ARE YOU NEW TO FERMENTATION?
It’s no secret I’m a huge advocate for people to consume more fermented (cultured) foods to begin rebuilding the beneficial bacteria in their gut to improve gut health, thus overall health. But to some people even the word ‘fermentation’ sounds scary. If this is you then you’re in the right place and I urge you to read on. Before I started eating real, whole, unprocessed organic foods things like coconut yoghurt, kefir, cultured juices and veggies where never ever on my ‘must eat’ radar. Fast forward a few years and I eat and drink them daily and enjoy and often crave these effervescent flavour bombs of probiotic goodness.
It took me a long time to test the waters and make my own fermented foods, but once I started I realised just how easy and simple they can be to make. Now that I have, I will never go back. If you were like me and are now struggling to find the will or the want to kick start your own fermentation making adventures then this blog post is for you!
WHAT IS FERMENTED FOOD?
When in the right conditions, food can be transformed by microbes such as yeast or bacteria. These microbes eat away the sugars in food and create digestive enzymes, beneficial bacteria and vitamins, and transform them into tasty, flavour bombs of zingy probiotic goodness. You may be thinking that adding bacteria or yeast to ‘transform’ food doesn’t sound so good. But our bodies are made up of 100 trillion bacterial cells; in fact we are more bacteria than human so it’s important that we nourish and feed them correctly so they can in turn look after us!
FERMENTATION; IT’S AS OLD AS THE HILLS
Cultures from around the world have been consuming fermented foods for years. Koreans eat Kim-chi, Germans eat Sauerkraut, Indians drink Lassi (a yoghurt drink), various Asian cultures eat pickled veggies, the Japanese enjoy Miso and Natto, and many countries in East and Middle Eastern Europe consume kefir…and us Westerners well we eat fermented foods, think cheese, pickled cucumbers, yoghurt and beer that have more often than not ben pasteurised or highly processed, which means its devoid of beneficial bacteria and often packed with preservatives, sugar, colours and other dubious additives. It’s best to make your own so you know exactly how it’s made and what goes into it.
HEALTH BENEFITS
· Preserves food
· Pre-digests it
· Helps to create beneficial enzymes
· Creates B Vitamins
· Probiotics
· Increases immunity
· Improves bowel health
· Makes other food easier to digest
· Bio-availability of minerals increases
· Creates Vitamin K2
· Anti-carcinogenic
· Aids digestion
· Help to regulate appetite
· Reduce sugar cravings
· Increases antibodies
· Increases Vitamins A and C
· Helps to remove toxins from the body
· The process of fermenting removes sugar from fruit/veg
· Helps to restore a healthy flora in the intestine
4 EASY FERMENTED FOOD RECIPES
DON'T BE SCARED ITS ACTUALLY EASY
On a very basic level you can make fermented foods like ‘wild’ sauerkraut through a process that takes extremely little effort using just an organic cabbage, filtered water and quality salt. You really don’t need much at all. But if you’re like me and you’re impatient with waiting a few weeks until it’s ready, then you can try the following four easy recipes which uses a starter culture.
In all of my recipes I use the starter cultures from Kultured Wellness. This not only speeds up the fermentation process but it also ensures only beneficial bacteria grow. If you want to order some of these gorgeous, probiotic bomb cultures then the following links:
1. Complete Starter Kit
1x Coconut Yoghurt Starter Culture
1x Coconut Water Kefir Starter Culture
Recipe eBook
Or you can buy them separately
2. Coconut Yoghurt Starter Culture
3. Coconut Water Kefir Starter Culture
Make sure you pop ‘JORDANPIE’ into the checkout code to receive a 10% discount on your starter cultures. I cannot recommend these gorgeous cultures highly enough.
If you found this post helpful or know someone that could benefit from some fermented goodness feel free to share it with them. To stay up to date with new blog posts and recipes just follow me on Instagram @jordiepieface cos i be always grammin' #reallifeofpie
