Fermented Food of North East India and Its Potential to Serve as Pharmaceutical Agents

North East India is incredibly diverse, with over 300 ethnic communities and dialects, as well as a strong traditional knowledge system. These ethnic communities created fermented cuisine using locally accessible raw resources that includes green vegetables, different types of bamboo, milk, soybeans, pork, fish, cereal, and consumed it as part of their regular diet. According to study, these foods have a positive effect on health since they contain a high concentration of probiotics. These probiotics aid in digestion and nutrition absorption as well as also beneficial for immune system. Furthermore, fermented food has been claimed to heal and prevent a variety of ailments. They are reported to have the ability to induces physiological benefits by reducing the level of cholesterol, neutralising free radicals, acting as anticarcinogens, inducing a low-glycemic response, and lowering the risk of life-threatening diseases like cancer, cardiovascular diseases, etc. Intense metabolic processes carried out by a diverse range of microorganisms result in the formation of fermented meals by converting macromolecules in the food matrix into bioactive components such as bioactive peptides (BAPs). Therefore, in this chapter, we addressed different fermented food products created from various resources (vegetables, milk, meat, bamboo, and soybeans) by various ethnic communities of North East India, as well as their potential to function as pharmaceutical agents for health advantages.