Nourished Kitchen» kombucha

Recipe: Spiced Kombucha Vinaigrette

Jenny — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 03:23:44 +0000

Kombucha vinaigrette, may seem like an unusual take on the classic combination of olive oil and balsamic or red wine vinegar, but, when complemented by the unique flavors of clove and allspice it can become a nourishing, if unique, dressing for any salad. I find it pairs particularly well with the sweetness of beets, apples, pears and nuts. Reminiscent of apple cider vinegar in combination with club soda, kombucha offers a unique flavor that is growing in popularity as more and more natural foods enthusiasts learn to cherish the beverage – a sweetened tea that undergoes a unique fermentation process through the use of a mother or symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast.

Brewing kombucha is easy and, in many ways, effortless as it requires little else but a brewing container, tea, sugar and a mother which you can find affordably online (see sources). Though its origins are largely clouded in mystery, kombucha, like many of our favorite fermented foods, enjoys a rich heritage in Russia and central Asia where it’s hailed as a health tonic. Simply combine three quarts brewed tea with one cup sugar until the sugar is fully dissolved and the sweetened tea has cooled to room temperature. Mix the sweetened tea with about one-quarter cup brewed kombucha tea and a kombucha mother in a clean container, cover and allow it to ferment for about a week when the kombucha mother splits and produces a second, thinner scoby. Bottle the kombucha and ferment it again, if desired. Ensure that the tea, mother and baby are free from mold and other signs of potential contamination.(...)
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10 Ways to Get More Probiotics (without Dairy)

Jenny — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:14:58 +0000

We hear it all the time (and I say it plenty!): eat your yogurt for probiotics. But if you choose not to eat dairy foods or cannot tolerate them, finding dairy-free probiotic foods can pose more of a challenge; however, that doesn’t have to be the case. Indeed, there are many, many dairy-free foods rich in probiotics and beneficial bacteria. As with anything, it’s just a matter of identifying them.

Beneficial bacteria are essential for good health – indeed, they’re essential to life itself as beneficial bacteria are so intertwined with our body’s ability to function that you’d actually die without them. Life isn’t aseptic. Beneficial bacteria interact with your immune system. In an interesting theory called the hygiene hypothesis, researchers have discovered that an overly sanitary home, birth and environment (i.e. lack of exposure to microbiota) may contribute to autoimmune disease and healthy children eat dirt. In effect, beneficial bacteria actually train your immune system to recognize true threats, but their benefits venture beyond interacting with your immune system to your benefit.

Beneficial bacteria also play a critical role in your body’s ability to fully absorb the nutrients you eat. They break down potentially negative components of your diet like oxalic acid, manufacture natural vitamins and perform a slew of other duties that keep you well and healthy. Learn more about the benefits of fermented food and lactic acid fermentation.

Of course, if you’re a dairy lover you can use these suggestions but also check out this post on 10 Cultured Dairy Foods and how to use them.

1. Sauerkraut

A much loved and much loathed fermented cabbage dish hailing from northern Europe, naturally prepared sauerkraut is both tart and salty. Decidedly fresher than the canned version you’ll find on grocery store shelves, real sauerkraut has a crispy, not mushy, texture and is loaded with vitamin C and B vitamins. Furthermore, the process of fermenting cabbage actually creates isothiocyanate – a substance thought to inhibit the formation of cancer and tumors.

Sauerkraut isn’t the only form of probiotic-rich fermented cabbage. Latin America brings us cortido a dish in which cabbage combines with carrots, onion and red pepper while Korea brings us kimchi in which cabbage combines with radish, ginger, chilies, garlic and other goodies. To make your own sauerkraut, check out my no-measure real sauerkraut recipe.

2. Kombucha

Kombucha is another great source of beneficial bacteria that is also dairy-free. A fermented tea thought to originate in Russia or China, kombucha has long been considered a health tonic. Kombucha, like other fermented foods and beverages, has a sour flavor with a taste reminsicent of apple cider vinegar combined with club soda, though home-brewed kombucha is often less acidic than storebought.

A starter culture sometimes called a kombucha mushroom, mother or scoby(symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts) is necessary to prepare kombucha. The kombucha scoby has an odd appearance: it’s both solid and gelatinous with a beige coloring. From time to time, strands of viscous strings appear on the bottom of the scoby and these are normal and a good source of B vitamins. This starter culture thrives in the combination of brewed tea and sugar. The kombucha scoby metabolizes the sugar converting it to various acids which provide kombucha with its characteristically tart flavor.

