fermented foods?

[Sula]

Hi everybody.
I have been reading about how great fermented foods are. Am wondering if anyone is eating these, making these, buying these. Also I have never been a " pickle or sourkraut eater ". Wondering what anyone has to say on the subject???

[Suzhookem]

Am making and eating sauerkraut. Store bought must be pasteurized according to FDA rendering it typical labeled food.

[Rita]

I've been buying raw fermented sauerkraut from Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage.   Haven't tried to make it yet.

[Sula]

Hmmmm, I have never really like pickles, and a pickled cabbage just does not sound good to me. BUT I keep reading how fermented vegies are supposed to be sooooo good for you. I did buy some apple cider vinegar tho. Just tryin to ease myself into it. LOL.
I will work on changing my mind about ( rotten) fermented food.
Hmmmmm seems like somewhere in my quest for info. I read that a zillion years ago we were able to eat rotten meat without getting sick. Must have lost that gene.

[Bing]

I'm fermenting veggies and fruit, I also read normal store bought sauerkraut isn't cultured but pasteurized, so no good bacteria there.
Rita's sounds like real fermented though.

[Sula]

Am making my own Kefir now .... LOVE it! I did a bunch of reading. I like yogurt, but Kefir is even easier to make, so that was the "ticket" for me. So now I am rounding out my diet with a fermented food. I also like that I can add my other new found food GELATIN! It makes a great breakfast or snack. Yipee, I love quick and simple.

[Bing]

Am making my own Kefir now .... LOVE it! I did a bunch of reading. I like yogurt, but Kefir is even easier to make, so that was the "ticket" for me. So now I am rounding out my diet with a fermented food. I also like that I can add my other new found food GELATIN! It makes a great breakfast or snack. Yipee, I love quick and simple.

Cool, I'd like to know more, I'm store bought kefir ATM, real fermented one but still I'd like to make my own.
Any links? The stuff I read on it so far was a bit meh.

[lyra]

Hey, I am making my own yogurt now too. Got a Salton one quart yogurt maker and am going wild. Don't pay full retail price on that! Go to Ebay or check out Amazon. I ordered a case of Native Forest Coconut milk and have been using two 13.5 ounce cans per batch and using plain full fat regular organic cow milk yogurt for a starter, which is not ideal, but it's what I have for now. I hope to switch to a probiotic non-dairy starter. The coconut milk yogurt comes out thin, and is about the consistency of kefir, even after fermenting for 14 hours or more. I just mix it and leave it in the machine overnight and longer. Very sweet and tasty, even unsweetened. Of course, the dairy yogurt comes out perfect after ten hours or so.

[Sula]

Way to go Lyra!
Lol Bing ( meh ).
I actually like the taste of Kefir over yogurt, And you don't have to warm it, just set it out on the counter at room temp. Also it has more and varied probiots growing in it, so great for the guts. I 'm useing coconut milk at present and LOVE the taste. Am using it for smoothies. I don't think I would just drink it plain. But, if putting fermented food into ourselves is important, this is a cheap, easy, tasty way of doin it. I still have issues with the whole fermented cabbage thing.

[Bing]

...great for the guts...

Are you suffering from IBS or related?
If so, what has worked for you so far?

[Jan in Key West]

After reading the link that Bing posted to Dr. Ayre's site (which was fabulous BTW)......which then led me to his archives, then on to other sites (you know the drill), I'm wondering how long it takes our bowel flora to adapt to our new eating lifestyle.....some say it could be up to 2 years, depending on levels of inflammation and what kinds of critters we have left! Supposedly, after eating the SAD for years, our flora is mostly made up of 'generalists' which do not offer optimum coverage in the bowel arena. Up until this point, (and after three months on probiotics, I thought my flora and fauna would automatically do what they are supposed to do and adapt but apparently that isn't the case. We need to introduce lots of new strains of bacteria into our diets......and rather than eating dirt from my garden, I'm thinking that adding lots of fermented foods is a vastly more attractive approach.


