Fermented vs fiber: comparison study
 

Can you guess the clear winner? I think the answer shows just how up to date your nutrition information might be :lol:



Great news for fermented food fans. Like me :cool:



Alas, high fiber:



All that resistant potato starch and embarrassing gas for naught...

Just a reminder: the gut biome is now considered the "second immune" system and so I encourage everyone to explore the universe of fermented foods: there are more than you might think.

Good summary of important information that not only highlights how important gut bacteria is but how to enhance the effect by consuming fermented foods. For thousands of years humans have been consuming fermented foods for a reason.

Been reviewing all the YouTube offering on food ferments this last week. I'm all in on all levels

Getting started on fermenting the veggies from my garden is daunting. Afraid of creating a poison bomb. Until I found a source I could trust. All about the right salt content, keeping material submerged and put jar in a quiet place to check frequently.

Sauerkraut at Whole Foods is $7. Tastes great. Tough on my wallet.

Time to dive in.

I'm in.

Sauerkraut is very easy to make and takes about 3-4 weeks in the right temperature. Nothing more than cabbage and salt is required, and it helps to have ball jars. Also, I found special tops having a one-way valve for sauerkraut fermentation. Makes it even easier.

The store-bought sauerkraut does not provide the amount and variety of beneficial bacteria that results from making it at home. And, yes, it's far more expensive without the nutritional benefits. Once you get the basic equipment, you can make a new batch every one or two weeks to have some ready to be eat as you finish the earlier batches.

After this study came out, checked my cottage cheese from Costco, and of course for that price, it used regular pasteurized milk. To steer anyone in the right direction, the Trader Joe's Organic cottage cheese has two live cultures. Also found in a regular grocer, a brand called Good Culture, inc. small individual cups with fruits. Yogurt like Fage has even more live cultures, but fermented cottage cheese, not so easy to find. Nancy's has been recommended but not found here. TJ also has plain kefir.

I use Fido jars for fermenting. You can find them at Amazon and lots of other places. Nothing has ever gone bad. Sauerkraut, as Rob said, can be as simple as cabbage and salt. I like to add caraway seeds.

Nice thing about fermented food is that it “tells” you if it isn’t good. As long as it doesn’t smell disgusting it most likely isn’t. All these good bacteria keep the bad ones at bay.

I love Nancy’s yogurt. I live about an hour away from their home base in Springfield OR, so feel that it is “local”. But I can’t say that I like their cottage cheese. I want to; it ticks all the boxes - local, organic, live cultures - except for one: I don’t like the taste, or maybe it’s the texture, or maybe both. It has been quite awhile since last I tried. I can’t recommend it, but as we all experience such things differently it might be worth your while to check it out if you can find it. The yogurt however is great. I get the whole milk, organic version. The Greek version is pricier than I wish, so I just drain the regular through cheesecloth if I feel I need it thicker.

For anyone interested who tolerates dairy, homemade kefir is pretty easy to make. Just requires daily straining out the grains (kefir grains are the lumps of growing stuff, not a plant seed grain) and feeding them fresh milk. Cheap pasteurized milk works fine with mine, even powdered milk works. So long as it's something that contains lactose (milk sugar) which is what the little buggers eat. I drain the whey liquid from the finished product to produce something thicker like yogurt in consistency and use it that way, although the taste is different. Easier to make than homemade yogurt because kefir likes to grow at room temperature, no heat source like for yogurt making needed. Just order live kefir grains (not a commercial single-use packet of stuff) from whomever you like the sounds of selling them on line to get started. Except not in summer if it's hot or the culture will die from heat in your mail box. :rolleyes:

I lean towards it being the products of fermentation rather than the change in microbiome that's at work here--give mice acetic, butyric, or propionic acid, all three have been shown to have an anti-inflammatory effect, beneficial effects on glucose metabolism, etc. Gut bacteria are important, partly because they produce these short chain fatty acids, but a little harder to steer, subtle changes don't impress me much. Fermented foods are fine, but a bit of vinegar on your veggies might have a similar effect.