Fermented foods shaped human biology

https://press.asimov.com/articles/culture-shift

by mailyk • 4 months ago

115 61 4 months ago

press.asimov.com

brewcejener• 4 months ago

Sourdough and sunshine are all you need.

znort_• 4 months ago

sourdough

nice, but too complicated. slice a cabbage, add some salt, pound it, stash it for 10-15 days, enjoy. easy peasy and delicious (optionally pour some olive oil, vinegar and pepper on the serving for flavour).

just make sure i has enough juice to stay covered. odds are it doesn't; popular wisdom is topping it up with some extra brine. i prefer white wine.

papyrus9244• 4 months ago

Sourdough doesn't need to be complicated.

You get the starter by leaving flour and water at room temperature for several days. Once the starter is ready, it's just more flour and water, plus additional ingredients (salt, seeds, olive oil, etc) sitting for several hours until it's ready to go in the oven.

I've followed sourdough recipes that were extremely complicated, which required me doing task every few hours for 3 days (so no way to do it if you have a regular job). But at the most basic level sourdough is just a fermented mixture of flour and water that is then cooked.

noelwelsh• 4 months ago

I think most sourdough recipes are written by people who are really into sourdough, because they involve so much bullshit. I was going to give up on sourdough until I discovered:

* 200g starter, 400g water, 600g flour, 10g salt. Mix together.

* Fold it over itself a few times every hour or so.

* When it looks risen, put it into whatever you want to bake it in, let it rise for another 30 minutes or so, bake at around 200C for about 30 minutes.

It's easier than fast yeast bread, as there is less kneading.

comrade12344• 4 months ago

Ok I just looked at my batch of sauerkraut and it needed some liquid so I added some white wine (chasselas). If it kills the reaction I will hunt you down and make you eat moldy sauerkraut.

edgyquant3• 4 months ago

I’ve never been able to get a good rise out of sourdough. I make bread all the time, make sauerkraut beer etc and my starter doubles in size but when making bread it just never works

s3tt3mbr1n1• 4 months ago

Replying to see if anyone has a foolproof solution.

My next attempt will include better, windmill milled flour.

jimnotgym3• 4 months ago

I read about fermented foods being good, like the old days.

Sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, kefir. None of which sounded like something my celtic ancesters eat. Beer, cider, bread maybe. I see a disconnect.

galleywest200• 4 months ago

Pickles veggies are made by just leaving veggies under brine at room temp, I am sure they had some form of that.

d_sem• 4 months ago

More likely the cultural practice was not passed down after the massive change in food preservation about 125 years ago. In the United States, fermentation was a universally practiced method for the pickling of vegetables. This practice has been so reduced that the word "pickle" now only refers to cucumber preservation.

willy_k• 4 months ago

I don’t agree that the word “pickle” has been reduced like you claim. Used as a noun, it is only applied to pickled cucumbers. But it’s used as a verb is still very common and the average person understands that many things can be pickled.

Although if you were to ask them to guess at the etymology, you probably would get a lot of disappointing answers.

bleudeballe• 4 months ago

Sowans, buttermilk, and bog butter, fermented vegetables and seaweed?

jimnotgym3• 4 months ago

Sowans is a new one for me. That sounds plausible.

comrade12344• 4 months ago

Kombucha has two origins - Eastern Europe and Korea. So European Celt's may have used it.

pc486• 4 months ago

Stinging nettle is known to have been eaten by the celts. It can be boiled or picked, which breaks down the stinging nature of the plant.

Also, cook books are a modern invention. You're not going to find a collection of thousand year old recipes by looking at written records.

cogman10• 4 months ago

While cook books are modern, we do actually find thousand year old recipes [1].

[1] https://eatshistory.com/the-5-oldest-recipes-in-the-world/

fsckboy• 4 months ago

kefir. None of which sounded like something my celtic ancesters eat

celts consumed plenty of dairy. kefir is dairy. clotted cream is fermented and buttermilk and cheeses are fermented.

scandinavians eat fermented fish, and there was plenty of exchange and living side by side between scandinavians and northern celts.

ibotty• 4 months ago

Beer, cider and bread (leavened with yeast or sourdough at least) are fermented. What was your point again?

llbbdd• 4 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming

amarant3• 4 months ago

No love for any of the fermented fishes?

Surströmming, sursill, hákarl...

throw-qqqqq2• 4 months ago

Surströmming

That smell though! You can evacuate a small town by opening a can of this.

krn1p4n1c2• 4 months ago

You’re supposed to open the can in a bucket of water outside with a good breeze. Once it’s rinsed and prepped on crackers or focaccia it’s not bad.

IAmBroom• 4 months ago

No.