I found the link below to be long.......but well worth the read if one wants to start fermenting at home. and she also discusses the necessity of the addition of diverse bacterias as well as other good stuff. My husband, who is usually a good sport about all the strange things I do, did roll his eyes at me today when I said I had to go get canning jars! 


http://mercola.fileburst.com/PDF/ExpertInterviewTranscripts/InterviewCarolineBarringer.pdf

[Jan in Key West]

In case anyone is interested in sampling a variety of fermented veggies, the site below looks like quality stuff......


http://www.culturedvegetables.net/Cultured-Vegetables_c3.htm

[Jan in Key West]

Bing.....could you give  me some tips on making fermented veggies?  For whatever reason, it's an intimidating process for me....do you use your own culture or do you buy a ready made one? Have you ever made any that did, unfortunately, grow mold? While I think this is an important 'missing link' in our diets today, it's almost impossible to buy ready made fermented foods......you can order online, but very expensive. Any good recipes you recommend?   

[Barbara from New Jersey]

Jan,


Google: Body Ecology.  This is a site by Donna Gates.  Go to Fermented foods and you will find a 3 part film on "how to".
She sells starter bacteria too.  Even better is a book by Sandor Katz and Sally Fallon: Wild Fermentation, The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live Cultures.  This classic is a must read in my opinion.

You are not alone in feeling a bit intimidated about making these kinds of foods.  Start slow!  I just stopped making pickles, sauerkraut and veggies because I ran out of refrigerator and shelf space to store all this.  Now that I have all my flours and nuts, seeds etc. in my fridge, there is hardly any room left for the fresh stuff. 

[Jan in Key West]

Thanks Barbara.....I'll check that out.  I've been reading Campbell-McBride (of GAPS), and while I like her  'laid back' approach to fermenting foods, I'm still feeling squeamish/afraid I'll make a mistake and end up in the hospital! She uses celery juice for the liquid and wouldn't you know.....I gave my juicer to my DIL! Now I seem to be buying all those appliances I'd given away and never thought I would use again. We're going to be traveling for a few weeks, so will attempt this on our return.

[Jan in Key West]

Yesterday we ventured in to the 'city' and at a health food store, I was able to find "Farmhouse Culture" raw organic classic caraway seed sauerkraut....as well as "Bubbies" classic fermented pickles (bread and butter, not the dill variety I prefer). On our return, I opened the pickles and they were firm, crisp and tasted great....will try the sauerkraut this week end. I tried to find the culture to begin making my own fermented veggies, but no luck. BTW, we also stopped at Fresh Market and each time I go, I'm continually disappointed in their offerings....plus they can't answer any of my questions!

[Barbara from New Jersey]

Jan,


The Fresh Market is about being UPSCALE and having "the best".  It is definitely not about having healthy foods.  Our local store carries perfect looking produce but the exorbitant prices makes Whole Foods look cheap.  Their meat and fish are excellent quality, but no one knows if it comes from pastured grassfed cows.  Fresh ground pork doesn't have any fillers and neither does their ground beef.  Bacon is delicious, but just too expensive ($9 lb).  Fish is good and pretty fresh which it should be since they charge premium prices.  Some unusual canned or bottled sauces, but few are WB acceptable.  Their dried fruits and nuts are OK, but most have been processed in an unapproved oil.  I too am very disappointed in them and hardly shop there anymore. 


You have whetted my appetite for the sauerkraut and pickles!

[Suzhookem]

My doc told me the grass fed beef is not always grass finished. He says that it's  important to insure they are not grass fed and then shipped off and fed grains before slaughter.

[Jan in Key West]

Your doc is right......there are a few places around here that pasture raise their beef but 'finish' them with grain and corn to fatten. Our local grocery carries a 'grass fed' beef.....which could mean that it was raised in a confined-animal-feeding-operation but fed grass....until labels are more definitive it's guesswork, at best!


Fresh Market's meat, at least at the one I frequent (or USED to) does not carry any pastured raised meat at all....only corn/grain fed....the meat manager and I have an ongoing friendly feud about that.....whenever we stop in, I always stop by the meat counter and ask if they've changed their tune and started carrying healthy meat yet.....he insists that corn fed is a higher quality beef and that people won't pay the price for pastured meat.....I tell him that cows aren't built to eat corn/grains etc. etc....and as a meat man, he should know that already!

