Long before “probiotic” was printed on any label, Nigerian kitchens were fermenting food. Maize soaks for days on its way to becoming ogi, sliced oil beans sit wrapped in leaves until they turn into ugba, and boiled locust beans ferment into iru, using methods passed down through generations.
So most of us already eat fermented food. Whether those foods are also natural probiotics, still carrying live bacteria when they reach the plate, changes from one food to the next.
What makes a food probiotic
The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) defines probiotics as living microorganisms that give a health benefit when eaten in adequate amounts, and it points out that fermented foods carry no requirement for their microbes to be alive when you eat them. Bread is fermented and then baked, so it cannot be probiotic. The same reasoning applies to any Nigerian ferment that is boiled, roasted or fried before you eat it.
Even where bacteria survive, the evidence is thin. Researchers reviewing African fermented foods use the word “potentially” with care, because many reported health benefits do not meet the criteria for the term probiotic.
For what live cultures do once they reach your gut, read the gut-health section of our guide to the health benefits of Greek yogurt. This guide sticks to which foods carry them, starting with the ones most likely to reach you alive.
Fermented Nigerian foods and their live cultures
1. Yogurt with live cultures
Yogurt is milk fermented by bacteria and kept cold, with no cooking step between the tub and your spoon. That makes it the most dependable food on this list. When you shop for probiotic yogurt in Nigeria, the ingredient list is the thing to check.
Our Low-Fat Unsweetened Greek yogurt lists “live cultures (probiotics)” among its ingredients and has zero added sugar. For how Greek yogurt compares with regular yogurt, kefir and the rest, see our guide to the types of yogurt.
2. Nono and fura
Nono is cow’s milk started with a little of the previous batch, left to ferment at room temperature for about a day, and drunk without heat treatment. Its bacteria include Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, and because nothing heats it, nono reaches you with live bacteria.
Fura is millet or sorghum flour pressed into spiced balls and briefly boiled, which is why the fura in a bowl of fura da nono carries fewer live bacteria than the nono poured over it. The safety section below covers what else raw milk can carry.
3. Kunu
Kunun-zaki starts with millet that is steeped, ground with spices such as ginger and cloves, sieved, partly cooked, sweetened and bottled, and a short fermentation happens during the steeping. By the end of production, Lactobacillus species dominate the drink.
Kunu keeps for only about a day at room temperature, so a fresh bottle from a seller you know, kept cold and finished the same day, is the version most likely to carry live bacteria.
4. Ugba (ukpaka)
Ugba is African oil bean, boiled for hours, sliced, boiled again, wrapped in leaves and left to ferment. For salad it ferments for two to five days, and a longer six to ten days gives the soft ugba used to flavour soup.
The bacteria doing the work are mostly Bacillus species, a different group from the lactic acid bacteria in yogurt. Because ugba salad is often eaten without reheating, those bacteria reach the plate alive. What they do for the people eating them has not been shown in studies, the same gap ISAPP describes for most fermented foods.
5. Ogi (akamu, pap)
Maize, sorghum or millet is soaked for one to two days, wet-milled, sieved and left to ferment and settle before it is sold as a wet cake wrapped in leaves. Lactic acid bacteria, mainly Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, sour it alongside yeasts.
Pap made by cooking that cake is the usual way ogi is eaten, and the heat leaves few live bacteria in your cup. The fermentation still changes the slurry’s amino acid and vitamin profile, and ogi remains a common weaning food.
6. Iru (dawadawa)
Locust beans are boiled for about 12 hours, dehulled, boiled again, wrapped in leaves and fermented, mostly by Bacillus species. Fermentation leaves iru with more riboflavin (vitamin B2) than the raw seeds.
Iru works as a flavour enhancer and low-cost meat substitute in soups and stews, so it cooks in the pot with everything else. Keep it for flavour and nutrition, and look elsewhere for live cultures.
7. Garri and fufu
Garri is grated cassava fermented for three to five days and then roasted. The roasting, and the hot water you add to make eba, leave little of the fermentation’s bacteria alive. Fufu goes through a similar soak and is then cooked before eating, covered in the FAQ below.
Prebiotic foods to pair with fermented foods
Prebiotics are the fibres your gut bacteria feed on, and they come from everyday food. Harvard’s Nutrition Source names beans, whole grains such as oats, onions, garlic and bananas among good sources, with raw onions, garlic and bananas among the richest.
Unripe plantain is rich in resistant starch, a carbohydrate that passes through the small intestine undigested and is fermented by bacteria in the colon. In practice, that means oats stirred into a bowl of yogurt, beans with unripe plantain, and onions in the stew.
Add prebiotic foods gradually. A sudden increase can bring gas and bloating, especially for people with irritable bowel syndrome.
Food safety with nono and home ferments
Nono is made from raw cow milk and drunk as it is, and studies of nono have found Staphylococcus aureus and Shigella alongside its lactic acid bacteria. Buy it from a seller you know, keep it cold and drink it the same day.
Home ferments such as ugba carry a similar risk. Ugba is still made mostly in households with rudimentary equipment, and its review authors note the risk is higher because it can be eaten without heating.
Fermented foods are food, and none of them cures a digestive condition. If stomach pain, bloating, diarrhoea or constipation keeps coming back, see your doctor.
Where Zayith fits
Zayith Greek yogurt tubs are made fresh in Lagos and list live cultures in their ingredients. For a lunchbox or a desk, our yogurt drinks come cold in single bottles and mixed packs.
We deliver online orders within Lagos, usually in 24 to 48 hours. You can also find Zayith in 647 outlets across 29 cities and towns.
Frequently asked questions
What is the healthiest Nigerian food?
No single food earns that title. A Nigerian plate does more for your gut when it pairs a fermented food that still has live cultures, such as yogurt, with fibre from beans, oats, vegetables or unripe plantain, and keeps foods like iru and ogi for nutrition rather than live cultures.
What food has the highest probiotics?
No one can rank fermented foods by probiotic content, because the number of live microbes in most of them is not measured. Yogurt with live cultures is the most dependable choice, since Harvard’s Nutrition Source puts the minimum for a “Live and Active Cultures” seal at 1,000,000 live bacteria per gram at the time of manufacture. That is a labelling standard, not a measured count for any one tub.
What foods are considered fermented?
Any food made by deliberate microbial growth counts as fermented, whether or not the microbes survive. Beyond the foods above, Nigeria’s list includes lafun (fermented cassava flour for amala), ogiri, masa, burukutu, pito and palm wine.
Does fufu contain probiotics?
Fufu is fermented, but it is not a reliable probiotic. The cassava is soaked in water for two to three days, where lactic acid bacteria sour it and lower its cyanide content, and the mash is then pounded and cooked. Cooking leaves few of those bacteria alive in the fufu you eat with soup.
