Fermented Food Health Benefits

Ted mentioned once that to consider all soy sauce an amino acid supplement, since they are fermented rich in amino acids and eat all your food with it. It will instantly increase the bioavailability of all the foods you eat. And your food suddenly becomes "chelated" increasing the biovailability of most anything. Shall I eat it direct from the bottle with food or use in cooking? Which has more benefits? thanks a lot.

Hi, we bought a yogurt maker yesterday and made our first batch last night. Great yogurt, I must add, although I normally don't even like yogurt. Maybe some of you have tips that will help us make creamy, delicious yogurts...... We tried plain ones, with added pineapple (a mistake as the milk curded)and added strawberries (better but the milk still curds). I think that if you compote the fruit with a tiny little bit of sugar maybe the milk won't curd (I did that and added to the plain yogurt, a treat! ). And, does anyone know whether one can add cream to the milk to make them creamier? I didn't find much useful information on the Internet but I learnt that one can flavour them with spices like cinnamon or vanilla. I suppose one can also melt chocolate au bain-marie and add a bit of cream so that it doesn't harden when you add to the milk mixture? Any ideas will be welcome as I need to eat yogurt to aid my digestion!

Hello Francisca,
I use a slow cooker to make yogurt (large 6 qt. ). here's the recipe:
you need 3 things: a slow cooker, milk, and yogurt starter(either 8oz PLAIN dannon or starter from a health food store-I just use the cheap PLAIN 8oz. Yogurt from the grocery store)

prep time: <10 MIN. >, total time: 13 1/2 hrs. (depending on how sour you prefer)---the whole thing is basically--Kill--cool--culture

1. sanitize the crockpot w/ boiling water

2.pour 1 gal. Milk into cp--- (I use a gal. Cos we like it and I substitute it in recipes calling for sour cream, soups, baked potatoes, cold salads req. mayo etc.

3. turn crockpot on high for 1.5hrs. or low for 2.5hrs.---this step kills bacteria should heat up to 170 degrees.

4.turn cp off for 3hrs. ( in step #3, I didn't have a kit. thermometer so I just did the times exactly in the recipe and it turned out perfect the 1st time)

5.after 3hrs. Take lid off and add starter with a wisk BLEND THOROUGHLY. if you can stick your pinkie finger w/o too hot, it will culture probiotics just fine don't let it get too cool either.

1 gal. Milk=8oz. Starter

1/2 gal. Milk=4oz. starter

etc.

6. put lid back on and cover with a heavy towel for< 9 hours. > longer if you prefer more sour.

7.this next step is optional. You can leave the yogurt as is and add fruit/honey/oatmeal/raisins/banana/ whatever you like. DO NOT ADD WHILE MAKING YOGURT OR IT WILL NOT WORK.

8. I strain the yogurt in my fridge by placing clean cotton cloth inside a collander (plastic), inside a larger bowl to catch the whey protein (flip a small bowl to elevate the collander) some strain at room temp but I prefer to halt sour flavor

this step yeilds the greek yogurt--approx. Half a gal. And a half a gal. Of whey protein. That is also loaded with probiotics. You can add a little sweetener and drink it. Some people reboil the wp and make ricotta cheese. xtra straining yeilds yogurt cheese.

I've tried the coffee filters, cheese cloth ect. But didn't like the outcome as the coffee filters disintegrate and the cheesecloth looses some of the yogurt into the whey protein. A clean t-shirt cut to fit the collander is best. The way I wash after use is to put into sink w/ boiling water, few drops of soap, and a 1/4 c. Bleach. use tongs to handle while washing then throw into dryer til next time.

First time I made this I assumed it would take the 2 weeks to help my digestion as the advertised yogurt who shall remain nameless. within an hour of consuming it, I had to run to the bathroom, yeah!

Also, using whole milk will obviously yeild more greek yogurt but it is so rich I only eat a couple of tablespoons at a time.

easy on the pocket book as well. 1 gal. Of milk ( with store prices for yogurt , whey protein and cheese) can yeild consevatively $20-$28 USD, not a bad deal huh!

Hope this helps. It takes longer to read this than it does to actually do it. God Bless!

Hi Francisca,

That's great that you are making your own yogurt! I make my own kefir and love the taste and health benefits. There is a really great website that has tutorial videos and also articles on making various fermented foods. They have info up there for yogurt as well. You'll find it interesting. It's called culturesforhealth.com It's where I got my kefir grains from originally and also my Viili starter which is a Finnish yogurt. My daughter in law is Finnish/ French so I thought I would make that one since she'd told me about her love for it.

Also, I drain my yogurt so that my yogurt has a heavier body. Yes, you can also use cream as well w/ the milk for it to be creamier. Homemade yogurt has about 7 different strains of bacteria in it. Of course, our gut needs the good bacterias for our health and immunity. Hope this info helps.

Thanks Lisa, I will surely have a look at the site you mention. As I think that I said I actually hate the taste of yogurt and I don't drink milk either, never! But the yogurt with fruits is really excellent and somehow, although a lot of people complain that their yogurt is thin (I suppose this is the reason you strain yours) mine is very thick, like a pudding (I left it in the machine for 10 hours and used full fat milk with an Activia yogurt).

Maybe you can answer this question as well, a friend of mine told me that her doctor said that you should eat the yogurt after the sell by date as the culture then will be a lot better. Have you ever heard of this? That would mean that you can keep yogurts for a lot longer which would be good for my own starter yogurt as we travel a lot and I won't be able to use it always within a week.