Kombucha, like other fermented foods and beverages, is rich in beneficial bacteria and vitamin B12. It also contains a substance called glucaric acid. Glucaric acid is deeply detoxifying and recent research indicates great promise that glucaric acid is effective in the treatment and prevention of cancer.

You can purchase raw kombucha at most health food stores, but it’s expensive. A 12-oz bottle may set you back as much as $4.59, but you can brew your own kombucha at home with minimal effort provided you have a starter culture.

If you don’t mind a short wait, check out the cultures and starters exchange here at Nourished Kitchen where you can find kombucha mothers free for shipping. Alternatively, check out the Nourished Kitchen Resources page which lists sources for kombucha mothers under Fermented Food Starters.

3. SauerrÃ¼ben

SauerrÃ¼ben, like sauerkraut, is a fermented vegetable from northern Europe where fermentation offered an opportunity to preserve the harvest throughout the tough, cold winters. The ingredients are simple: turnips and unrefined salt. Tender, sweet turnips are shredded or, if you like them like we do, julienned and mixed with unrefined sea salt before they’re pounded down to release their juice. The turnip juice combines with the sea salt to create a brine that fosters the growth of beneficial bacteria – provided it’s not too salty. Turnips and sauerrÃ¼ben are a great source of vitamin C. To make your own sauerrÃ¼ben, check out this post on the sauerrÃ¼ben by the Slow Cook .

4. Miso

Composed of soybeans in combination with barley or rice, miso is a traditional Japanese condiment used primarily in soups or as a seasoning for vegetables, meats and fish (check out my misoyaki salmon recipe). Miso is primarily fermented by aspergillus oryzae, a mold, that is also responsible for the transformation of soybeans into shoyu or tamari.

Miso is widely touted as a wholesome, nourishing food. Miso is high in vitamin K (learn about vitamin K and other fat soluble vitamins) as well as vitamin B6. It’s also a good source of phosphorus, manganese and zinc. Zinc, in particular, is essential for proper immune system function.

In preparing miso, take care not to overheat it. While you may use it to season cooked foods, doing so destroys heat-sensitive microbiota. When making a good miso soup, wait to add the miso paste until the stock has cooled to blood temperature and then allow it to slowly disolve into the liquid. By preparing miso soup in this fashion, the miso retains food enzymes and other characteristics of living foods.

5. Water Kefir

Water kefir, alternatively known as tibicos and Japanese water crystals, is a probiotic beverage similar to Kombucha and Ginger Beer. Water kefir grains are translucent and gelatinous with a crystal-like appearance. Like kombucha mothers, water kefir grains are a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts including lactobacillus hilgardii – the species that gives water kefir grains their characteristic appearance.

Water kefir is simple in its preparation. First, disolve sugar into clean, chlorine-free water and add the water kefir grains along with 1/2 a lemon and a few tablespoons of unsulphured dried fruit. I’ve used cherries, raisins, ginger and figs with success. Next, simply allow the water kefir to ferment over the course of a day or two, bottle and store in the fridge.

If you don’t mind a short wait, check out the cultures and starters exchange here at Nourished Kitchen where you can find water kefir grains free for shipping. Alternatively, check out the Nourished Kitchen Resources page which lists sources for water kefir under Fermented Food Starters.

6. Moroccan Preserved Lemons

Moroccan preserved lemons are naturally fermented without the use of a starter – just benign bacteria and yeasts naturally present in the air, on our skin and on the fruits themselves. Just as with sauerkraut, sauerrÃ¼ben and other fermented vegetables and fruit, preserved lemons are rich in beneficial bacteria and their acidity is sufficient enough to keep pathogenic bacteria at bay.

Lemons, like all citrus, are rich in antioxidants and vitamin C in particular. Much of the vitamin C is concenctrated in the lemon’s rind which is customarily discarded due to its astringent, bitter flavor. Culturing lemons naturally with unrefined salt and brine renders the lemon rind not only edible, but also delicious.

