4 ms·

I'm a little surprised that a paper basically concluding that there are no good papers about fermented foods is able to published and presented as research by t

I'm a little surprised that a paper basically concluding that there are no good papers about fermented foods is able to published and presented as research by these authors. Or maybe that field is just so lacking in knowledge that this passes for research. You would think that they'd take the next step and do some trials to advance the field.

bane 7y ago
My guess would be that, due to the very regional nature of many fermented foods, research into those foods is probably locked in the languages and localities of those foods. Heck, there's an entire Kimchi research institute in South Korea.
mrzimmerman 7y ago
Ha ha, I was thinking the same thing. I was interested to read what the paper said and when I got through the abstract and found it said "there's really no research on this stuff" I was both surprised and a little disappointed. I don't have any feelings on possible health benefits either way, but I like some fermented foods and was curious if there was something to learn. Oh well.
s1artibartfast 7y ago
This is a review paper. As someone who frequently conducts literature searches, I find these review papers critical to my work. If taken at face value, a it lets me know that I need not look further. If not, it is a starting point for cross-references. That said, I would have liked to see a methods section with a list of search terms.
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
I don't understand the conclusion you draw from reading the paper (the full text is accessible for free from the link to the right). that there are "no" good papers studying fermented foods. What I read is that the _majority_ of the studies are not good quality. There are very few high-quality studies e.g. double-blind randomised controlled trials and crossover studies, etc and most studies have a very small number of subjects. However, it's hard to fault a double-blind RCT for low quality because it has few subjects. Low statistical power, OK, but if the methodology is sound then the paper has merit. Given that these studies go back a number of years and there is still no conclusive evidence for any health benefits from the consumption of fermented foods it is useful to have a summary of the current state of research.

bane 7y ago

My guess would be that, due to the very regional nature of many fermented foods, research into those foods is probably locked in the languages and localities of those foods. Heck, there's an entire Kimchi research institute in South Korea.

mrzimmerman 7y ago

Ha ha, I was thinking the same thing. I was interested to read what the paper said and when I got through the abstract and found it said "there's really no research on this stuff" I was both surprised and a little disappointed. I don't have any feelings on possible health benefits either way, but I like some fermented foods and was curious if there was something to learn. Oh well.

s1artibartfast 7y ago

This is a review paper. As someone who frequently conducts literature searches, I find these review papers critical to my work. If taken at face value, a it lets me know that I need not look further. If not, it is a starting point for cross-references. That said, I would have liked to see a methods section with a list of search terms.

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago

I don't understand the conclusion you draw from reading the paper (the full text is accessible for free from the link to the right). that there are "no" good papers studying fermented foods. What I read is that the _majority_ of the studies are not good quality. There are very few high-quality studies e.g. double-blind randomised controlled trials and crossover studies, etc and most studies have a very small number of subjects. However, it's hard to fault a double-blind RCT for low quality because it has few subjects. Low statistical power, OK, but if the methodology is sound then the paper has merit. Given that these studies go back a number of years and there is still no conclusive evidence for any health benefits from the consumption of fermented foods it is useful to have a summary of the current state of research.