Health, Home, and Happiness

A list of links to step-by-step instructions in pictures, follow the links below. In general, it's 2 tablespoons of whey and 1 tablespoon of sea salt to 2 little jars or one big jar. Lactofermented veggies are a really neat way to liven up foods. We're all familliar with pickle relish, but modern relish is made with vinegar due to industrilization's desire to have every jar be exactly the same. The old way of preserving veggies for the winter was to use good bacteria (the exact same as is found in yogurt, see how I made yogurt to start this whole process) to crowd out the bad bacteria in the jars, thus keeping the food from spoiling.

Westonprice.org goes into the same stuff that I read in Nourishing Traditions about how eating lactofermented food is so good for digestion, absorption of nutritients, and keeping the body's bacterial system in balance. Just like soaking whole wheat flour to make bread (how I do it is here) makes it easier to digest and absorb the nutrients, not to mention how much better it tastes, lactofermenting veggies does the same for nutrient-dense but economical vegetables.

I love that I don't have to do cans in hot water baths and pressure cookers like traditional canning. Who wants to do that in the heat of the summer when produce is ready to be picked? I just follow the instructions in Nourishing Traditions; grating or chopping my vegetable, adding salt and whey, then filtered water as needed. Screw a canning jar lid (or even a clean applesauce jar worked) on tight, but don't do anything else. Let it sit out on the counter for a few days to get the process started, then transfer to the warm part of a fridge (or root cellar if we had that)

Surprised that my family will eat this? Well, my husband will eat the sauerkraut and pickles, nothing else so far. I'm going to try putting the radishes in his sandwiches. My daughter loves the sourness of it all, as I talked about back here.

Worried about serving your family 'bad' food that will make them sick? Sally Fallon, in Nourishing Traditions, states that if an occasional batch does go bad, when you open it the smell will be so awful that nothing could persuade you to eat it. I felt better knowing this. I'll admit that last time I did let it sit in the fridge for a good week or two before trying it, to make sure that if it was going to go bad I'd be sure to know it. This time I'm more confident in the process and we started eating some ginger carrots and sauerkraut after just letting it sit 4 days.

Links:

The purple is beet kvass

Pink is radishes

Orange is ginger carrots

The pickles are pretty obvious

And the pale jars are saurkraut

On another page: Green Beans