They’re remarkably well-suited to a variety of dishes including classic Moroccan cuisine like lemon and olive roasted chicken and tagines, but I like to serve preserved lemons as a condiment in combination with fresh parsley and fresh garlic. Check out my recipe for Preserved Lemon & Parsley Tapenade, and don’t forget to learn to make Moroccan Preserved Lemons – especially when meyer lemons are in season.

7. Coconut Kefir

Coconut kefir is a probiotic beverage prepared from young coconut water and a starter culture. Best championed by the Body Ecology Diet, coconut kefir combines many of the benefits of coconut with the benefits of probiotics. Coconut water is rich in minerals like calcium and potassium, but it is relatively sweet. By introducing beneficial bacteria into the fresh coconut water, the bactertia metabolize its sugars and produce lactic and acetic acids which lower the overall glycemic index of the beverage. Furthermore, all those beneficial bacteria are good for your belly.

8. Ginger Beer

There are two forms of probiotic ginger beer. Both are rich in beneficial bacteria. Traditional ginger beer is cultured using a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts similar to water kefir grains, indeed, there’s some evidence that water kefir grains and the ginger beer plant are substantially the same in that both ginger beer plants and water kefir grains share many of the same characteristic bacteria. There is also a second, more accessible form, of ginger beer. Readers of Sally Fallon’s landmark book, Nourishing Traditions, will be familiar with this method of preparing ginger beer. In this version, powdered ginger and sugar mixed together to encourage the growth of wild bacteria and yeasts and this ginger bug is introduced into sugar water to and allowed to continue to brew.

Ginger beer, much like water kefir, offers a healthy, wholesome alternative to super-sweet sodas. Properly prepared, ginger beer will even be naturally fizzy and is often loved by children most of all.

9. Sour Pickles

Most pickles on your grocery store shelves are pickled using vinegar, but as tasty as this method might be, it is not optimal. Sour pickles are the traditional alternative to vinegar pickles and are prepared using a simple solution of unrefined sea salt and clean, chlorine-free water. This solution encourages the growth of lactic-acid producing beneficial bacteria which customarily outcompete pathogenic bacteria. Moreover, traditional sour pickles are raw after culturing unlike vinegar-based cucumber pickles which are cooked durieng the canning process thus killing food enzymes, bacteria and destroying heat sensitive vitamins. I make sour pickles every year, check out last year’s post (Real Pickles) and 2007′s post (The Great Pickle). Sometime this week I’ll post a tutorial showing you how you can prepare traditional sour pickles at home.

10. Store-bought Condiments and Dressings

Not everyone has the time or energy to pound cabbage and salt into sauerkraut or crack a fresh coconut to prepare coconut kefir; so, for those of you with limited time you can still find wholesome, naturally fermented dairy-free foods that can enliven your belly with beneficial bacteria. Coconut milk yogurts, sour pickles, traditional sauerkraut and even sour beets can be found on the shelves of well-stocked health food stores while even many grocery stores will stock raw kimchi.

If you still can’t find what you need, check out the Nourished Kitchen Resources page which categorizes companies offering fermented foods.

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Three Great Traditional Foods Videos

Jenny — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:32:24 +0000

1. How to Grow Your Own Kombucha Mother.

Simple enough: these guys teach you how to grow your own kombucha scoby without having to find a mother. Those of you who still want to purchase a mother can, of course, go through the Cultures & Starters Exchange or visit Cultures for Health.

2. Weston A Price on Mental & Emotional Health by Sally Fallon.

Sally Fallon discusses diet’s effects on emotional well-being at a 2009 conference – addressing Weston A Price’s findings in particular.

3. Fermenting Vegetables with Sandor Katz

Sandor Katz, author of many books including Wild Fermentation and guru of all things fermented, discusses his fermentation technique in this video.

This is cross posted at Real Food Wednesdays.

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Mothers Day Finds for Nourished Mamas

Jenny — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:06:24 +0000

Mothers day is only a week away. So here’s Nourished Kitchen picks for traditional foods-loving and nourished moms. Tired of celebrating mothers day with gooey cards and grocery store carnations? Leave this post casually open on the screen, or, for you less-subtle types: email the link to your partners.

Equipment for a Nourished Kitchen

Yogurt Maker

Euro-cuisine Yogurt Maker with Glass Jars: If you regularly make yogurt for your family, or if you anticipate regularly making yogurt for your family, you should consider picking up a yogurt maker. It makes yogurt making so, remarkably, easy and clean. The temperature remains constant and all you have to do is mix the milk with starter and pour it into the individual containers. I like this yogurt maker in particular because the containers are glass instead of plastic, so you needn’t worry about chemicals leaching into your family’s food. It’s available on Amazon for $39.95.