[Bing]

Bing.....could you give  me some tips on making fermented veggies?  For whatever reason, it's an intimidating process for me....do you use your own culture or do you buy a ready made one? Have you ever made any that did, unfortunately, grow mold? While I think this is an important 'missing link' in our diets today, it's almost impossible to buy ready made fermented foods......you can order online, but very expensive. Any good recipes you recommend?   

Hi Jan,
I never used any starter cultures and never grew mold.


What I do is real simple, not really a recipe but you can add spices or other veggies to taste:


Shred a white cabbage, keep some leaves intact to use as a 'top'.
Bruise it further, so it becomes a bit more 'juicy'.
Put it all in a mason jar.
Add some water and salt.
Make sure everything is below the liquid surface.
Put the leaves on top and use a stone or something to keep it all below the liquid.
Close jar.
Open it up daily to let the gas out.
After like 4 days it should be fermented enough, after that keep it in the fridge.


You will/might grow mold if you don't keep it below liquid surface I read, I'm sure you got that already lol.


Hope this helps, just give it a go it's fun!

[Jan in Key West]

Thanks Bing,
The original Dr. Ayres link you posted sent me on long, yet stimulating journey of the elements of 'gut ecology'.....and while eating some yogurt and popping some probiotics can help change the ecology of the gut, it may only be a small piece of the puzzle. Caroline Barringer, who works closely with Campbell-McBride, says that when you are in the process of healing, you need a massive profile of microbes because there is a profound mass of synergy between cultures.....not only that, but you must vary the strains and keep your gut guessing so it doesn't become complacent.


Her take on vegetables is that while "vegetables are healthy for you and we need them, they don't nourish us in the deepest sense....their primary purpose is for metabolic detoxification.....we can't purely utilize calories efficiently, unless they are sort-of pre-digested with either cooking or fermented. When it comes to raw foods (vegetables) we don't have the metabolic machinery to digest them....they are the 'cleaners', they go into the body and help us detoxify and like probiotics, they provide an enzymatic quality as well.....we need them. If we live on a completely raw diet, we are in a constant state of cleansing and detoxifying."


Bottom line is that we need some raw foods and we need the nutrients that slowly cook out of cooked foods but we also need the probiotic qualities of fermented raw foods.....together they can be a "powerhouse" when changing your gut ecology.

[deanna in AR]

Thanks Bing...I'm gonna try this. Do you do other veggies too? If so, which ones?

[Bing]

Bottom line is that we need some raw foods and we need the nutrients that slowly cook out of cooked foods but we also need the probiotic qualities of fermented raw foods.....together they can be a "powerhouse" when changing your gut ecology.

That is how I look at it as well ATM.
Funny, old vedic knowledge says something like: veggies will turn from cleansing to nourishing during / after cooking.


When I first dropped wheat I constantly felt like eating a lot of raw veggies, now I mostly feel like eating them cooked really well.
I guess my body needed the cleaning first.

[Bing]

Thanks Bing...I'm gonna try this. Do you do other veggies too? If so, which ones?

I've tried adding bell peppers, cucumber seems good to get the process going, garlic, carrots, mango, oranges.
All worked so far!

[deanna in AR]

Bing, do you mean you mixed those all together? Or did you do the cabbage separately?

[Jan in Key West]

I tried the sauerkraut last night and unfortunately, I still don't like it.....so now on to plan B, whatever that is....

[Barbara from New Jersey]

Jan,


It helps to add  a small amount of bacon fat or little pieces of bacon and some caraway seeds to the sauerkraut.  This was usually eaten with spicy sausages or slow cooked meats in the cold of winter.  Heat it up a bit too.  The heated bacon flavor will make the kraut much more flavorful.  The heat should only be enough to warm it enough to spread the bacon fat or bits and incorporate the flavor into the kraut. 