No love.

salad-tycoon2• 4 months ago

Get some Florastor and put a couple of capsules into juice. Wait 24-48 hours. Drink. Delicious! Very fizzy and fun. Reduced sugar.

Good for the gut and immune system. Use it when my kids have GI distress/diarrhea or just as a treat/reward.

I like it way more than Kambucha and it never has vinegar worms.

Can buy some yeast energizer too on Amazon for a great boost.

* I get the Florastor has & bloat personally b/c I figure the enzymes might help and I find it’s a little cheaper somehow, sometimes. https://www.amazon.com/Florastor-Advanced-Probiotic-Digestiv...

I like apple cider, pasteurized is fine but must be preservative free. OJ is fun, comes out as orangina like, but tastes off too quickly.

Energizer https://www.amazon.com/LD-Carlson-Yeast-Energizer-oz/dp/B07M...

dylan604• 4 months ago

I have zero trust in products on Amazon not being a counterfeit there's no way I'd buy something intended for me to eat. On top of that, these types of health nut type of items often found under supplements are just always going to be dubious.

salad-tycoon2• 4 months ago

Huh, health nut supplements?A number of you are missing the forest but for the trees, I shared something that I think is delicious and fun for me and my kids.

I only put the Amazon links there as a courtesy for people to look it up easily. I buy mine at Walmart personally, I think we all know about Amazon and fakes.

More importantly, while probiotic interest is shared within the “health nut” sphere that doesn’t suddenly invalidate the research that’s been done on this strain of yeast nor the anecdotal experience I’ve seen personally. It works great for stool consistency and diarrhea. It might help with immune system. But who cares, it tastes GOOD. That’s my point. It’s a fun and delicious science experiment & I think a healthier juice or pop alternative.

Try it or not but you dismissal is unfair.

KingFelix• 4 months ago

Cool article, also sad I think I read that Asimov press is going on hiatus of some kind.

bolangi• 4 months ago

Japanese eat fermented foods and have a long life expectancy.

comrade12344• 4 months ago

And the highest rates of stomach cancer in the world (but maybe from fish parasites)

jvican• 4 months ago

Plus, I don't think Japanese eat a lot more fermented foods than other cultures. It's way more prevalent in South Korea, China, Russia, etc.

lanfeust6• 4 months ago

And alcohol consumption rates

manmal3• 4 months ago

Isn’t H pylori the main driver for stomach cancer?

comrade12344• 4 months ago

I have some sauerkraut fermenting right now. It's in a kilner fermentation jar which has a water lock to keep it anaerobic. I'm also separately starting a new kombucha batch tomorrow.

I started making these because I just like them - the sauerkraut is a great ingredient to have for various dishes or just to eat, and the kombucha was because I was getting bored with white wine at dinner and wanted something with a similar acidity level.

But since I started making them I've noticed that both instantly settle my stomach when it's upset and both also make my, um, digestive system move more...

If you want to start making sauerkraut all you need is a decent fermentation jar that can keep the interior anaerobic. For kombucha you need a bit more - big jars (it's aerobic though) and beer bottles - I also have a ph meter, BRIX measurer, etc

masfuerte• 4 months ago

For sauerkraut you don't even need a fancy jar. I use a big old coffee jar. I cut a cabbage leaf to fit over the top of the shredded cabbage so none floats up. I weigh that down with an old spice jar. The cabbage stays under the surface of the brine so the environment is naturally anaerobic.

svilen_dobrev• 4 months ago

it's easier than that. Take small cabbage heads (also works if cut into pieces, salad style). Put in some container - plastic tank, wooden barrel, glass jar, whatever - 2-or-20-or-120 liters. Add (sea) salt - 30-50g-per-liter-of-water (handwavey, can be corrected later), some grains of corn (or whole cob), a piece of apple, maybe some ginger, fill with water to cover the ingredients.. add something on top to keep things down, like river stone or heavy dish. Keep at below 15'C without freezeing (here usually in November, outside in the balcony.. until March). Once in a while have the water go up-down-up - which i do by just quickly kicking the jar for a minute.

Best eaten as salad with oil and red-pepper, and of course, wrapping pork minceballs.

nazdrave

https://www.bgfermer.bg/Article/13055366

kakacik• 4 months ago

Back home in eastern Europe every household I knew (during communism when I was growing up but this continued) had a 30-50l glazed clay barrel with lid (same material) which would have a deep groove at the top where lid touched the barrel, which was filled with water to let the gasses out naturally once a bit of pressure accumulated. Usually in the cellar, and then common rooms for cellars in typical communist apartment blocks smelled accordingly (nothing bad, just matter of getting used to that).

