People have been fermenting food in just about every culture for thousands of years. Now, with society's increased knowledge about gut health, fermentation is undergoing a renaissance.
According to the Macquarie Dictionary, fermentation is “the breakdown of complex molecules brought about by a ferment, as in the changing of grape sugar into ethyl alcohol by yeast enzymes”.
It is used to preserve food, with benefits including ease of digestion, improved flavour and nutritional value.
Vegetables, dairy products, drinks and condiments may be fermented. Fermentation occurs when yeast and bacteria break down the food we eat. It can happen naturally or be human-induced through the inoculation of the base product.
Why is it good for you?
Rather than a deep dive into the science of fermentation, let’s talk about the benefits we get from fermented products.
We now know a lot about the science of gut health and how it affects our general wellbeing, even our brain health. To tip the balance in favour of more “good” than “bad” bacteria in our microbiome (the community of microorganisms in our gut) for holistic health, we need to eat fermented foods, more fibre and a variety of fruits and vegetables. Importantly, we also need to avoid processed foods.
Common fermented products include yoghurt, cheese, beer, wine, kombucha, coffee, kefir, sourdough, miso, sauerkraut and chocolate. Some people may find fermented products such as sauerkraut, kimchi and kombucha strange and unpalatable at first, due to the complex sour flavours. But the more you eat, the more your body will crave this rather than simple sweet foods.
Wild fermentation occurs when conditions are right for microbes naturally present in the environment to provide the culture for fermentation. You can also promote fermentation by using starter cultures from a packet. There are many sources of dried cultures to make fermented products, including kefir and yoghurt.
Sharon Flynn, an Australian fermentation expert, calls fermented foods “nature’s slowest fast food”. The author of Ferment For Good: Ancient Foods for the Modern Gut says, “Once you’ve prepared the food and waited for it to ferment, it’s generally ready to eat with hardly any other preparation.”
Sharon met and learnt from “the father of the fermentation revival”, American Sandor Katz, at a workshop in Tennessee in 2015. Katz travels the world learning about cultures of fermentation (pun intended) and holding workshops. He has written several books including Wild Fermentation, The Art of Fermentation. His latest is Sandor Katz’s Fermentation Journeys, Recipes, Techniques and Traditions from Around the World.
Sharon is now sharing her knowledge through her business, The Fermentary, and in her next book, due out in 2023, is called Wild Drinks.
Holly Davis (the teacher who featured in my article on Moonacres School) emphasises the benefits of fermented food, saying it is pre-digested by the microorganisms present. In her book, Ferment, she describes how some foods are hard to digest and how the nutrients are unavailable to us in the raw form. Holly’s take-home message for the home fermenter is that no two ferments are the same. So much depends on the quality of the produce, the environment of the ferment, the time of year, and the fermenter. Holly concedes even she has failures that are to be learned from.
There is lots of information online about fermenting, including those great aforementioned books by local experts Sharon and Holly.
For detailed information on the science of gut health, I recommend a book called Gut: The inside story of our body’s most underrated organ, by German writer and scientist Giulia Enders.
Take 3 – Local fermenters
Don’t be fooled by a packaged product’s fermentation claim; some of the mass-produced commercial products may be imitations. Either make your own or buy from a local artisan fermenter.
Here are three local artisan fermenters:
For sauerkraut and kombucha:
Ma Kutchen Organics
For kimchi and kimchi products:
South Coast Kimchi Co
For kombucha and water kefir:
Dark Forest Beverages
