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Kimchi · Brassica rapa
Fruits & Vegetables
Kimchi
Brassica rapa
Kimchi is not one recipe. Korea recognises well over a hundred kinds, and the one most people abroad have eaten took its modern form only after chilli reached Korea in the seventeenth century.
Benefits
Eating kimchi every day brought fasting blood sugar and cholesterol down in the people who ate the most of it.
What It Is Known For
The largest look at this, covering nearly nineteen thousand Koreans, found no link between kimchi and stomach cancer, and none for salt either — though kimchi stew was a different story, which points at the cooking rather than the jar.
The body fat results came from capsules of bacteria grown from kimchi, which is a different product from a jar of it.
One trial looked and found nothing.
Eleven trials and six hundred people is the whole of it, nearly all in one country.
Key Active Compounds
What grows during the fermentation.
The vegetables underneath it all.
How to Take It / Use It
Eat it as a side dish with a meal, most days. The amounts studied ran from 15 to 150 g a day and no amount was ever settled on, so a normal serving is as good a guide as any.
Cautions
Kimchi is salted to preserve it, so it counts against a day's salt like any other preserved food.
Most kinds are hot enough to trouble a sensitive stomach.
It is a live ferment, so anyone whose immunity is suppressed should ask before eating it.
Where It Comes From
Kimchi came out of the Korean winter, when vegetables had to be salted and buried to last until spring. The making is still seasonal, and still done in company.
How We Choose It
We check every product so you don't have to. A kimchi only makes our list if:
- Refrigerated, not shelf-stable. A jar that sat on a warm shelf was pasteurised, and pasteurising kills the ferment.
- Cabbage or radish first on the list. Not sugar, not vinegar.
- No vinegar at all. Vinegar means it was soured quickly rather than fermented.
- Bubbles and a sour smell when it opens. That is the ferment still going.
If no product meets these standards, we don't list one. No exceptions for affiliates.
See our picks
Sources2
- Effects of kimchi on human health: a scoping review of randomized controlled trials. Journal of Ethnic Foods, 2023. Scoping review
- Exploration of the relationship between gastric cancer and nutritional risk factors: insights from the Korea National Health Insurance Database. Frontiers in Nutrition, 2025. Cohort analysis