In recent decades, a growing body of medical and nutritional research has confirmed that probiotics are good for you. People who take probiotics often experience better digestion, skin health, nutrient absorption, and immune system function, among other benefits. A healthy human body contains several pounds of bacteria and other microorganisms in its digestive tract. There, they help digest food that the body couldn’t handle otherwise, produce beneficial enzymes and other compounds, and serve as a defense against unhealthy pathogenic organisms.
Scientists have demonstrated that certain species of bacteria and yeasts have a beneficial effect on the body. When people ingest these beneficial organisms, the populations of good bacteria seem to flourish. Meanwhile, the bad ones are kept in check and are not allowed to gain a foothold. These beneficial organisms have become known as probiotics. Good probiotics are particularly prevalent in lacto-fermented foods and drinks.
It stands to reason that if we want to stay healthy, we should include plenty of probiotics in our food. We can do this on an everyday basis by consuming lots of raw fruits and vegetables. Raw milk also contains some of these same organisms. But with today’s highly refined and cooked diet, not to mention the pesticides on store-bought produce, it is difficult to ensure that we are getting the same probiotic effect as our bodies are built to expect.
Enter fermented foods and drinks, which can contain millions, billions, or even trillions of probiotics per serving. This makes them a much more concentrated source than the occurring bacteria in your average salad. Furthermore, a spoonful or two of fermented vegetables can contain more probiotic organisms than a whole jar of probiotic supplements from a health food store. As always, if you are suffering from a particular health condition, then it is always best to consult a physician or qualified natural health practitioner to make sure that probiotics are an advisable course of action. Generally, the risks and side effects are few to none.
When most people hear the word “fermentation,” they think of wine, beer, and other alcoholic drinks. I enjoy the occasional drink myself, but alcoholic beverages are not included in this book because they are not probiotic. The only “beer” in this book is Ginger Beer, which is made using the original mother culture known as the ginger beer plant. It is only mildly (probably less than 1 percent) alcoholic.
Most alcoholic drinks are made with special yeast, which ferments the brew and leaves alcohol as a by-product. If they are not killed off earlier, then it is unlikely that any probiotic organisms would survive the aging of wine. Beer has a better chance of being probiotic, but the yeast generally crowds out any probiotic organisms, while hops is used both as a flavoring agent and a natural antibiotic.
This book covers probiotic cultures that can include beneficial lactobacteria, yeasts, and aceto acid bacteria. The best probiotic cultures contain several species of beneficial microorganisms living in balance. Probiotic beverages can contain small quantities (usually much less than 1 percent) of alcohol. But assuming that the yeast does not dominate a culture, the level of alcohol should remain much lower. This is because other bacteria can digest the alcohol and convert it to other substances, such as vinegary acetic acid.
My main interest in writing this book is to help you discover live cultured foods with a diverse array of probiotics. Therefore, the book does not include foods or drinks that only use fermentation at an early stage of preparation to create a sour flavor. If the rest of the process kills off this culture, then it may still be a great food or drink, but it isn’t a useful probiotic anymore. Wine and beer are examples. People also use probiotic starter cultures to flavor cheese, but many kinds of cheese (not the ones in this book) are heated again to stop this fermentation. Sourdough bread starter is one more example: it can contain natural yeasts and bacteria, but these surely do not survive the oven. And ditto with Ethiopian injera or South Indian dosas, both of which are made from fermented grain or lentil flour that is cooked into sourdough crepes.
I eat my share of baked sourdough bread with pasteurized cheese, plus the occasional beer or wine. I am not 100 percent devoted to raw foods. But because this is a probiotic book, it stays true to the items that really deliver an honest probiotic benefit. In addition, many of the recipes here involve combining strong probiotic foods (such as yogurt and sauerkraut) with other ingredients to create a salad, dip, parfait, or other dish that remains high in probiotic power. Theoretically, you can add probiotic cultures this way to any food just before you eat it!
There are some wonderful cultured soy foods, such as miso (from Japan) and tempeh (from Indonesia). Unfortunately, I have not included them in this book because, so far, the scientific research on these foods has not shown that they are probiotic. Each one contains just a single species of fungus, not any probiotic bacteria, and research results have been mixed about their probiotic effects. As with wine, beer, or sourdough bread, simply being fermented does not make something probiotic. I will keep eating miso and tempeh, which no doubt have other health benefits, but they do not belong in a probiotic book.
Probiotic Methods
All your pots, pans, jars, and utensils should be sterilized before you start fermenting. Pouring boiling water over them should do the trick. Sterilization will ensure you start with a clean slate of organisms and will help eliminate the chance of any contamination. Of course, some fermenters prefer to allow wild yeasts and naturally present bacteria to do their job. This is fine, since these naturally present organisms can ferment your foods and drinks just fine without you adding any cultures. However, wouldn’t you rather culture the good guys that are on your fruits and vegetables, rather than whatever is on your equipment? The latter has more potential for mold, E. coli, and whatever is on the dog or cat hair floating around in your house. Sterilize first, and then, if you wish, you can ferment without adding any additional culture.
If you choose to add probiotic cultures, there are three major ways to create probiotic foods and drinks. The first is to place the food or drink in contact with a piece of permanent mother culture, such as kefir grains or kombucha mushrooms (they’re not really grains or mushrooms, but those are the names often used to describe them). The probiotic organisms from this culture then colonize and ferment the food or drink.
The second way to inoculate food or drink with probiotics is to add to it some cultured material. This could be a spoonful of old sauerkraut, a few ounces of yogurt, yogurt whey (the liquid), kefir, water kefir, kombucha, rejuvelac, or ginger beer. Really any food or drink in this book will work as a starter for any other, since all are teeming with probiotics. Of course, you may not want a spoonful of spicy kimchi in your soda, so there are some limits.
Finally, sometimes you need to use some last-minute trickery to make a food or drink probiotic. Some foods are not fermented or fermentable, and sometimes they really should be cooked first; still, you can make them very effective probiotic foods by adding in some last-minute cultures before eating or drinking them. Cheating? Perhaps, but it’s really a matter of learning how to use probiotic foods and drinks to create other recipes. The fermented porridge called Kunu or Koko (from Nigeria and Ghana) is made this way, with a portion of the raw probiotic grains being reserved and added again after the liquid portion has been cooked and cooled. The folks who developed that traditional recipe knew how to harness the best of both worlds.
At other times, a late probiotic addition just seems like the best idea. Take guacamole, for instance. You can lactoferment mashed avocadoes, but the oil in them can spoil in a hurry and turn brown as it oxidizes. Fermented guac is an acquired taste and I think I’ll leave it to the purists. You can have a much fresher-tasting avocado dip, which contains plenty of probiotics, if you add a scoop of yogurt or a little chopped sauerkraut.
And what about smoothies? You can culture some fruit and it will become sour in a day or two. This book includes two wonderful fermented fruit recipes: Apple Chutney and Thanksgiving Cranberry-Orange Relish. Blend these into smoothies and you are sure to have more of a sour than sweet taste. Nothing wrong with this if you like it, but most people prefer sweeter smoothies. Instead, blend some fresh or frozen fruit along with some yogurt, kefir, kombucha, water kefir, or other probiotic drink. You will get the full probiotic benefit, plus the sweet flavors of fresh fruit.
As these examples illustrate, mixing in some probiotics at the last minute can be a great strategy. It is the quickest, easiest way to get more probiotics. Also, rather than fermenting half a dozen different dishes at one time, just ferment one or two (such as yogurt and kombucha). Using small amounts of these, you can make many other recipes, adding a great deal more probiotics to your diet without adding much to your workload.
