Raising Islands--Hawai'i science and environment: The fermented antioxidant foods of the Pacific ancients: sour poi (poi 'awa'awa) and preserved breadfruit poi (mā)

Thursday, June 18, 2026

The fermented antioxidant foods of the Pacific ancients: sour poi (poi 'awa'awa) and preserved breadfruit poi (mā)

We already know fermented foods are great for blood sugar, fighting inflammation, and keeping your gut happy.

Germans have sauerkraut, Koreans have kimchi, Russians have kefir, Persians have yogurt — but what did Hawaiians have?

Sour poi, poi 'awa'awa.

Yep, that two or three-day-old poi some of us turn our noses up at? Fermented, and packed with antioxidants and lactic acid bacteria. A University of Hawaiʻi study actually found it has more of these good-for-you compounds than yogurt.

Basically, what happens to poi is the same thing that happens when you make yogurt or sauerkraut. The pH drops pretty fast — from 6.3 all the way to 4.5 in just 24 hours — and keeps falling until around day four or five, which is usually when people toss it.

UH researchers Amy Brown and Ana Valiere laid this out back in 2004, and in 2023, UH researcher Lianger Dong backed it up — finding that sour poi encourages the good gut bacteria while keeping the bad ones in check.

And poi isn't the only fermented star in Polynesian food culture. ʻUlu, aka breadfruit, goes through the same lactic acid fermentation process and is a big deal across the South and West Pacific — where it often carries even more nutritional weight than kalo. Depending on where you are, you might hear the fermented version called mā, māhi, or masi.

Hawaiian and Polynesian ancestors were on the probiotic trend early.