Dried milk powder makes yoghurt thick and creamy (non-fat or fat). Whip it well into your milk with a beater. I think honey is wonderful with yoghurt and best breakfast is swiss: raw, whole oats left in yoghurt for at least 1/2 hour, liquid honey and grated apple. I used to make yoghurt by:

1)warming milk to blood temperature (feel on wrist)

2)add whatever type of yoghurt you want to use as a starter (1 small pot).

3)Whip in powdered milk , a little gelatine or agaragar powder makes it thicker.

4)Pour mixture into warmed, clean preserving jars.

5)Wrap jars with an old towel and place in cupboard next to your hotwater heater, a radiator on low heat, your furnace. Temp. needs to be about 30 ° continuously.

6) Leave overnight. Next morning or when thick put lids on jars and store in fridge.

Thanks Mesem for your detailed explanation. I do have a yogurt maker now though. As far as the milk powder goes I don't need to use it as my yogurts came out very thick, maybe because I left them there for 10 hours and also I have read that milk powder is not good for your health because of oxydation, I believe. By the way, I have just found some books on how to make all kinds of yogurts on Amazon France. The British and the American one don't seem to have anything in English but the French ones sound rather promising, maybe I buy one......

Hi Francisca, That's great that your yogurt comes out so thick right away. That can change as temperatures change. Just so you know though, you really don't need any special equipment to make yogurt or kefir. I just make them in a jar and set it on my counter.

As for what your friend's Dr. said, yes, that is correct. The benefits become stronger as time goes by. I actually leave my kefir on the counter. I don't refrigerate it which is how it was traditionally done from what I have learned. If you go to the kefir section here on EC you will see other posts of mine w/ links on info on kefir, yogurt and kombucha. They are all related in that they are all fermented foods/ drinks. Hope this info helps.

Thanks for all your good advice once more, Lisa! I am making a new batch of yogurt as we speak, this time some plain, some with strawberries or pineapple cooked in a bit of gelifying sugar for a few minutes to see whether the acid disappears and they stay good and one with cinnamon and vanilla. They will be ready tonight!

Thanks for the address to the site as well, very interesting also because of the sprouted flour they sell but we don't have that here in Europe, unfortunately, might be quite healthy I suppose....

I have tried Kombucha in the past but I never felt any benefits, to be honest so I stopped buying it. I know you can make your own but I never dared for fear something goes wrong. Kefir I never tried but as I tend to dislike anything milky it is maybe not for me. You can buy it in the health shops here.

As far as my friends' doctor advice I don't know anymore as I read on a site that if you buy active yogurts to use as a starter for your own they lose the amount of live bacteria as the time goes by, meaning that using your own, maybe after it has been ready for maybe 5 days would be the same. So.... Do yogurts become better with the age or do they lose the healthy bacteria? I don't know anymore!

This is how I make my yogurt these days and I've never had a batch not turn out good. I pour whole milk into a quart size mason jar then add 1 TBSP of plain yogurt from my last batch (or from store bought) and 1 TBSP of sugar (I use organic). Then I put a tight lid on and shake it all up real good. Then I turn on the oven light and let it set in there for two days. After that I refrigerate it, then when it's cold I strain it to thicken (Greek). I've found this method, though it takes a day longer than the boiling method, to result in a thicker yogurt even before straining plus I don't make a mess and it's much easier to make; therefore I'm more inclined to make it. *adding the TBSP of sugar gives the culture something to "feed" on.

I suffered from cold sores for many years. Then I read about a cure that used sauerkraut juice to cure them. I tried it at several outbreaks and they quickly disappeared. It may be the L-lysine in the juice. They went away and have not come back for years.

nay, made the skin burn and go bright red even though it was washed off immediately.

In regard to sauerkraut for cold sores- did you drink this or use it topically?! It sounds like you tried it topically. I think John meant that you should drink it as a remedy for the cold sores.

I was reading over natural cures for Acid Reflux, or GERD, and noticed no one mentioned sauerkraut. I have been using this and it does work wonders. I used to get pains like aliens eating through my body from the GERD, and the sauerkraut has helped immensely. I don't like the taste of it, so I'm going to try a few things mentioned on this site. 2 tblsp sauerkraut 2x daily helps clear the nausea and pain for me.

I make a large container of kimchee and keep it on hand when I feel my intestinal and vaginal candida starting to act up. For me, it really helps nip an attack in the bud, and seems to raise my immunity generally. It even seems to ward of a cold or any kind of respiratory infection.

Here's my recipe: Buy a big head of nappa cabbage. Coarsely dice, and steam in the microwave with a small amount of water for five minutes only. It should still be crisp.

Place the semi-cooked nappa in a large bowl.

Add the following to taste and toss with the nappa: about 1/2 cup of Vietnamese Chili Garlic Sauce. This can be purchased at any well-stocked Oriental grocery. The kind I purchase has no sugar, although it does contain vinegar (but that doesn't seem to lessen the benefits in my case.)

Then dice and add 3 or 4 raw scallions.

Grate a large carrot and then, finely dice and add 2 large garlic cloves. Lastly, grate about 2 TBSP of RAW, FRESH ginger and add. Pour on about 1/2 cup water to make a "sauce" that will distribute all of these ingredients with the nappa when mixed together. The result should be a pungent, head-clearing "salad" that I eat in between meals a half-cup at a time, a few times a day when experiencing symptoms.

If you are familiar with kimchee, you know that it traditionally contains fermented fish sauce, so I leave this out, of course. My kimchee stays in my refrigerator at all times and will not spoil, so it can be kept on hand to have when needed. It's a good thing I enjoy eating it. It's great as a condiment on rice, but mixing it with other foods seems to lessen its punch for me. One more thing. It does cause garlic breath, so I brush and gargle with baking soda. It helps me so much with my candida and general immunity, that I'm not willing to give it up!