Fermented Foods
The root of most chronic diseases starts in your gut.
Fermenting creates healthy probiotics.
Probiotic - means promoting health.
Eating fermenting foods on a regular basis will give you many health benefits.They restore healthy bacteria in the gut where food is digested and absorbed into the body.
When our gut becomes out of balance, problems start to occur. This can happen from poor food choices, emotional stress and poor sleep habits. Fermented foods will bring your gut back into balance.
The gut is the largest organ in the immune system and responsible for nearly half of the body’s immune response.
Nutrition - Fermented food will produce vitamin B12, vitamin C, nutrients and enzymes. It is more nutrient dense that raw or cooked vegetables. Start your kids at a young age to love fermented food. As they get older, let them make their own sauerkraut with different vegetables and herbs added to the cabbage.
Important - Do not let air contact your food that you are fermenting.
Container - I use preserving jars so I can drill a hole in the top and attach a plastic air lock bought from a brewing shop. You can use a cabbage leave, and press down on the fermenting vegetables so the air does not come in contact or use a fermenting crock.
Salt - Do not use iodized salt. I use Himalayan or sea salt. Salt gives your vegetables flavour, keeps them crunchy and keeps the bad bacteria out.
Whey or a culture starter powder can also be used with salt to make sure it ferments. I have used salt and sometimes some whey. (taken from unsweetened yogurt, using a muslin cloth)
Weight loss - When fermented foods are included in a diet, they tend to lose weight more easily.
Arthritis and cardiac disease - inflammation is associated with a wide range of diseases. Probiotics in fermented foods can reduce this inflammation by communicating directly with the cells that cause the inflammation in the first place.
Probiotics and antibiotics perform opposite tasks. Antibiotics kill good and bad bacteria. Probiotic only promotes good bacteria.
Stress, illness, sugar and processed foods in your diet also lowers your good bacteria.
Chlorinated water is used to kill bacteria, only use filtered water when fermenting.
What happens during fermenting - Bacteria in the jar and on the vegetables will eat the sugar and starch and produce lactic acid which will preserve it.
When your vegetables are ready and fermented - bubbles will appear, there will be a thick white cloud at the bottom of the jar, the liquid will be cloudy, the taste will not be sweet but a funky sour taste.
How much do you eat - To start with try small amounts and then build up to about 1/4 cup each day. This will give you about 10 trillion good bacteria and gives you a very good PH level that will help good bacteria flourish and grow in your gut.
How to use your fermented vegetables - add fermented vegetables as a condiment or into salads. The liquid can be drunk or used in dressings.
Feeding your bacteria (probiotics) in your gut - eat plenty of root vegetables, raw garlic and onion, asparagus and artichokes.
Interesting piece of information - Having a cesarean and feeding a new born baby milk formula interferes with the babies gut bacteria. Natural birth and feeding your baby with breast milk gives your baby good bacteria and a great start to life.
The attachment on my jars is a plastic air lock. Allowing carbon dioxide to escape and not allow oxygen to contact the food.