Cleansing and building are natural dualities when it comes to good health.
Thanks to Antoine Béchamp, you should have an excellent grasp on the importance of building up the body’s terrain. Although Béchamp was swept up and dumped into the dustbin of history, we wouldn’t know as much today about germs and their causation without his early insights into the germ theory. For example, thanks to Béchamp, we know that taking steps to improve your body’s terrain by consuming naturally soured, fermented foods is an excellent way to balance your body.
You may have picked up on the phrase naturally soured in connection with fermented foods. I imagine you did so because the word sour is not a pretty expression in the English language nor often meant to be something positive or complimentary.
If you hear that someone is a “sour puss” or has a “sour personality,” that tells you all you need to know. Another common expression—“That left a sour taste in my mouth”—reveals deep disappointment. Synonyms for sour including the following descriptive terms: unpleasant, nasty, disagreeable, unlikable, undesirable, distasteful, unappetizing, unpalatable, unsavory, offensive, repulsive, repugnant, and disgusting. I’m not trying to pile on, but you get the point.
Sour, when not used to describe one’s personality, also describes how a food or beverage tastes to you. Sour is one of the four basic sensations of taste—sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. Actually, there’s a fifth taste perceptible to the 10,000 taste buds on your tongue, and it’s called umami (pronounced oo-MAH-mee), which is a meaty, savory taste popular in Asian cuisine. Here in this country, American palates are acutely aware of two tastes that we like—sweet and salty—and two tastes we’d rather avoid—sour and bitter.
Let’s not sugarcoat things (although we do all the time): Americans love sweet and salty foods. Breakfast cereal is sweet, mid-morning muffins are sweeter, midday burgers-and-fries leave a salty aftertaste, tortilla chips at snack time are coated with salt, a meat-and-potatoes dinner is a salt fest, but dessert is always sweet.
We don’t like to stray too far from the sweet-and-salty comfort foods that we were raised on, which is too bad because our national taste for sweet and salty foods has, in my opinion, destroyed the health of Americans. Consuming sweet things only begets cravings for more sweet-tasting foods, and those sugars and empty calories may be the root cause of the obesity epidemic in this country.
We have a salt habit that’s hard to shake, too. Like horses that can’t stop using a salt lick, American taste buds crave salty snacks such as chips, bacon, and crackers. Canned soups, condiments, sauces, cold cuts, and canned vegetables are also loaded with salt. The current recommendations from U.S. government health officials state that we should consume less than 2.4 grams of sodium per day, or the equivalent of one teaspoon of table salt, but the body has an actual need for one-fifth that amount. Yet Americans consume two to five times more salt than needed to maintain the right balance of fluids in the body, to deliver water and nutrients into the cells, and to help transmit nerve impulses, which is what salt is needed for.
Salt consists of two minerals—sodium (40 percent) and chloride (60 percent)—but it’s the sodium in salt that causes so many health concerns today. The excessive consumption of sodium raises blood pressure and has been linked to strokes because when the kidneys can’t eliminate enough sodium, the sodium accumulates in the blood. Increased blood volume makes the heart work harder to move blood throughout the cardiovascular system, which increases pressure in the arteries. Next thing you know, your blood pressure numbers are elevated.
When I think about how many millions of Americans habitually munch on sweet and salty foods from the time they wake up until the time they go to bed, I feel my blood pressure rising. That’s overstating things, but I will say that I’m disheartened when I think about how sour and bitter foods have been politely sidestepped in this country. You don’t see people clamoring for Brussels sprouts or chopped cabbage or the tart and tangy taste of fermented dairy foods—unless their store-bought yogurt has been sweetened with sugary flavors and artificial sweeteners. They prefer something sweet or salty in their mouths at every meal and with every snack.
It’s really a shame that many are unwilling to even try sour-tasting foods and beverages, which are known for their cleansing- and digestion-supporting properties, among other health benefits.
There’s power in sour, as you’ll see in this chapter.
Sour or tart-tasting foods have been around since farmers and shepherds learned thousands of years ago that a natural process called fermentation could preserve their foods beyond harvest and extend the freshness of their fruits, veggies, and dairy products. In the process, ancient cultures discovered that fermentation improved the vitality of their foods and made them easier to digest as well as more nutritious. In fact, naturally fermented foods have become prized in every civilization known to man.
Since refrigeration hadn’t been invented back then—and foods weren’t known to have a “shelf life”—people in ancient times didn’t have the option of freezing food or storing any foodstuffs inside a fridge. Instead, they learned how to preserve foods through the process of fermentation.