Excalibur Dehydrator

5-tray Deluxe Excalibur Dehydrator: Excalibur dehydrators are widely considered to be the best dehydrators on the market. Dehydrating enables you to preserve the summer harvest without overcooking your food through modern food preservation methods like canning. This allows you to keep much of the fresh food’s nutrients intact. While this particular dehydrator is on my wish list, we’ve used our dehydrator for drying grains after sprouting, making beef jerky and drying apples, pears and tomatoes for snacks. You can purchase this dehydrator at Cultures for Health for $189.95 and it comes with a book on preserving.

Ice Cream Maker

Cuisinart 1- ½ Quart Ice Cream Maker: Everyone needs a little treat now and then, and that treat is ice cream in our house. With fresh raw cream, fresh raw whole milk, fresh pastured egg yolks, a touch of honey and plenty of fresh fruit you can make an unbelievably delicious ice cream that is also real food-friendly. Try this recipe for Really Raw Ice Cream with Wildflower Honey and Blackberries from my healthy recipe files or this recipe for frozen yogurt at Cultures for Health. At any rate, this ice cream maker is automatic and makes small 1- ½ quart batches. You can purchase it from Amazon for $46.95

KitchenAid Mixer

KitchenAid 5-quart Mixer: I purchased my KitchenAid mixer in college and I swear that I’ve used it every single day since. It is an integral and critical component of our kitchen. We use it for obvious things like mixing batters for citrus coconut madeleines and other healthy sweet things and desserts and for sprouted grain breads, but we also use it for mixing up my classic meatloaf and making homemade mayonnaise. It really does get used every day. You can purchase this mixer from Amazon at $239.99 and you can even pick a color that’ll match your kitchen.

Kim Chi Maker

Kimchi Maker: If you’ve read Nourished Kitchen for any length of time you know how much I value probiotic-rich foods like real sauerkraut, real kimchi and other vegetable ferments. If you don’t, check out these posts: fermented food and the benefits of lactic acid fermentation and Real Pickles. Simply put, they are an essential aspect of a healthy diet. You need to eat them and regularly. We try to eat at least one fermented food at every meal: yogurt with breakfast, kombucha with a snack, sauerrÃ¼ben with supper and so on. You can even check out my recipes for real sauerkraut and Moroccan-preserved lemons. Since fermented foods comprise such a large portion of our diet, we need an easy way to prepare them and we use these kimchi makers from the Raw Diet store. We actually liked the first one we purchased so much that we bought a second since. The ferments come out perfectly every single time and the instructions are easy to use. You can purchase a kimchi maker for $24.97, a seriously good deal.

Foods for a Nourished Kitchen

Yogurt Starter

Yogurt & Sourdough Starters: If you can’t drop down for the big items listed above, you can always pick up some yogurt and sourdough starter cultures at a much better price. Plus, if properly cared for, these starters will self-perpetuate. In essence, if you keep them alive and healthy with regular re-culturing, you’ll always have access to fresh yogurt or sourdough bread or kombucha or dairy kefir or water kefir or any number of delicious, probiotic-rich foods. You can purchase starter cultures at Cultures for Health where prices range from $9.99 to $16.99.

Shiloh Farms

Sprouted Grain Flours: If you can’t afford the time to sprout, dry and grind your own sprouted grain flours or if you can’t afford the equipment it takes to sprout your own flours, buying sprouted grain flour presents an excellent alternative. I recently had the pleasure of trying Shiloh Farms Essential Eating ® organic sprouted grain flours and they are phenomenal. Plus, they’re much, much better than the sprouted grain flours I make at home. The bread bakes beautifully. Not sure how to use sprouted grain flours? Try these recipes from my healthy recipe files: maple pecan pie with sprouted spelt crust, sprouted grain crÃªpes, sprouted spelt & maple shortbread. If you choose to eat grain, eating sprouted grain is your best option as it’s easier to digest and is more nutrient-dense than standard whole-grain flours. You can try out Shiloh Farms Essential Eating ® organic sprouted spelt flour for $9.19 for a 2-lb bag or buy it in bulk.

