Why Fermented Foods?

I recently read The Good Gut by Stanford researchers Justin and Erica Sonnenburg. The book is about caring for your microbiome, the microbes that inhabit your gut and keep you healthy.

One of their recommendations is to eat more fermented foods that are full of beneficial live cultures. I started by trying kefir, a fermented milk product that can be found in most grocery stores. My local store has this brand.

It tastes pleasant enough, and I have already noticed a difference in my...um...end product of digestion.

With regard to other fermented foods, there is sauerkraut, but I'm not sure if the sauerkraut that I buy at the store has live cultures in it to feed my microbiome. Supposedly, it is possible to find fermented pickles in stores, but I haven't hunted for them. 

Not only that, man does not live by kefir and sauerkraut, alone. (I hope.) I've decided to try fermenting my own foods at home. It is supposed to be easy. My wife is thinking, "Oh boy. This is going to be the year of weird food." Well, maybe, but I'll give it a shot.

Growing my own micro-organisms for food production is not totally new to me. I've been making sourdough bread for many years. I raised my latest starter from the wild. The story of my sourdough adventure is described in my other blog, The Sourdough Chronicles.

My first attempt was to make my own kefir.