Long ago, way before the westernized diet took its place in every house hold in America
People were all about fermentation.
Fermen- what?
Yes fermentation… you see fermentation was used to preserve foods, make yogurt, cheese, and even prepare grains (this and sprouted are the only ways I would recommend consuming grains).
When you ferment foods there’s a process that these foods go through called lacto fermentation.
That fancy word basically means that healthy bacteria is feeding on the sugars and starches in the food to created lactic acid. This process creates;
- Enzymes
- B-vitamins
- Omega 3 fatty acids and
- Probiotics
It even enhances the vitamins and minerals in the foods are that being fermented. I don’t know about you but I think that’s pretty awesome.
The benefits of fermented foods are beyond amazing that if you’re not eating them. You’re wasting valuable time and health.
By adding fermented foods into your diet you are balancing your gut flora (bacteria in your gut)
Which will benefit you by keeping your digestive system healthy (remember if you digestive system is bad so is your health).
Now don’t be fooled by the commercialized/pasteurized “fermented” foods that you see in your local supermarket. These foods are usually not fermented the right way, and that’s cause of the mass production these companies have to keep up with.
Fermentation takes time and produced CO2 that if Mt. Olive were to produce REAL fermented pickles;
they would all explode in the glass jars from the high levels of CO2 being produced from fermentation.
Commercialized yogurts are even worse. These are far from fermented and contain high levels of sugar, which nourishes pathogenic bacteria, yeast, and fungi in your gut (all the bad shit that you don’t want)
The First Step
If you want to add fermented foods into your diet I would start with homemade sauerkraut; making it is easy.
All you need is cabbage and salt (I prefer Himalayan pink salt). Chop the cabbage and put it into a big jar, sprinkle some Himalayan pink salt and smash the cabbage in the jar.
This is where all the magic happens, the salt pulls the water from the cabbage and create a brine. This brine is what ferments the cabbage (instead of the vinegar they use in store bought sauerkraut)
Let this concoction sit for about a week or two and there you go.
Fermented veggies to the rescue, by the way you can also add other veggies to the mix.
Last time I made sauerkraut I added; carrots, dill, garlic, and cucumbers into the cabbage mix.
And of course all organic, you don’t want pesticide covered GMO veggies.
Below is a video of Steph from Stupid Easy Paleo making sauerkraut the right way
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So remember folks if you want to be healthy it all starts in the gut. Adding fermented foods will balance
the bad and good bacteria that live in us, while enhancing the way our bodies absorb the nutrients from
the foods we eat, keeping us healthy and happy 🙂
Talk to you later,
