Make Your Own Traditional Fermented Foods to Improve Your Digestive Health

Tips for making traditional fermented foods teeming with beneficial bacteria

I make my own yogurt, pickled vegetables, and sauerkraut since many of the fermented products sold in stores offer few or none of the digestive health benefits these traditional fermented foods can provide in their unprocessed forms. For example, the FDA requires commercial sauerkraut to be pasteurized, which effectively destroys all the bacteria in it, including the beneficial lactic acid bacteria that boost digestive health. 

There are three tools that will come in handy if you decide to make your own cultured-milk products and pickled vegetables:

1. Miracle yogurt maker. To ferment milk at home I use the Miracle Yogurt Maker by Miracle Exclusives.
2. Fermenting crock pot. To ferment cabbage and other vegetables, I use the Fermenting Crock Pot, also by Miracle Exclusives.
3. Sally Fallon’s book, Nourishing Traditions. There are several books currently in print on the subject of lactic-acid fermentation as a method of preserving food. One I highly recommend is Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. It has a wealth of information on various health topics and dozens of great recipes. Only one chapter deals with lactic acid-fermented foods, but it contains recipes for sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers, garlic, beets, radish, corn relish, potatoes, various chutneys, Korean kimchi, and more. You can order Nourishing Traditions from www.amazon.com.

More Dr. Williams Advice on Digestive Health and Traditional Fermented Foods

• The ways traditional fermented foods help digestion
• Which traditional fermented foods you should add to your diet