Fermenting foods: it’s freaking me out!
Dear GreenSmoothieGirl: I really like the idea of adding the Rejuvelac as my green smoothie base, but I’m honestly totally freaked out to leave something perishable on my countertop in an unsealed container for several days. What are the chances that “bad bacteria” get in there and make me sick? I really appreciate any feedback you have. It sounds like a great opportunity to make green smoothies do even more for me, but I can’t get over the initial concept. –Grace
Answer: Grace, I think it might help if I explain the concept a bit more. Fermented foods are part of your diet already, if you eat yogurt or sauerkraut, or even beer. The manufacturer had to let it sit at room temperature for a time, to grow the cultures.
Also, before refrigeration, human beings had a stronger inner terrain and microbes rarely harmed them. Of course, now we have antibiotics that have seriously damaged most people’s balance of beneficial microorganisms colonizing the digestive tract. We also have refined foods weakening us, and few, if any, cultured foods strengthening us. We now seem to believe that killing a couple million of the billions of microscopic critters around us will somehow do the trick.
It’s a weird modern concept that everything we eat has to be sterilized—ancient peoples lived amongst billions of organisms very peacefully for thousands of years. So maybe our food is sterilized, fumigated, pasteurized, irradiated…..but there are billions of organisms everywhere ELSE (which makes the antibiotic wipes a pointless waste of money).
So, it feels unnatural to you but only because of our strange modern traditions, and the fact that we’ve gotten away from eating foods that nurture our gut’s need for healthy colonization. Just ONE course of antibiotics can change the gut’s internal terrain forever.
Every culture of the world eats cultured foods. Some chew up a food and spit it, with their saliva, into an earthen pot, and drink it a week later. (I won’t be teaching you those methods, don’t worry.) There are literally hundreds of types of cultured foods, in traditional / indigenous peoples, and in people who have not completely adopted processed diets.
The most complete and well known work on this concept is Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions, which has some good info but advocates for lots of meat and dairy and a very rich diet. My 12 Steps to Whole Foods program deals with it in a condensed way in Ch. 8 and uses what I feel are a do-able, moderate amount of probiotic foods that do not require us to purchase $10/lb. animal parts. My work focuses on culturing vegetables, optionally some raw, antibiotic- and hormone-free milk, or coconut liquid. (I now culture my coconut liquid before using it in Hot Pink Breakfast Smoothie).
My blog on 9/15 talks about learning vicariously through others—the examples I gave were learning from others’ health disasters. But you can learn from my health victories, too. Does it help you to know that I have had a quart or a half gallon of raw kefir, or yogurt, or coconut kefir, or sprouts, or Rejuvelac, or sauerkraut, on my counter, pretty much every day of my life for the past 17 years? We have had zero instances of problems, illness, food poisoning.
It also helps if you understand the process of how food has historically been preserved. You can preserve foods a few ways. One, drying it to dramatically slow oxidation, which often involves lots of salt. Two, can it by killing all its lifeforce (enzymes and vitamins) so that there’s very little to oxidize, and then sealing it against air and bacteria. Third, utilizing lactobacillus and other beneficial organisms and lactic acid to break down the proteins and preserve the food (fermenting).
The way I make sauerkraut (see Ch. 8 of 12 Steps) is that the unrefined salt preserves it for a few days while the (slower) lactic acid begins to take over. I have two-year old raw sauerkraut (that I preserved with whey from my yogurt/kefir) that has been unsealed (but covered tightly with a lid) that we are still eating. It’s too soft, and it’s better, texture-wise, at six months old. But it’s preserved, and the healthy bacteria help my family stay healthy.
It might help to address the semantics. The word “fermented” has a negative connotation. (Although beer drinkers who wouldn’t be caught dead eating fermented vegetables drink PLENTY of fermentation.) When you think of fermented, do you think of ROTTEN? We aren’t eating any rotten foods at my house. We could mentally replace that word with a much nicer one: cultured!
So, don’t eat fermented foods. Eat cultured ones!
If “bad” bacteria gets into your cultured foods and makes them “go bad,” you will know. They will taste bad and/or mold. I have almost never had this happen. Once it happened with a bottle of sauerkraut. Never with kefir or Rejuvelac.
