The Fermenting Fermentalist …

My new nickname, apparently. Thank you, dear husband. (Although, to be fair I probably prefer it to a previous: Sue Ellen.)

Anyway… Sauerkraut, Kimchi, Kombucha? Eh? I hadn’t really heard of any of these before I started all this. These are some of the names of the more popular fermented foods flying around. An uncle of mine lives in Korea, he talked about kimchi to me once before, but it didn’t mean much to me then. This conversation, however, might have been when I was in my 20s and consuming not much other than tomato pasta and diet coke; I certainly didn’t think all those years ago that it would be something I would be making myself, and eating on a regular basis.

There was an interesting TV documentary on a year or so ago about the world’s healthiest countries. Great Britain was not one of them, unsurprisingly. Korea was, however. One of the reasons they thought being: the cultural norm of regularly eating fermented foods.

“Fermentation promotes the growth and life cycle of good bacteria to transform the flavour and shelf life of ingredients.” I’ve quoted this straight from a BBC Good Food article.

As mentioned in my last blog post, one of the ways I’m hoping to help Stella improve her gut microbiome (and therefore, very hopefully, her Crohn’s) is by taking daily probiotics via supplements, as well as food. The worry though is that probiotics in the form of tablets/powder may not reach where we want them to reach in the gut (where it feeds off the prebiotics), as the strains of bacteria within them could potentially be destroyed by the acid in the stomach. Also, do these manufactured probiotics really contain what they claim they do? Clearly, I’m not that opposed to manufactured probiotics because I’ve been giving them to my children for years; but since I’ve discovered the art of fermenting, I feel more confident, perhaps, that there are natural probiotics, and much more of them, getting in to their little guts — and hopefully doing their job.

I’ll quote from something online that I came across which talked about a study carried out by a team of doctors who said this:

“It’s unusual to find a probiotic supplement containing more than 10 billion colony-forming units. But when a team for Dr. Mercola actually tested fermented vegetables produced by probiotic starter cultures, they found 10 trillion colony-forming units of bacteria. Literally, one serving (a few forkfuls) of the fermented vegetables was equal to an entire bottle of a high potency probiotic!”

Works for me! Also, fermenting vegetables works out a lot cheaper. Sauerkraut itself is cabbage and salt. That’s it.

Safe to say after reading this article that I felt pretty confident and inspired that my hours of chopping and kneading vegetables, as well as bribing my children into eating them, was most definitely not a waste of time.

I attempted to make my own sauerkraut first about a year ago. It did not work out! I saw too many of, what I thought were, suspiciously weird floaty things at the top. No chance was I going to feed this stuff to anyone, let alone Stella, on drugs which suppress her immune system. I chucked my attempt in the bin and looked online for stuff to buy. I came across The Edinburgh Fermentarium which is a company which make a variety of fermented foods and can deliver to your house. It’s also non pasteurised, which is important. Sauerkraut that you can buy in the supermarket will likely be pasteurised and so pointless if you are taking it for the purpose of probiotics; the heat required to pasteurise will perhaps kill off the good bacteria.

We got into the (lazy) habit of ordering jars of fermented food from The Edinburgh Fermentarium. They were delicious, nicely packaged (!), always prompt delivery but I couldn’t help but think…surely I could do this myself?

One of my wonderful friends, equally into gut health, told me about a Gut Health workshop, focusing on fermenting foods, taken place earlier this year. We went together, armed with our new notebooks (losers), learnt loads, and best of all, ate a ton of delish fermented food. Beetroot and walnut dip on fermented raw kimchi crackers, anyone?

It was hosted by two lovely GPs who specialise in lifestyle medicine, with a lady called Janice Clyne, aka The Fermenting Queen as I’m now calling her, who taught us, step by step how to do it. It was a really inspiring event, helped by someone who testified that her own ill health had dramatically improved after shifting her focus into what she was eating and her gut health.

I’ve since been determined to continue preparing and feeding us all fermented food, mostly vegetables so far. I’m also giving some to our neighbours — whether they like it or not!

It’s really not difficult. The hacking of the vegetables into tiny slices is probably the hardest – but then I’m thinking I just need a new knife.

I’m aiming to always have enough sauerkraut (or kimchi, whatever) available to have at least once a day with dinner, and at least a teaspoon or 2 amount. I had been sneaking it underneath the girls’ dinner but then smarty pants husband pointed out that it might be heating up too much therefore losing its benefits, so I’m just putting it to the side with whatever they are having, and they have to eat it — or no pudding, usual age-old bribery.

My fave at the moment is a pineapple, ginger and turmeric kraut. It’s really delicious. It takes about 5 – 14 days to ferment (the longer the better) so currently waiting for that batch to be ready. Meanwhile, we’re still going through a jar of sauerkraut that another wonderful friend made me. We all appear to be a bit obsessed with this.

Another one we use regularly is my fermented garlic (who knew?) This goes with pretty much everything. I just drizzle it on like a dressing onto whatever and it tastes great.

Please, if you want to learn more about fermenting foods, visit nourishedbynature which is Janice Clyne’s fabulous blog. She shares a ton of plant based and fermented recipes, as well as dates of future workshops.

This is my finale blog post, yay! I’m thinking I really ought to get back to actually doing all the things, as opposed to writing about them. I have actually enjoyed it, has been cathartic, ish. But, it was only ever going to be about our journey from when it all kicked off to the present time; to hopefully spread the word about what we think might be working for us. It may not work, as I keep saying, it may be just the drugs themselves that are keeping Stella in remission, but my gut feeling (no pun intended) is that it’s all going to be beneficial for her and our health anyway, Crohn’s or no Crohn’s.

So, off to the kitchen (with my new little pantry) I go, to carry on my mission. To continue to feed Stella the most nutritious food that I possibly can which suits her, while trying to stay sane in the process. And who knows, maybe things will improve, or at least, stay as they are; and our unbelievably brave and courageous wee girl remains well — and might even keep her six-pack.

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Thank you to Tracy Mackenzie for the all your time spent helping me at the beginning; and for the homework!

Thanks to my Brother in law, David, for your almost weekly tech input — but have you even read ONE?!!

And obviously, thanks, poor, long-suffering husband, who I’m sure has regretted buying me this laptop; and is looking forward to being able to get on with his own work without having to be constantly interrupted to read — and read again these posts.

Some people have suggested I continue this on Instagram later with maybe recipes etc, but I know that Instagram involves being short n snappy, which clearly I’m no good at. I might, if anything, post updates regarding Stella’s progress once in a while, I might post these here too if anyone is interested. You’ll find me on usvcrohns on Instagram if I do.

Thank you SO MUCH for reading.