You already know that fermented foods are good for you. And you probably already know that one of the reasons is because of the gut-friendly bacteria (probiotics) that are prevalent in fermented foods.
But there’s more to the story than just probiotics themselves.
The diversity of your gut flora is also very important. Diversity refers to the types of bacteria in your gut – and is there a good variety?
According to Dr. David Perlmutter, board certified neurologist and author of the best-selling book Grain Brain:
“The diet we choose is the most influential factor in terms of the health and diversity of the hundred trillion microbes that live within us. To be clear, these microbes play a pivotal role in determining our health destiny.”
Wow. That’s saying a lot.
What’s also important to note is that the amount of bacteria diversity also relates to resilience or your ability to fight off environmental threats. So if you want an ironclad immune system (don’t we all?), diversity is really important.
One simple way to increase biodiversity in your gut is by adding fermented foods to your diet.
You can buy fermented foods like kefir, kimchi and kombucha at the store. But it’s also really easy to make your own ferments at home.
When you make them at home you can also experiment with a wide variety of produce and really get creative.
When we first started fermenting our own food, we invested in 2 things that took a lot of the guesswork out of the process:
1- Fermented Vegetables by Christopher and Kirsten Shockey
I’ve seen a lot of books on fermented foods, but for some reason many of them don’t contain actual recipes. And if you’ve never fermented food before, it can be a long process between chopping the vegetables, putting them in the jar and then harvesting everything.
I mean, we’re talking a couple of weeks if not much longer. Since I’m not the kind of person that likes to waste money (or fresh produce) I really appreciated that this book has tons of very easy recipes.
They also do a great job of explaining the fermenting process which is very useful.
2- The FARMcurious Mold Free Fermenting Kit
I don’t like mold. And I know that lacto fermentation can produce mold. So to avoid ruining my fermented foods (and utterly grossing myself out), I invested in this fermenting kit from farmcurious.
The kit includes 2 of the grey lids and funny gadgets poking out at the top (see photo below). It doesn’t come with the mason jars, though. It’s well worth the investment to make sure that your fermented recipe turns out perfectly…with no mold!
I also find that the FARMcurious kit makes fermenting very forgiving.
For instance, I’ve made some mistakes in my ferments early on, but they always came out tasting great (and no mold!) because I use the FARMcurious kit.
You don’t need to have the fermenting kit, but if you do just be aware that it works with “wide-mouth” mason jars only. These are inexpensive and easy to find. Craft stores like Michael’s will have them.
[tasty-recipe id=”10696″]
Curious to know what you thought of the article and fermented vegetables in general?