WHAT -- Life Feeds on Life
WHAT -- Life Feeds on Life.
Fermentation is a transformational process catalyzed by microorganisms. The process of fermentation can be viewed as a breakdown/decay or as growth depending on whether you put your focus on the fermenting/decaying material or on the sprouting/growing bacterial culture. In the food world, fermentation is a controlled growth of anaerobic microbial cultures (bacteria, yeast, mold) catalyzing the breakdown process of food for the sake of preservation, nutrition or flavor. Most of the ferments that we consider delicacies are anaerobic processes (i.e. no oxygen.) We regard food as rotting/spoiling when the fermentation is not controlled.
WHY?
• Preservation/Harvest abundance/storage -- essential before refrigeration.
• Delicacy -- Improvement of Flavor
• Decreases cooking time/ saves fuel
• Health Benefits in the food
• Cycles yield opportunity
HEALTH BENEFITS
• Bio-availablity of minerals and vitamins through both the breakdown of cellulose walls in vegetables and B12 from the dying yeast and bacteria.
• Removes toxins (i.e. cyanide from cassava, phytic acid from grains and legumes)
• Probiotics -- Live Culture Ferments (see below) helps us digest other foods as well.
• Pre Digestion - Similar bacteria can break down foods in our belly or in a crock by breaking proteins into more assimilable amino acids and carbohydrates into more easily assimilable sugars. Cabbage is much easier for our belly to digest as kim chee or sauerkraut.
LIVE CULTURE FERMENTS
We only nourish the probiotic bacterial culture of our belly from fermented foods that we eat raw/'live' (such as sauerkraut, miso, yoghurt, kombucha.) I intentionally don't boil my miso soup to get the probiotics. Cooked miso still has the benefit of removing phytic acid from soybeans. Live Cultures are particularly important because modern medicine has recently waged a war on bacteria and our collective digestive system is suffering. (Much in the same way that the LIFE of the SOIL is suffering from the overuse of pesticides/herbicides.)
Dead Culture -- We still receive many benefits from fermenting foods that we cook (i.e. cultures in sourdough bread and tempeh break down of phytic acid, and even the sauerkraut on your reuben sandwich the culture has made vitamins and minerals more available.
CURING vs. FERMENTING
Curing is a separate food preservation technique involving salting or brining that does not necessarily involve microbial cultures. Salt is a great preserver of food. Generally, we know there is fermentation if alcohol or acid is released in the process (ethanol or lactic fermentation.) Some claim that there is some fermentation in many "cured" products: olives, charcuterie (prosciutto, salami), preserved lemons, salmon lox. I would believe that there is some amount of microbial action as they are everywhere.
WHO -- BACTERIA, YEAST, FUNGI
We live in an age of pasteurization/sterilization and germophobia.
Our profligate use of antibiotics, antibacterial soap, chlorinated water, sterilized environments, excessive alcohol consumption, mothers feeding formula rather than breast milk all contribute to not enough friendly probiotics in our bodies and our lives. Scared of dirt, we trust doctors to inject rat feces and brains of animals as vaccinations against what may come.
The primary players on the global scene (remember fermentation happens in compost piles and forests as well as in the foods we preserve):
Fungi, bacteria, nematodes, and protozoa are in symbiotic cycle with photosynthesizing plants doing the cosmic dance. Plants create carbohydrates from photosynthesis and uptake minerals from the soil. Microbes eat the decaying/fermenting/dying plants turning the carbohydrates back into soil and releasing the nutrients.
There are 100 trillion microbes in our gut (10 x the number of cells in our body). We also dance with microbes hoping that they break down our food for us and we act as movable condominiums.
HOW
The microbes do all the work. As the facilitator, the key factor for you to control is minimizing O2 (discouraging aerobic bacteria/molds). With fermentation, we are primarily working with anaerobic cultures. Regular feeding of a sourdough culture and ensuring that the brine is covering your sauerkraut will inhibit any mold formation.
Bacteria likes to grow in warm, moist conditions like the human body; so this is ideal conditions when you are making yoghurt or having bread rise or starting a sauerkraut but don't leave it like this for long or spoilage will occur. Timing is key in fermenting foods. Salt curing retards unwanted bacterial growth and lots of salt can inhibit or slow down the desired fermentation as well. Salt inhibits bacterial growth so if you have good safe conditions with awareness, you can use less salt and allow it to ferment more quickly.
There are two main categories of fermentation: Lactofermetnation and ethanol (alcohol) fermentation. The primary byproduct of ethanol fermentation is alcohol; whereas, the primary by product of homolactic fermentation is acid. Heterolactic fermentation produces both.
Ethanol fermentation -- 1 molecule glucose --> CO2 + alcohol
Homolactic fermentation -- 1 molecule glucose --> 2 molecules lactic acid
Heterolactic fermentation -- 1 molecule glucose --> 1 molecule lactic acid + CO2 + alcohol
PRACTICAL
1 # vegetable yields 1 pint fermented product with 2 – 2.5% salt = .4 oz salt = 2 tsp table salt. (NOTE: Salt weighs different amounts. Table salt weighs 1 oz = 1.5 T. So for 5 # of veggies, 3 Tablespoons is a good amount of table salt (and you could do as little as 2 or up to 4T). Too much salt will slow down (potentially stop) your fermentation while decreasing the chance of pathogens. Too little salt may allow unwanted microbial growth.