Re: Fermented cabbage

[Guest guest]

A caution about fermented foods. We went to town on the cultured

veggies on the Body Ecology Diet for 6 months last year. We used

mostly " wild " culturing, in which you clean and shred the raw

veggies, make a " brine " with some of the pureed veggies, water and

seasalt, pack them into sealed jars with brine to the top, and let

sit for a week. The ferment in their own native flora and enzymes.

While they were delicious, we had two types of negative reactions:

1) Tom developed a D-lactate condition, probably from an over-

exposure to l. acidophilus (or other wild acidic bacteria). He can

no longer take any l. acidophilus probiotics, and this kind of

intestinal acidosis can lead to pancreatitis if unchecked.

2) The raw veggies were too hard for him to digest. We have since

gone to an all-well-cooked SCD diet and he's doing MUCH better.

If I were to try cultured veggies again, I would inject the brine

with a starter of whatever probiotic we were using, to ensure the

right kinds of flora. Wild fermentation can be risky. If raw veggies

are still too hard for your child to digest, you can still ferment

the veggies and just give him the fermented juice, but not the

vegetables themselves.

Then there's coconut kefir. Email me if you want some info on that.

There's been a lot of discussion about cultured veggies on the

Pecanbread board lately.

Suzanne