Firstly, why would you even bother to ferment any foods. Sounds pretty gross, right? It's not nearly as bad as it sounds though. Fermented foods are foods that have been through a process called lacto-fermentation which involves natural bacteria feeding on the sugar and starch in the food, creating lactic acid. The whole process actually preserves the food for very long periods of time. It also creates beneficial enzymes, b-vitamins, Omega-3 fatty acids and various strains of probiotics (The opposite of antibiotics. Probiotics are the good guys when it comes to bacteria.)
Lacto-fermentation is nothing new. It's been around for centuries. It was commonly used to preserve food because fridges weren't readily available. Food could be stored for months, even years, using this process. An amazing side benefit was the fact that it made these foods even better for you. These days you still find loads of foods pickled in jars and sold at grocery stores but, unfortunately, in the interest of big business, it is too costly and time consuming to properly ferment foods. That is why the pickles you find today, like beetroot and gherkins, are literally dead food by the time they reach you. They are all preserved in vinegar, which is too harsh for anything to survive in. They're also loaded with sugar and preservatives. Lacto-fermentation isn't a lost art though. It is still practiced a lot in countries like Germany, where sauerkraut is extremely popular, and Korea, where kimchi is consumed with every meal.
The amount of probiotics in the average western diet has declined so dramatically as to be almost non-existent. Milk is now being pasteurised so no-one drinks it raw anymore (except us!), store bought yogurt, which might as well just be pudding it's so loaded with sugar and very little live bacteria, has replaced homemade yoghurt and vinegar based pickles have replaced lacto-fermented foods. Instead of nutrient rich foods full of enzymes and probiotics that our great-grandparents ate, the average diet today consists mostly of sugar-laden, scientifically created, dead foods.
Here are some of the benefits of eating fermented foods:
- They contain probiotics: Eating fermented foods and drinking fermented drinks like kefir and kombucha, introduces good bacteria into your body and improves the balance of bacteria in your digestive system, which is often upset by bad diet and antibiotics. It's also been proven that probiotics help slow or reverse some diseases, improve bowel health, aid digestion and strengthen your immune system.
- It improves your absorption of food: Having a lot of good bacteria in your colon and digestive enzymes, helps your body absorb more of the nutrients in the food you eat. This is especially beneficial if you are eating a clean, organic, real food diet, AND eating fermented foods. You'll find that your body absorbs a lot more nutrients from the food you're eating and you won’t need as many supplements and vitamins as you used to, because you’ll be absorbing more of the live nutrients from the food you eat.
- Economical: Eating organically can get expensive if you don't know where to shop, but fermented foods definitely make it more affordable because you can buy veggies in bulk and ferment all of them so they last you for months. You can make your own whey at home for the price of a litre of milk, and then all you need is a good mineral salt, water and the veggies. Adding these foods to your diet also cuts down on the number of supplements you need, which helps your budget AND lowers possible future medical costs.
- It preserves food easily: Most foods you buy in jars will last a month at the most in the fridge but fermented foods last for months (although they're so yummy they will be gone much sooner than that;) Lacto-fermentation allows you to store food for longer periods of time without losing the nutritional value.
Once you find raw milk, making the whey is simple:
- Pour the milk into a glass bowl, cover with a cloth and leave for a few days. Keep an eye on it from about day 2 if it's summer, day 3 if it's winter.
- It will start to curdle and separate, into curds and whey (Remember little Miss Muffet;)
- After it's completely separated (about 4-5 days), get another glass bowl and put a dishcloth over it. (use one that you don't mind getting dirty!)
- Pour the contents of your other bowl, onto the dishcloth.
- Grab all the corners of the dishcloth and gather them together so that the solid curds are inside the cloth. Tie a knot in them and then leave the whey to drip slowly out of the dishcloth, into the glass bowl beneath it. (I tie piece of string around the knot of the dishcloth and then tie it to one of my cupboard handles in my kitchen and leave the bowl underneath it on the counter for about a day to slowly all drip out.)
- The liquid in your bowl will be the whey you will use for your fermented foods and the solid stuff in the dishcloth is actually cream cheese! It's delicious and exceptionally healthy and tasty as a dip or a spread.
- Pour your whey into a glass jar and place in the fridge. It will keep for a few months. If you find you won't use it often, put it in a container in the freezer.
Now you have whey! As for the other ingredients, it's easy to get your hands on himalayan rock salt. It's sold at every grocery store. Your lemon juice needs to be from an actual lemon, not a squeezy bottle. They are full of preservatives which you don't want in your fermented veggies. Woolies sells organic cucumbers at a really good price.
Now you are ready to go!
How to Ferment cucumber
You will need:
A large glass jar
2 Tbs mineral salt
1 Tbs whey
1 Tbs lemon juice
About 1½ cups sliced cucumber
Fresh dill (this is optional)
Boiling water
Method
- Pour the boiling water into your glass jar and leave for about 10 minutes. Put all utensils you will be using in the jar too. This is to kill any bacteria that may be competition for the GOOD bacteria that will be in your jar once fermentation starts.
- Make sure your cucumber is washed before you slice it
- In a glass jug, add your salt to boiled, cooled water.
- Stir until it is dissolved
- Put the cucumber into your glass jar and push it down to get as much as possible in
- Add your dill in between the pieces of cucumber
- Pour your whey and lemon juice in over the cucumber
- Pour your salty water solution over the cucumber, making sure it completely covers it, but make sure to stop about 15mm from the top of the jar
- If the cucumber floats to the top, which usually happens, I take a spinach or kale leaf or even a lettuce leave and fold it up and make sure it covers the cucumber completely and pushes it down even if the leaf isn't covered by water
- Cover the top of the jar with a piece of cloth (I use an old stocking or cheese cloth. I've even been known to use a tissue;) Whatever works!) This is just to seal the lid nice and tight.
- Put the lid on over the cloth and make sure it's tightly sealed
- Leave it somewhere out of direct sunlight but warm-ish, in your kitchen or pantry (if you're lucky enough to have one) for about 4-7 days. I usually leave mine on top of the fridge because fridges tend to give off warmth
- You'll notice after a few days that bubbles have formed in the liquid. This is good. It means it's working. The longer you leave it, the more beneficial it will be
- After 4-7 days, put it in the fridge to stop the fermentation process and eat some with every meal if you can
This method can be applied to pretty much any vegetable. I often do carrots. I'm not a carrot fan but this makes them yummy! You can also play around with the herbs and spices you add to your vegetables. I can't resist adding cayenne pepper to all of them. Cinnamon is really nice with carrots as well. I've often done baby marrows. Cabbage also works well. You've heard of sauerkraut I'm sure? Well, this is one way of doing it. Next week I'll blog about the traditional method used to make it. I've been making it often lately and I'm completely addicted to it!
Good luck!
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