Putting sauerkraut into barrel was a ritual for whole family - cutting cabbage heads on manual spinning cutter, then smaller person in the household would but a plastic bag on one foot/both feet and stand in the barrel, while family was adding more layers (to compress it all and get juices from cabbage out and salt in). It was mixed with some apples, spices like whole black pepper and salt. Once closed and water was put in, over time it would start regularly 'farting' out excess gasses from fermentation.

Lasted whole winter and then some, base for many nice meals but by far the best is hearty cabbage soup, tradition for not only Christmas dinner. That sauerkraut tasted/tastes much better than best bio stuff I can buy in most expensive Swiss/German shops.

ebbi• 4 months ago

Sauerkraut and Kimchi are like a cheat code for people on various diets where too many sauces aren't allowed. Turns a boring, bland meal into a something much more flavourful.

entropie• 4 months ago

sauerkraut

It’s basically a secret weapon when it comes to dog care. If your dog has eaten something hard to digest (like a toy or a bone), feed them a serving of sauerkraut, and most dogs will need to go outside 10 minutes later and everything will come out.

keysersoze33• 4 months ago

If you think sauerkraut and kimchi make things move more, wait till you try homemade kefir!

I'm quite sensitive to it and can only have a spoonful or so and generally plan to work from home the next day. Note that the store bought stuff is often heated or similar and doesn't contain anywhere near the same level of bacteria.

Forgeties79• 4 months ago

Maybe I am misreading this or missing the nuance of what you’re saying, but I feel like if I have to stay home because of something I ate the day before…that’s generally not a good thing?

Theodores• 4 months ago

This is an excellent article. Currently fermented foods are fashionable amongst those that care for such things, and this article spares the reader of the hype, hype which could be horse manure.

The Yakult company of Japan make these fermented foods things, calling the yogurts is a joke considering the ingredients. For decades they have been getting themselves banned by advertising standards for claims regarding beneficial bacteria that can't be backed up with science. Their product is marketing, yet millions believe their product works wonders - a placebo, if ever there was one.

I have an ongoing nutrition experiment, to cut processed foods and animal products from my diet. As a result, I cook from scratch at all times, even making my own bread. I don't use a fridge or a freezer since I don't buy anything that needs to be kept that cold.

What has surprised me is the absence of mold and decay. Before my experiment, I would regularly have to throw out lots of food that had gone bad, but now I don't have these problems. I thought modern preservation techniques made food last for longer, however, this has not been the case and I simply don't waste food.

In the article much is written about inflammation. Allegedly fermented foods help with that. But so does removing free sugar from the diet, along with processed foods and animal products. Therefore, before worrying about fermented foods, it is worth considering removing the junk first, as in all of it, to not eat HFSS (High Fat, Sugar and Salt).

A healthy gut is a huge upgrade to life and I don't think mine was healthy before my little experiment, but I knew nothing different, so I was not to know.

My advice for getting there is to cut the junk and cook from scratch, mostly, if not all, plants. Order should be restored to the gut microbiome with such a move, in a matter of days, no fermented foods needed.

manmal3• 4 months ago

The Yakult strain (L shirota) has solid research behind it. And tbh I feel a real difference when drinking them.

calebm• 4 months ago

I've had this hypothesis that human bodies are kind of like cruise ships built by microbes. The larger body is not necessarily the one in control (like in the cruise ship metaphor). Maybe at some point, the vessel being built gains some control of its own - maybe this will happen with AI.

zoogeny• 4 months ago

I've thought this myself. We sure do consume a lot of yeast-based foods. Entire industries created to cultivate the stuff.

I thought it would be an interesting story about how the bakers and beer makers are the actual illuminati, consciously working on behalf of the yeast which is our actual over-lords.

baronvonsp• 4 months ago

Ha. Different bug (sentient yogurt cultures) but sort of explored quite amusingly by Love, Death & Robots Season 1 - https://lovedeathrobots.fandom.com/wiki/When_the_Yogurt_Took...

manmal3• 4 months ago

Are you saying the microbes have been telling me to stay up and vibe-autoresearch some random OSS projects? Wild if true.

tonis2• 4 months ago

Same, I think we are just a collective consciousness of the bacteria/yeasts inside us, and the brain is just a compute device, that the bacteria use via the high bandwidth vagus nerves. Thats why its important to not feed the bad bacteria and keep the good bacteria healthy.

shifto• 4 months ago

But the bad bacteria know how to tell me what to eat. The good ones never do!

i5heu• 4 months ago

I love my sauerkraut! Self made is also so so much better then industrial sauerkraut

t0mpr1c3• 4 months ago

Correction: sourdough is a lactic ferment, not acetic.

ktokarev• 4 months ago

ok, fermented foods are good. I like kimchi and sauerkraut but there is a lot of salt. It also leads me to digestive problems..

Fermented foods shaped human biology

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