How to improve your gut health, affordably, at home || Part One — Sauerkraut
There are a thousand different ways that our physiological systems work to keep us safe and healthy, and only a scant few that we are conscious of.
To name just a few of the big ones - nervous system, lymphatic system, movement systems, cardiovascular, and limbic.
As the body of scientific evidence grows we humans seem to be improving our awareness of the fact that health is health. Whether we are talking about our mental, physical or even spiritual wellbeing, the illusion that these work independently of each other seems to be decreasing in popularity.
We know now that the mind and body are not, in fact, as separate as we once believed.
This is fortunate because one of the biggest levers for our all-over-health, is our gut and the microbiome.
It is a persistent myth that we need buy expensive supplements to ensure that our gut health is maintained. In fact, every culture in the world traditionally had some kind of fermented food as a staple. You can see 36 examples right here.
The most common ones we tend to see around our way are Korean Kimchi, or various forms of Kombucha (most likely originally from China and shared via the Silk Road to Europe) and various types of sauerkraut or fermented vegetables. Even cheese is fermented.
It has become a passion to learn simple, accessible recipes for fermented foods to use on high rotation at home without an excess of complicated processes or specialist equipment.
The first we will explore in this series, is sauerkraut.
SAUERKRAUT RECIPE
You’ll Need
- Bowls for mixing - either wooden or glass preferably (not metal)
- Large wide mouth jars Woods spoons, or wooden rolling pin with flat ends (for tamping)
- A thoroughly cleaned rock or shot glass (to use as a weight)
- NOTE: Thoroughly rinse before use leaving no remnants of detergent, or fermenting process may be affected.
Ingredients:
- Sea salt
- Green cabbage (keep a few large outer leaves aside)
- Extras like red cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, beetroot
- Optional extras like apples, garlic, onion, ginger, dill, parsley, fresh turmeric (grated)
- Whole spices like turmeric, caraway seeds, juniper berries, nigella seed, black or yellow mustard seeds, fennel seeds. You can pick and choose which to use, no need to add them all.
Method:
- Roughly slice or chop the cabbage, be sure not to slice it too finely so it doesn’t ferment into a mushy texture. Keep the proportion even so more than half of your quantity is green cabbage.
- Grate carrots, slice cauliflower, onions or any other optional ingredients (avoid cucumber, particularly cucumber ends).
- Add salt and mix through.
- Add spices.
- Squeeze handfuls of the mixture tightly with clean hands, or bash with a wooden tamping implement and break the structure of the cabbage till liquid begins to appear, mixing all ingredients as you go.
- Add a few large spoonfuls to the jar and compress it some more with the tamping implement until more liquid appears. Repeat till jar is full.
- Use the larger outer leaves set aside earlier as a cover to push the mixture below the liquid and weight it down with a rock or a shot glass wedged under the lid.
- Place lid on and wrap in a tea towel, and place in a cupboard away from light and temperature changes for 7 days or more.
- IMPORTANT to ‘burp’ the jar by opening the lid every day or two to allow the gases to escape and prevent a build up of unreleased gases.
- Check it and place in fridge when you’re satisfied with the flavour to halt fermentation.
- Serve with clean, NON-metal implements.
Lasts in the fridge for up to 2 months.
Enjoy!
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