Coconut Oil

Organic Coconut Oil: Coconut oil is a fantastic addition to your pantry and we use it in a lot of our dishes. It’s a remarkably healthy fat replete with lauric acid which is an immune booster. It’s also fantastic as a skincare product with a natural SPF of 5. Here’s some info from the Nourished Kitchen archives outlining just why you should include coconut oil in your diet: Fats for Cooking & Fats to Eat Uncooked or check out these recipes that use coconut oil: Soft Tacos with Halibut & Beef, Baked Oats, Roasted Butternut Squash, Apple & Quince Mash. We use Nutiva coconut oil to the exclusion of others. It is reasonably priced, great cooking, good for cosmetic uses and has a wonderful subtle coconut flavor. You can pick up Nutiva organic coconut oil for as little as $11.99

Services for a Nourished Kitchen

Menu Mailers Subscription: If ever there’s a gift fitting mother’s day, this is it – a subscription service that will plan out healthy meals for your family. It’s hard to take the time to plan out meals and shopping lists based on healthy, seasonal foods. Especially if you’re new to traditional foods, it’s also difficult to plan out to do lists. If you’re having lentil soup on Friday, when do you start soaking the lentils? If you’re planning sourdough pancakes, when do you soak the flour? CookingTF.com’s service helps to plan healthy meals for your family and it comes with a seasonal produce list. You can try the service for a month for as little as $5.40 or get a full-year subscription for $46.80. Use this link to take advantage of a 10% discount. Banner image courtesy of Garrison Photo and SXC.

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From the Mouths of Babes

Jenny — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:27:35 +0000

AKA Let My 3-year old teach you about Real Food

I’ve written about the joys of nourishing my son: nourishing him with my body during his time in my womb, nourishing him with my milk first exclusively during his first six months and complemented for three more years, weaning him on to Real Food through the baby-led approach to solids. You see, it warms me to know that his body is so well-nourished, but, beyond that, it tickles me to see that he’s made the connection between good health and good food. So I thought I’d share a few real food gems from the littlest foodie in our home. It certainly warms this nourished mama’s heart. Or … maybe … we talk about real food just a touch too much in our house.

More fermented turnips please!
Fresh milk from Sweet Clover makes me grow big and strong.
NO THANK YOU! That has high fructose corn syrup and that is GMO. (When offered ketchup by a waitress.)
I love kombucha. It’s like tasty vinegar.
We should not eat white sugar, it takes away B vitamins.
I will drink the water, it is good for my kidneys.
Chicken bone broth has lots of minerals.

How have your children shown their appreciation for good quality, real food?

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Giveaway: Cultures for Health

Jenny — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:33:36 +0000

In the past few weeks, I’ve enjoyed a little treat: fresh, homemade matsoni courtesy of a new company Cultures for Health. Matsoni is a nice tart yogurt hailing from Georgia and was thought to convey long life. Matsoni is also a room-temperature yogurt that cultures well with minimal effort.

For those of you that are interested in eating different strains of yogurt, drinking cultured beverages like kombucha or kefir or baking artisan-style sourdough breads, finding a starter culture can prove difficult. It took me several months to find my first batch of water kefir, and several more months before I found a kombucha scoby. I’ve got a waiting list of friends and readers for kombucha mothers water kefir grains that’s several months deep. No joke, this stuff is hard to find. Fortunately, though, once you a acquire a starter and maintain its health, it will continue reproducing for you indefinitely.

So here it is: This week Cultures for Health is offering a special giveaway for NourishedKitchen.com‘s readers. The winner will receive a package of water kefir grains PLUS any yogurt starter of his/her choice and any sourdough starter of his/her choice.

Cultures for Health

Cultures for Health makes that search a little bit easier. They cultures and starters at very affordable rates and even ship internationally. They offer 5 different yogurt starters, 17 different sourdough starters, as well as water kefir grains, kombucha mothers, buttermilk starter, dairy kefir grains and other supplies.

The Prize

Water Kefir Grains
Yogurt Starter of Your Choice
Sourdough Starter of Your Choice

How to Enter

Anyone can enter, including international readers. You have up to 5 chances to enter, so please up your odds and enter multiple times!

First, visit Cultures for Health and sign up for the giveaway there, look around, then come back here and let me know which of one of her yogurt starters you liked best and which one of her sourdough starters that has you salivating.

