Look... It needed to be said. Miso is a fermented soybean paste made from molded rice, and it is friggin’ awesome. Check this out: On August 9, 1945, the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Just 1.4km (less than a mile) from the bomb’s hypocenter, Dr. Tatuichiro Akizuki and staff were attending to patients at the Uragami Daiichi Hospital. Remarkably, none of these individuals, including Dr. Akizuki, developed acute radiation sickness. They attributed this to their daily consumption of miso soup with wakame seaweed garnish. After the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown on April 26, 1986, in Ukraine, many Europeans turned to miso soup as a precautionary measure against radiation-related illnesses based upon Dr. Akizuki’s history from Nagasaki. Now, so far this is just a good story. But in 2013, a biology professor at Hiroshima University, Dr. Hiromitsu Watanabe, decided to put this theory to the test in mice and found that mice fed miso prior to radiation exposure did in fact suffer less radiation damage. Further, the longer the miso was fermented, the more protective it was. PRO TIP: White miso is fermented for short periods of time while red miso is fermented for six months to a year. Given what we now know, I’d recommend we roll with the unpasteurized red miso. PMID: 23914051 #miso #fermentation #guthealth #fiberfueled