← Clean Food Score

What Is Sauerkraut? Raw vs Pasteurized, Live Cultures and How to Read the Label

Audio from the Clean Food Score video of the same name; the video shows the labels and scores on screen.

What is sauerkraut? Shredded cabbage and salt, fermented by lactic acid bacteria. We explain how it is made, raw versus pasteurized (and what live cultures can and cannot promise), sodium, kraut versus kimchi, and a five point label check, with the sauerkraut we have scored (as of October 2026).

Full guide and the products we checked
Check any ingredient list free

Chapters
0:00 The Short Answer
0:37 How Sauerkraut Is Made
1:14 Raw Versus Pasteurized
1:56 What Is on the Shelf
2:32 Kraut Versus Kimchi
2:59 The Sodium Question
3:24 A Ten Second Kraut Check
3:53 Your Turn

Product scores are Clean Food Score's 0–100 label scores as shown on cleanfoodscore.com on 2026-10-16. Recipes change, so read the package you buy. We read labels; this is not medical advice.

Music
"Fresh Air" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

"Carefree" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

"Friday Morning" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Sound effects: Kenney (kenney.nl), CC0.

#sauerkraut #fermentedfood #foodlabels