Fermented vegetables (Days i through xxvi)

Two weeks before we officially started the GAPS diet, it came to my attention that we were going to be fermenting vegetables.

Fermenting... Vegetables.

Ok, soooo I'm not sure what your initial reaction to this may be, but for me personally, even though I KNEW that this was standard practice for pretty much every existing culture in the world for several thousand years up until... very very recently I still had a bit of the " Um.. Ew." and "Wait... Is that... Safe?" reactions to work my way through. X)

In our western world, fermenting food is just something that we don't really think of much. We are so used to everything being sterilized, sanitized and otherwise "ized". That even though we may technically *know* that beer and wine and yogurt are fermented, and maybe we even know that sauerkraut or sour cream literally originally meant "soured kraut (cabbage)" and " cream that has been allowed to sour" respectively... Still, these things come to us in little sanitized bottles with pretty printed labels and we don't really have to think much about the fact that it was once something that was a food substance, that has now had it's properties altered by the presence of some or other bacteria or yeast that was ALLOWED to grow in it *intentionally* and.. yes.. it is fermented.

The essence of the GAPS diet is obtaining proper, easily digestible nutrition, and obtaining and keeping the proper gut flora. (So that your gut/immune system heals properly.) Since in sauerkraut, yogurt, cultured butter, kifer etc. those self-same bacteria that ferment your food, are actually the kind of bacteria your gut needs, and since they are also foods that are easily digestible with highly available nutrients, eating fermented foods is part and parcel to the GAPS diet.

Aaaaaaand since the easiest to digest and least allergy-causing one of those things is the juice ( not even the actual vegetables yet) from vegetables that have been fermented. You guessed it, you start there. You make your own. So, we made our own.
A note that I personally would add to anyone with access to major health food stores such as WholeFoods. Some of these stores actually carry fermented vegetables (such as sauerkraut) with the live cultures still in them. So, if you want to start asap, or you suddenly run out unexpectedly. You could probably use these just fine for a little while. (so long as they don't contain any chemicals or preservatives. =)
My mother and I... do not have any such luck. So, like I said we have made every scrap of our own so far. The recipe that we used/made can be found at this link on my other blog. Pretty much every recipe that we found was...quite frankly... a bit confusing! So, that is our simplified and " bettered" version for easy use. ^_^

At any rate, with bit of realization, a package or two of living bacteria, and a smidgen of mental adjusting, I have now drunk the juice from said fermented vegetables..(and eaten a few as well) and not only that, I ... survived! =p
They're admittedly *not* the tastiest things in the world...being .. rather (extremely) SOUR but hey, they're actually not as bad as I expected. I found it kinda nifty that they didn't... you know... rot. They actually just ferment and bubble away on the counter there for a couple of weeks. There is a top layer "seal leaf" (of cabbage) on the top that actually may rot a bit.. but everything underneath is just.. fine. I'll admit, I was probably pretty pathetic in how amazing I found that to be. haha!

So, yes. They are now fermented, and I have eaten them... and the happy little bugs they contain are inside me; helping, heal my gut, kill off bad bugs, be happy, live a long joyous life, you know... all that jazz. ^_^ Here's hoping!