include:
- Improve heart health: Its low cholesterol helps to get rid of the bad LDL, which reduces risk of diseases like stroke, heart attack, and high blood pressure. [11, 12]
- Boost brain health: The presence of probiotic nutrients helps in nerve development and play a key role in reducing anxiety, depression, memory loss, autism, and stress.
- Enhance digestive health: A probiotic diet like miso provides gut flora that helps the body to fight toxic substances and harmful bacteria. The bacteria also help reduce inflammation of gastric guts and bloating. Again, due to the fermentation process, the production of anti-nutrients prevents the accumulation of nutrients along the intestinal walls.
- Boost body immunity: The gut flora bacteria helps to fight harmful bacteria so the body is able to recover from bacterial infections.
- Reduction of certain cancers: The isoflavone chemical in miso helps maintain hormone balance of estrogen, which is integral in reducing certain cancers.
Benefits of Miso: Conclusion
Miso recipes use excessive salt that impact the concentration of sodium ions and harm the body when consumed in large amounts. The ferments soybean paste can be beneficial to a balanced diet, but only when consumed daily in moderate amounts.
Miso has different varieties in the market including red, white, and yellow, and some are healthier than others. The health of a miso brand depends on its nutritional value and the amount of salt added during preparation.
Probiotics in miso soup like oryzae decrease the risk of inflammatory gut diseases, including other digestive system disorders such as constipation and diarrhea. Thus, improving the health of the digestive system.
The gut flora bacteria depend on the stomach from any form of toxic and destroyable bacteria. Since the miso paste is made from fermented legumes, the abundance of beneficial bacteria reduces anti-nutrients and help in digestion.
Miso is characterized by chemical compounds like isoflavones, which lower the risk of heart diseases when consumed in moderate amounts. Again, it aids to reduce the level of cholesterols in the body, thus improving cardiovascular health and aid to control chronic diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure.
The isoflavones are also involved in reducing specific cancers like breast and prostate since it helps balancing the estrogen hormone, which plays an integral role in preventing cancerous growth.
The compound isoflavones also assist in reducing the alleviation of menopause symptoms like hot flashes that occur in post-menstrual women experience.
The rich proteins are beneficial for producing essential amino acids to build strong muscles that provide excess fats with spaces to lean on, thus preventing weight gain and diabetes.
The probiotic helps grow nerve cells, providing a healthy brain function. Thus, brain disorders such as memory loss, anxiety, depression, obsessiveness, and autism, among others, can be prevented.
Miso may not be for everyone, but the benefits are worth looking into. Consult a medical professional to see if incorporating miso into your diet routine is worth considering.