Fermanted Foods Boost Our Immune System

Photo: 1,2,3RF

After years of reading about the power of fermented foods, I now drink 1/2 cup of homemade kombucha daily ... or try to eat kimchi, sauerkraut, yogurt, or pickled vegetables (includes green pickles, i.e., baby cucumbers) -- alternating them into a given week of meals. Cider vinegar contains a few probiotics and can be turned into a delicious vinaigrette salad dressing. Fermented foods, a source of natural probiotics, help to rev up our immune system by keeping our gut microbiome healthy and balanced.

According to Dr. Vincent Pedre, author of 'Happy Gut,"and quoted in Better Nutrition magazine, "Seventy percent of our immune system is located in our gut lining." It's the area where ''the immune system is programmed," he states in the article (October 2021 issue). 

Fermented foods introduce good bacteria that fight the bad bacteria (microbes), which can also live in our gut microbiome. We carry about 4 pounds of microbes in our gut to help us digest our food. 

{Although not qualified to know having not gone to medical school, I wonder if some of the people who have irritable bowel syndrome would benefit from eating fermented foods. For sure, it won't hurt them and possibly balance their gastrointestinal tracts.}

Paraphrasing the article, fermented foods increase the variety "of microbes in the gut and decrease levels of 19 inflammatory markers in the blood." Dr. Pedre claims good bacteria helps to ''protect us from having a runaway inflammatory immune response" if we get an infection. In addition, eating fiber helps to maintain good gut bacteria and improves its performance.

As Dr Pedre explains, the combination of eating fermented foods and a high fiber diet gives us the best defense in fighting off colds, flu, and even COVID-19.

If not already eating fermented foods, consider including them in your diet ... but start slowly (for example, consume 1/2 cup of kombucha or 2/3 cup of pickled vegetables or 1 cup of yogurt in a meal -- mixing it up over a week). Let your digestive system adjust to the addition of fermented foods to your diet. Don't suddenly shock your gut with a ton of probiotics by eating too much of a good thing in a single day. Over time, you can increase your intake of fermented foods without the side effects (i.e., having to run to the bathroom).

Getting your probiotics by eating fermented foods is better and less expensive than taking probiotic pills. Food gives you organic probiotics in the right amounts.

On occasion, I make kimchi, less often yogurt, and pickle my own black olives; and now regularly I make kombucha. It's surprisingly easy ... as well as, interesting to learn how, so give it a try.

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Making Homemake Yogurt

Photo: My Healthy Green Family (here)

Years ago while still living at home with my parents, I bought a yogurt machine. I still have it and recently decided to make homemade yogurt again. Supermarket yogurt keeps shrinking. I need a full cup of yogurt to feel satisfied. So, I will go back to making it myself! 

You don't need a machine to make fresh yogurt. All a yogurt machine does is control the temperature like an incubator. If you don't have a yogurt machine, you can pour treated milk into a pot or jar, mix in plain yogurt (as a starter), wrap towels around  it, and put the batch inside your oven, using the pilot light to keep it warm until it turns into yogurt about 12 hours later. 110-112 degrees F is the desired temperature.

Since I have a yogurt machine, I use it. I replaced the 6 ounce (grrr!!!), milk cups with 8 ounce, Mason jars. Not only do they hold more yogurt, they travel well. I love the metal, screw-on lids. Very secure ... and I feel a bit like a city dairy farmer pulling out my canning jars. I'm a serious yogurt maker, mister! 

I like to use powder milk to make yogurt because it produces a good consistency. Here's how:

My yogurt machine

Homemade Yogurt - one quart

Ingredients:
4½ cups water
1 2/3 cups dry powder milk (that's a little extra for a thicker yogurt)
2 - 3 tablespoons of plain yogurt with live active cultures

You can buy plain supermarket yogurt for your first batch, then remember to save a few tablespoons of the last of the yogurt to make future batches.

Directions: 
1. Boil the water to kill any bad bacteria.
2. Let the water cool to about 110 degrees F, so you don't kill the good yogurt bacteria.
3. Stir the dry powder milk (equals 5 tablespoons per cup + a little extra) into the water until it dissolves.

Photo: Lousia Enright (here)

4. Next whisk in the plain yogurt.
5. Pour into a large jar or individual containers, or leave in the pot. My 8 ounce Mason jars go into my yogurt machine with their medal lids, but without the screw-on cylinders.
6. Leave for 12 hours.

If you use liquid milk, it's super easy too. Just heat one quart of milk and let cool. Whole milk and 2% milk make a thicker yogurt. Skim milk yields a thinner yogurt. Just like when using dry milk, add the spoons of plain yogurt to the liquid milk. Pour into container(s). Let the batch set for 12 hours. Voilà.

Time makes a thicker yogurt also. The longer the batch sits, the thicker the yogurt. But, the longer the yogurt sits, the more sour it becomes. So to keep the taste mild, I pop the yogurt into the refrigerator after 12 hours. I prefer a thinner and milder flavor to a thicker and sharper taste. Some manufacturers add gelatin to thicken the yogurt, but I like to keep yogurt-making simple.

Greek yogurt is yogurt strained of some of its liquid (a/k/a whey). Drain more whey to get yogurt cheese.

Enjoy the creamy freshness!

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