For more chances to win, you have up to five more chances so take them:

Blog about this giveaway and send me the link.
Post about this giveaway on a message board and send me the link.
Email this giveaway to a friend and let me know.
Stumble this giveaway and let me know.
Tweet this giveaway and let me know.

Why Enter?

Because you took it to heart when I wrote about the benefits of lactic acid fermentation. And for all those of you who’ve been patiently waiting for a culture or starter, and for all those of you who are still on my waitlist, please enter now. Worried about not knowing how to use these cultures and starters? Don’t worry, because each starter comes with comprehensive instructions.

The Announcement

We’ll choose the winner via Random.org, and announce that winner next Thursday. Please note that the goodies will be shipped by Cultures for Health directly–which is good for you since I’m slow to the post office.

Good Luck!

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Fermented Food: Benefits of Lactic Acid Fermentation

Jenny — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:37:16 +0000

Fermented food, enjoyed across the globe, conveys health benefits through lactic acid fermentation. The fermentation process can transform the flavor of food from the plain and mundane to a mouth-puckering sourness enlivened by colonies of beneficial bacteria and enhanced micronutrients. While fermented food like yogurt, sauerkraut and kefir are well-known many other lesser-known foods also benefit from the lactic acid fermentation process. Indeed, virtually every food with a complex or simple sugar content can be successfully fermented.

Born of both necessity and practicality, lactic acid fermentation proved to be not only an efficient method of preserving food for our ancestors, but also a critical one. Indeed, fermented food like sauerkraut, cheese, wine, kvass, soured grain porridge and breads often sustained tribes and villages during harsh winters when fresh food simply wasn’t available let alone plentiful.

In many societies including our own where yogurt has been heralded as a health food since the 19^th century, fermented food has gained a reputation for its beneficial effects on immunity, intestinal health and general well-being. Modern researchers are just beginning to understand what the sages of old were tuned in to: fermented food conveys clear and calculable health benefits to the human diet. Lactic acid fermentation in and of itself enhances the micronutrient profile of several foods.

For example, milk that undergoes lactic acid fermentation either in the wild as in the case of clabbered milk or inoculated by a starter culture as in the case of yogurt, piima, matsoni and other fermented dairy products conveys more vitamins to the eater in comparison to raw milk and, particularly, pasteurized and ultra-high-temperature pasteurized milk. Fermented dairy products consistently reveal an increased level of folic acid which is critical to producing healthy babies as well as pyroxidine, B vitamins, riboflavin and biotin depending on the strains of bacteria present. [1. Vitamin Profiles of Kefirs Made from Milk of Different Species. International Journal of Food Science & Technology. 1991. Kneifel et al]

The increases in the micronutrient profiles of fermented food aren’t just limited to yogurt, bonny clabber and kefir. Vegetables, fruits, legumes and grains subjected to lactic acid fermentation also see increases in both their macro- and micronutrient profiles. The bioavailability of amino acids â€“ particularly lysine with its antiviral effects and methionine – increases with lactic acid fermentation. [2. Evaluation of lysine and methionine production in some Lactobacilli and yeasts. International Journal of Food Microbiology. Odunfa et al.]For grains, sprouting prior to souring can increase the availability of protein even further. Vegetables that have undergone lactic acid fermentation as in the case of sauerkraut and kimchi, often see an increase in the activity of vitamin C and vitamin A.

While lactic acid fermentation does not usually increase the level of minerals present in fermented foods unless unusual circumstances are present (as in fermenting food in a metal or earthen container), it does decrease the activity of phytic acid content naturally present in grains. Phytic acid is an antinutrient that binds up minerals â€“ preventing full absorption of minerals in the gut. Since souring grains reduces the phytic acid content, the lactic acid fermentation process actually enables your body to absorb more minerals from the grain than you would be able to otherwise absorb. The end result is that you get more bang for your nutritional buck by souring the grains you eat.

So now that you’ve eliminated modern sweeteners and learned to use mineral-rich bone broth, your next step on the traditional foods journey is to better incorporate fermented food into your diet. Take advantage of all the health benefits that lactic acid fermentation offers. Next week the Traditional Foods primer will build upon our knowledge of fermented food by examining just how they can improve our health.

In the meantime, check out these recipes which takes advantage of lactic acid fermentation:

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