Fermentation, also known as culturing, is the intentional growth of bacteria, yeast, or mold that breaks down substances to their more basic constituents and creates organic acids that act as natural preservatives. This process can be called pre-digestion and preserves foods over longer periods of time and conveys health benefits beneficial to the body.
What happens is that bacteria and yeasts act upon a food to break down its protein into amino acids, fats into fatty acids, and complex sugars into single sugars such as glucose. This is not a destructive process but is known as “nutritional alchemy,” because new beneficial compounds are created during fermentation—probiotics, enzymes, antioxidants, and organic acids, all of which support a healthy terrain.
A classic example would be sauerkraut, which contains higher levels of vitamin C and B vitamins than the cabbage that it originally came from, purely due to the fermentation process. If unpasteurized and uncooked—in other words, produced in a raw state—sauerkraut contains live lactobacilli and other beneficial microbes. Natural or traditional fermentation spurs bacterial growth that gobbles up the natural sugars in the food and produces a tart-tasting organic acid known as lactic acid.
Organic acids are natural preservatives that inhibit the proliferation or growth of putrefying bacteria. Starches and sugars in vegetables and fruits are converted into organic acids by many species of friendly bacteria and yeasts. These microbes or germs are everywhere, present on the surface of living things and especially numerous on leaves and roots of plants growing in or near the ground.
The proliferation of probiotics in fermented vegetables enhances their digestibility and increases vitamin levels. These beneficial microorganisms produce numerous helpful enzymes as well as other beneficial compounds. Their main byproducts—organic acids—not only keep vegetables and fruits in a state of preservation but also promote the growth of healthy flora or probiotics throughout the intestinal tract.
In other words, the organic acids produced in fermentation are important for the maintenance of the terrain and the promotion of healthy digestion and elimination. Several beneficial organic acids are produced during natural fermentation that are worth noting—lactic acid, acetic acid, succinic acid, and gluconic acid. Each of these organic acids help support healthy pH balance in the digestive tract, particularly in the colon, which is critical for proper absorption of nutrients and healthy elimination.
These organic acids also act as natural preservatives due to their antimicrobial effects, but none of this science was known by the early practitioners of fermentation, which started long ago with fermenting cabbage into sauerkraut, grape juice into wine, grains and water into beer, various vegetables into relish, and cow, goat, and sheep’s milk into a variety of fermented foods such as yogurt, kefir, Amasai, cheese, cottage cheese, and cultured cream.
We don’t know when fermentation was first practiced, but we are aware that the Romans learned to ferment cabbage, which is known today as sauerkraut. Eastern Europeans discovered ways to pickle green tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce. The Chinese also fermented cabbage, and Koreans became skilled at preparing kimchi, a condiment composed of cabbage with other vegetables, herbs, and spices. And in nearly every culture, milk from cows, goats, and sheep have been used to make fermented foods such as yogurt, Amasai, cheese, and kefir for centuries.
Kefir, a fermented beverage that’s gaining in popularity, is getting much easier to find these days in ready-to-drink quart bottles at natural food stores. This tart-tasting, thick beverage contains naturally occurring bacteria and yeasts that work synergistically to provide superior health benefits. Kefir— best consumed from goat’s milk—is also a great base ingredient to build smoothies around. Just add eight ounces of kefir into a blender, an assortment of frozen berries or fruits, a spoonful of raw honey, and you’re well on the way to churning up a delicious, satisfying smoothie.
Just as kefir has made a splash in the last ten or fifteen years, much like yogurt did in the 1960s, I believe the next craze in cultured beverages is a newly introduced product into the United States called Amasai. This African-inspired cultured dairy beverage, which tastes like a combination of yogurt and kefir, is made from specially selected cattle similar to the recipe used by the famed Maasai tribe of Kenya. With the taste, nutrient density, and acceptability of a cow’s milk product coupled with the tolerability of a sheep or goat milk product, I believe Amasai has all the earmarks of a sensational cultured beverage.
Fermented beverages such as Amasai and SueroViv—the cultured whey beverage that I introduced in Chapter 2—have become personal favorites of mine. The vitamins, minerals, probiotics, enzymes, and organic acids provide the body with the tools it needs to build a healthy terrain.
While we’re talking about fermented beverages, there are two more that I want to call to your attention. The first is kombucha or Tibetan tea. Kombucha (pronounced kom-BOO-cha) is a fermented beverage made from black tea and a fungus culture. Thought to be Himalayan in origin and tart as a Granny Smith apple, kombucha is a naturally fermented beverage infused with probiotics and enzymes that delivers a cidery flavor and a kick of fizziness. The result is a slightly sweet and slightly sour beverage containing a long list of amino acids, B vitamins, and live probiotics and enzymes.
