The unlikely new medicine… pickled cabbage: New research reveals it may help with allergies, coughs, colds and more By Chloe Lambert

Sauerkraut, blue cheese and pickles hardly sound like the route to wellbeing. But fermented foods – left to age for anything from a few days to weeks before they're eaten – are the new health craze.

It comes from the U.S. of course, where it's become fashionable to ferment vegetables and drink kombucha – a fizzy, fermented tea drunk for centuries in China.

Now the science appears to back it up. Last week Cambridge University researchers reported that regular consumption of fermented low-fat dairy foods, such as yoghurt, fromage frais and cottage cheese, could reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 25 per cent over 11 years.