Eatin' fat: Ferments

Fermented foods are SUPER FOODS, and a BIG part of the GAPS Diet. Fermented foods are alive foods, full of enzymes, beneficial bacteria, and they help to detoxify the body. Most GAPS people have an imbalance of bacteria in there bodies. The bad bacteria has taken over, and has caused many issues. In order to restore balance again, fermented foods are eaten to dump good bacteria back into the body.

Countries that have been around since the dawn of time, still eat fermented food with every meal. We do not see it much in the United States. The goal is to be able to eat about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of a fermented food with every meal. A popular ferment in the United States is Sauerkraut. But, essentially u can ferment almost anything. I am just testing my skills at this, but I have so far been successful with sauerkraut and pickles.

When we started the diet 9 months ago, we were struggling with way to much die-off, so we cut back the fermented foods. When you start adding the good bacteria to your body, the bad bacteria comes out of it's hiding place to fight, and so all your symptoms come to the surface, sometimes even times 10, and then are flushed out.

We started with just one tsp. of sauerkraut juice, a few weeks ago. Everyone seemed to be doing fine, so I rapidly upped our dosage to 3 tsp. or some of us were actually taking a bite of the sauerkraut. WOW, did we all have some die-off. My husbands allergies came back 10 fold. It sounded like he had a huge sinus infection. ( He stopped taking the juice, and 2 days later, his allergies were gone.) I was exhausted and achy, my oldest son's allergies and stimming flared, and my two youngest kids got a red rash all over there face. What did all of this mean?? We definitely have some healing to do, but I need to introduce this much slower. So, I dropped everyone back down to 1 tsp. of the juice, and it got a lot better. Now, a few weeks later, and we are currently on two tsp. of juice, and everyone is managing quite well. We have a long way to go to get to 1/2 a cup of the actual food per meal, but we will get there!

How to make Sauerkraut:

Shred or chop up a cabbage.
Shred up about 3 carrots.
Mix the two in a bowl with about a Tb. of salt and some fresh cracked pepper.
Pound or squeeze the cabbage til' juice starts to come out of it.
Push it down into a glass jar until juice is covering the top of it. (If there is not enough juice, you can add salt water to the top, just make sure the cabbage is submerged in the water, leaving two inches at the top of your glass jar for expansion.)
Put the lid on and leave on your counter for about two weeks covered with a towel.
When it's done, put it in your fridge. It will keep for months. ( If you haven't totally stripped your system down with the GAPS diet, you can probably eat a 1/4 of a cup and be fine. Just see how you feel!)

Fermented foods are more powerful then raw fruits and veggies, because it ups the amount of enzymes, vitamins and minerals!! It's a SUPER food! (Also, sauerkraut is packed with Vitamin C, so great during colds and flu season!)

Here are some pics: ( I usually just use green cabbage, but I added a couple purple ones this time. My kids thought that was fun. Very colorful!)