Fermented Vegetables Research
Fermented foods play a vital role in nurturing your microbiome and your health!
There is a growing body of scientific research to support what most cultures have known for thousands of years – fermented foods play a critical role in nurturing a healthy microbiome; and a healthy microbiome is an essential foundation for good overall health.
Almost every culture has developed its own versions of cultured foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles, kefir, yogurt, kvass, kombucha, cheese, beer, and wine. These have played a vital role for two key reasons:
1. The natural process of lacto-fermentation safely preserves them for future consumption
2. The consumption of fermented foods delivers essential nutrients and probiotics that promote a healthy microbiome
In this modern era of widespread refrigeration, the first role has become less important, but the second is now much more important than ever.
Studies of the human microbiome confirm that gut and digestive health are foundational to our overall health and well-being. Modern diets and lifestyles tend to reduce the diversity of our microbiomes and render us vulnerable. For example, antibiotics deplete both good bacteria and bad, and restoring a healthy microbiome can take years after treatment.
According to the Weston A. Price Foundation:
“Like the fermentation of dairy products, preservation of vegetables and fruits by the process of lacto-fermentation has numerous advantages beyond those of simple preservation. The proliferation of lactobacilli in fermented vegetables enhances their digestibility and increases vitamin levels. These beneficial organisms produce numerous helpful enzymes as well as antibiotic……substances. Their main by-product, lactic acid, not only keeps vegetables and fruits in a state of perfect preservation but also promotes the growth of healthy flora throughout the intestine.”
Eating fermented foods can help replenish your microbiome, help increase its probiotic diversity, help restore your digestive function, and help improve your overall health.
Making your own fermented foods is healthy and safe
First, when making your own fermented foods you are able to ensure that your ingredients are healthy, clean, natural and local and organic if possible. Second, when you make them yourself you know that the healthy bacteria will not have been killed through pasteurization. Most people are surprised to learn that almost all commercially available sauerkraut has been pasteurized. Third, we are better at eating well when the right foods are readily available to us. When you make your own, most people make enough to meet their needs for weeks or months and the great thing about fermented vegetables is that they can stay delicious and healthy for months and even years.
Using Cutting Edge Starter Culture will improve your results
Cutting Edge Starter Culture is a synergistic blend of carefully selected bacteria strains – each plays a vital role in optimizing the natural lacto fermentation process to ensure that you achieve healthy and delicious results.
When we started, our mission was simply to make a better starter to improve results when fermenting vegetables. We went all the way back to the drawing board and into the laboratory. We identified species of bacteria and probiotics that occur naturally and have demonstrated efficacy in catalyzing the fermentation of vegetables. We studied the roles that each play in the process and we realized that the best overall results were obtained when we used a combination of three different bacteria, as each plays a unique role at a particular stage of the process. This was only the beginning – we then combined these cultures in numerous different blends and tested, tested and tested. Eventually we achieved the superior results we knew were possible.
One of the key criteria we used to evaluate our blends was how quickly and by how much the acidity increased after fermentation began. The faster you can drop the pH in your homemade fermented vegetables (and thereby increase acidity), the healthier and safer they will be.
As the results above demonstrate, we accomplished our goal. Cutting Edge Cultures’ starter culture catalyzes the natural lacto-fermentation process and induces a much faster reduction in pH than using no starter culture. Furthermore, using our starter culture produced dramatically better results than the leading competing starter culture.
If you’re ready to improve your gut microbiome and enjoy delicious homemade fermented vegetables, check out our starter culture now.
Disclaimer: Information provided in this communication is not to be taken as medical advice or professional diagnosis. This is general information for educational purposes only.