Pickled veggies are an acquired taste!  Before refrigeration, nearly everyone except city people had a root or cold cellar to store the
pickled stuff which was their vegetable for most of the winter.  City people would usually be able to purchase ready made from their local grocer who had large barrels of assorted things. By the spring, before any fresh veggies were available, lots of the pickled ones were just too pickled to eat by themselves so they were served in a bone broth soup.  I guess it tasted good if you were hungry enough!

We are really spoiled! 

[Rita]

It helps to add  a small amount of bacon fat

That pretty much helps everything doesn't it?  lol


I was at Whole Foods the other day, and the checker said "well... you've certainly got a lot of bacon!"


A year ago I never ate bacon.

[Jan in Key West]

Barbara, I'll try adding some bacon for flavor.....it's unfortunate that sauerkraut doesn't come in gel caps! We're traveling for the next few weeks, but on our return, I'm going to attempt Campbell-McBride's recipe fermenting cabbage, carrots, peppers, onions, spices and using celery water as the liquid medium.....Mercola insists that her fermented veggies taste better than most he's tried due to the celery water. You can buy three different varieties of veggies on their "Immunitrition' site but they're pricey. I also found a recipe for fermented ketchup but we use it so rarely that I can't justify the time and energy invested to make it.

[Bing]

Bing, do you mean you mixed those all together? Or did you do the cabbage separately?

I try different combinations so yes mixed.

[Bing]

I tried the sauerkraut last night and unfortunately, I still don't like it.....so now on to plan B, whatever that is....

Fermented fruit?

[Jan in Key West]

Bing....when we get back from our trip, I'm going to attempt to make a combination of fermented veggies, using celery water as the liquid medium....some say it has a bettor flavor. I may do some fruit too....but I eat so very little.

[Jan in Key West]

Having gone through all my fermented veggies, am back at making new batches today....I'm having trouble finding carb values for fermented foods. Anyone have any ideas?

[VibeRadiant]

I'm  really liking my fermented red cabbage sauerkraut. It has become effervecent, it tingles my tongue, like champagne.
I had to drain the juice from one jar as it was overflowing with gas. I find it tastes better as it ages.
I'd like try beets at some point,  maybe carrots.

[Jan in Key West]

Anyone else experimenting with fermented foods? I currently have three different batches 'in process'  and am going to attempt to make fermented ketchup this week if I can zero in on a good recipe and maybe horseradish too. The air-lock lids make it so easy, as well as the glass weights. I still can't find any information on carb values....I have email questions out to both Weston-Price and Dr. McBride, but haven't heard back yet.

[VibeRadiant]

Just red cabbage sauerkraut for me.

[Rita]

One of my other presentations in my class is on food preservation.  I chose this topic particularly because I'm interested in both dehydration and fermentation.   


Jan-  the ketchup sounds exciting.   Please do post back here on how that works out, as that sounds like a really neat item to ferment for my class.


On a side note, Colorado State University has a new undergraduate option, and you can get now a BS degree in Fermentation Science and Technology.  Must be a growth area.  ( Of course that covers breweries too ).

[Jan in Key West]

Ketchup would certainly be an easy demonstration.....I think I may do two different attempts.....one with no added sweetener and another with monk fruit and see which we like. Today, since I didn't have all the ingredients, I'm fermenting some lemons to see what they may be good for.....cold snap down here.

[Rita]

Oh good…  Love it if you could report back on how you liked the taste, and any tips you learned along the way.   


Speaking of lemons, I've got them dehydrating now.       Figured that would make for an easy lemon zest when I need it.

[Rita]

Well I bought a really good fermenting recipe book, and was planning on going crazy fermenting stuff this week, but I guess I don't have the right equipment yet.


What equipment do you all use?


Here's a few sites of interest:


How to turn a mason jar into a fermenting crock


Pickl-it Jars

[Jan in Key West]

Rita,
After ordering several recommended books, one of the most helpful I found was, "An Idiots Guide to Fermenting Foods" (don't particularly care for the name!) by Wardeh Harmon. I had always had a MAJOR fear that I would screw up and poison us....but her gentle and knowledgeable approach helped me over the fear factor. Her recipes are easy and she usually has alternative ingredients (brine verses whey/starters). The book includes recipes for bread, beer and wine as well, and she tends to use honey and maple syrup as sweetening agents, but I substituted monk fruit in my ketchup (which btw will be ready tonight!!!)  She's got a wonderful variety of veggie, condiment, fruit, cheese recipes too.