You don’t want to guzzle down a bottle of kombucha—which has also become widely available in natural food stores in the last decade—on a hot summer’s day. Instead, you sip slowly. I’ve become a kombucha fan who’ll drink as many as two or three bottles per day, if I’m in the mood.
There’s another fermented beverage that I want to mention but is one that’s not as easy to find. I’m referring to kvass (pronounced kuh-VAHSS), which is reputed to be Russian in origin. A fermented beverage made from rye, barley, or beets, kvass tastes a bit like beer or ale—but this cultured beverage isn’t alcoholic. Those who appreciate kvass say that opening a bottle of kvass releases a fragrant bouquet reminiscent of freshly baked bread cooling on a windowsill. Kvass made from veggies is now available in health food stores but is certainly an acquired taste.
If there’s one fermented beverage that’s too sour to drink straight out of the bottle, that would be apple cider vinegar, the tartest of all fermented beverages. (I’ve taken a few apple cider vinegar shots in the past, so I speak from experience.) When used to make salad dressing, added to marinades, or mixed in purified water, apple cider vinegar helps the body balance its pH levels, which is critical for the health of your internal environment.
Apple cider vinegar was born out of necessity when farmers had too many apples on trees to bring to market during the harvest season. They had to do something with their bushels of apples besides making apple juice, apple cider, and applesauce!
Orchard farmers discovered that adding sugar and yeast to the squeezed liquid of crushed apples initiated a fermentation process that turned the sugar into alcohol. During a second round of fermentation, the alcohol was converted by acetic acid-forming bacteria into vinegar. The word vinegar comes from the French, meaning “sour wine.”
Apple cider vinegar gets its “pucker power” from acetic acid. Apple cider vinegar contains a plethora of minerals—potassium, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, and natural silicon as well as pectin and tartaric acid. One of apple cider vinegar’s greatest health attributes is how it helps the body maintain its pH balance, starting with the colon, which should be slightly acidic for optimal health.
Apple cider vinegar has been traditionally used for every health system and organ of the body. There’s even clinical research with studies showing apple cider vinegar supporting blood sugar levels and a healthy immune system, along with germ-fighting properties and improving digestion and assimilation.
I first heard about the incredible health benefits of apple cider vinegar through a Vermont physician named D.C. Jarvis, M.D., who injected the lore of folk medicine into his practice. His book, Folk Medicine, has sold over three million copies during the last fifty years, and even today you still see Folk Medicine featured on end cap displays in health food stores. Apple cider vinegar is one of the most beloved substances in natural health history.
For years, I’ve made my own salad dressing that mixes apple cider vinegar with extra-virgin olive oil, high-mineral sea salt, herbs, and spices. I consume a lot of salad, so I appreciate the healing cleansing properties of my homemade salad dressing.
My long history with apple cider vinegar brought a compelling thought to mind recently, and it went like this: Could I apply the magic of apple cider vinegar to other plant-based substances such as herbs, taking the fermentation concept beyond apples and applying it to botanicals—plants valued for their medicinal or therapeutic properties?
I knew that herbs have been around for as long as fermentation. Whether dating back to ancient Egypt, the practice of Ayurveda in India, traditional Chinese herbs, as well as the hundreds of references to herbs and spices in the Bible, herbs have a long tradition in cultures around the world. The use of herbs—whether it’s from a root such as ginger, a leaf such as holy basil, or a piece of bark such as cinnamon—to promote wellness is backed up by plenty of hard science.
As I studied herbal extracts, however, I learned that the typical manufacturing process applies heat and employs harsh chemical solvents, including alcohol—agents that fundamentally change their properties. Hexane, one of the most commonly used solvents, kills enzymes and beneficial microorganisms. Alcohol adulterates the herbal properties, and adding heat zaps beneficial enzymes and microorganisms as well.
The entire chemical extraction process was an anomaly to me. I didn’t see the wisdom in bench scientists focusing on extracting the “healthy” compounds in herbs or herbal plants when there had to be other nutrients left behind that could offer their own health benefits. My premise was that the “whole plant” provides the health benefit, not just one, two, or three isolated compounds present in the substance.
My desire to deliver the immense benefits of herbs and spices in a form the body can truly utilize became a challenge.
But alas, that challenge was about to be overcome.