My only purchases so far have been:  a variety of sizes of wide-mouthed mason jars, BPA-free air-lock lids w/extra parts in case something cracks,  glass weights, a good tamping tool, BPA-free plastic lids when storing in fridge. Lots of people use crocks, but I like doing smaller batches so we get a variety of microbes in our diet. The health food store is getting me some pickling cucumbers on Monday so I'm attempting dill pickles next week.


Every new year, my goal has always been to learn something new....the year before it was paddle boarding.......last year it was Wheat Belly and making a dynamite bone broth......this year it's fermenting foods and mastering the potters wheel (the fermenting is winning so far!).

[Rita]

Can't wait to hear how your ketchup turned out!    Getting really good at fermenting, dehydrating and having my own year-round hydroponic garden is a goal of mine this year.   I too have a fear of fermenting and not doing it right.  And like you, I'd like to do small batch mason jars.   Did you use a brine for your ketchup?  Did you use fresh monk fruit?   I've never purchased monk fruit before.

[VibeRadiant]

I use a crockpot into which fits the steamer tray which weighs down the cabbage below oxygen.

[Rita]

Vibe -  tell me more about your entire process.  Do you start with a culture? 

[VibeRadiant]

No, I use salt only to ferment the cabbage.

I posted the recipe in the recipe section as red cabbage sauerkraut. It's pretty tasty.

[Jan in Key West]

Here's the ketchup recipe I used.....It yields 2 cups, but I divided it in half, adding WFF's monk fruit to one batch and no sweetener to the other. It takes 2 days to ferment.


12 oz. unsalted organic tomato paste
6 TABS. filtered water
1/4 cup basic whey
2 TB. organic apple cider vinegar
1/4 tsp. mustard powder
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1/8 tsp. allspice
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup honey or maple syrup   (I used 1 1/2 tsp. of granular monk fruit for 1/2 the recipe)


Whisk together all ingredients until smooth....transfer to a wide-mouth jar, leaving at least 1" space below the top of the jar. Cover tightly with lid or air-lock. Leave at room temperature for 2 days, then transfer to cool storage.  Keeps many weeks. (p.s. I may decrease the cayenne pepper next time.)


If you are making your own uncooked whey.....line a colander with two pieces of 90-thread cheesecloth, and put in a pot or bowl.....pour in 1 Qt plain yogurt, kefir or fermented dairy  into the cheesecloth and tie the ends (you can hang it too if you have the space).....let whey drip for about a day and you'll end up with about 2 cups of whey.....store in refridge and it will keep for several weeks.....if you notice any moldy bits floating, skim off and discard.....but if it smells spoiled, then toss it and start over.


FYI.....It is advised to use organic veggies when fermenting, as the pesticides/herbicides present in non-organic varieties may impede the process. They effect the plants systemically and cannot be washed away.

[Rita]

Thanks Jan.  And how did it taste?   Which did you like the best?

[Jan in Key West]

Rita,
Before going WB, we used to use Annies Organic Ketchup, but, once enlightened with WB, we realized it's sweetened with agave, so we stopped using it. The fermented ones I made remind me of Annies....very tangy.  Our preference is the one with the added granular monk fruit.....the other I may use as a base for BBQ sauce.  But it would make an easy demonstration with good results!

[Rita]

Good to know.  Thanks.

[Jan in Key West]

For anyone serious about fermenting foods, the following site is the best! We have a small group of local like-minded 'fermenters'......who now realize we've been doing it wrong.....not using air tight jars, not letting the foods ferment long enough etc. Kathleen, who operates the site is available for advice on the phone or on the blog.....she spent an entire hour on the phone with my friend the other night! She includes tons of science regarding nutritional facts too......


http://www.pickl-it.com/faq/148/process-microbial-lacto-fermentation/


So now, we're starting all over!