My Rejuvelac ferments in a day. At CHI, they told me 3-5 days, but mine tastes plenty tart 24 hours after I blend the sprouts and water, and put it on the counter to grow (aka ferment, aka culture).
Here’s my new video showing this easy, inexpensive habit that has the potential to see you through the winter without viruses or infections!
Posted in: 12 Steps To Whole Food, Videos, Whole Food
I made my rejuvelac and left it on the counter for 1 day to ferment. When I went to taste it to see if it was ready, there was white fuzzy mold growing on the top and around the top of the jar. Ack! What do I do? Do I drink this or throw it away and start again? I’m in a humid climate and wondering if I need to do something different? Thanks for your help!
Janet, I would have to research what to do in a humid place….I’ve not have that happen, but I live in a semi-arid desert. Don’t drink it if it’s moldy.
Robyn,
Thanks! Just watching you makes me happy. You are so energetic and truthful. Go Girl!
There was white fuzzy mold growing on the top of mine too! But I live in Utah. I’m scared to taste it, but I scraped off the mold and put it in the fridge. Do you think I should scrap it and start over? Ugh. Are you supposed to stir it everyday or a couple of times a day?
I never stir it. I don’t think it’s mold on top—it’s some of the solids from the fermenting grains! I have some of that on the top, and lots more on the bottom, of the jar, until I strain it. (IF I strain it.) If it is truly mold, you won’t want to drink it.
Robin, I’ve never done this, but, due to your blog and 12 step program my husband and I are Green Smoothie Junkies. This process will for sure, bump us up to the next level of health and wellness! I trust you and know that you always do your research before “putting it out there” to us….that’s why I’ll give it a try. Let you know how it goes when I see you in Dallas in a few weeks! Please keep us motivated and inspired with your videos. You are really good at it……it really makes me pause and think, rather, than skim read all the material that most of us are bomb-barded with on a daily basis!
Corry, that’s why I make them even though I’m a bit of an introvert, really—I’m told that most people learn visually! So I keep doing the public lectures, and the videos, in the hopes that more and more people become junkies like you! 😉 Excited to meet, you, make sure you say hi personally in 13 days, okay? take care,
Robyn
Very excited to give this a shot tomorrow. We’re gluten-free and dairy-free, so using sprouted quinoa is brilliant! Thanks so much for the demo. It was very helpful, and I feel like this is definitely something we can add to our daily routine immediately.
Robyn, thank you for the videos..please keep making them! By the way, my daughter and I came to your lecture in CO and loved it. Please come to CO again so I can bring the rest of my kids. 🙂
Hi Robyn, great website and blog, I am a sophomore in college and this summer really got into eating a mainly plant based/whole foods diet. I have learned so much from your site and videos! Lucky for me I have a kitchen in my dorm room so I can have my vitamix and a place to make things like your rejuvelac! It has been sitting out for about 36 hours, I haven’t tried it just yet but I think it’s good or at least looks pretty similar to yours.
BUT I am going away through tuesday, will it be okay in the fridge until then, will it still be good to drink when I get back? Also when stored in the fridge is a normal top necessary on the jar or is the mesh top okay?
Thanks so much, looking forward to more of your videos!
Maggie, lucky you!! most in the dorms are not so lucky! Yes, I’m about to go play tennis for two days and stay in a hotel in Salt Lake rather than drive home tonight and back tomorrow, so I just stuck my half-gallon of quinoa Rejuvelac in the fridge too. I’ve done this a few times, as I travel a lot, and it’s been fine for several days every time I’ve left it.
But i’m taking some of it in a cooler, to drink during matches, plus my quart of green smoothie for breakfast tomorrow. 🙂
I’m just about to try my first batch of fermented quinoa. Where do you buy the metal mesh from?
Sarah, I just made it a long time ago and i can’t remember where I got the metal mesh from and then cut it out to fit canning rings. But I suggest plastic mesh that you get at a craft store instead—doesn’t rust!
Hi Robyn! How do you culture your coconut water? Do you use milk kefir grains?
Carolyn, you’re supposed to use water kefir grains. That’s what I use—but to be honest, I’ve used milk kefir grains now and then, too, and they work! Might as well vary the different strains of microorganisms, why not?
Hi Robyn
I saw your vid on rejuvelac and i love the idea of incorporating it into my smoothies, however i don’t like to spend alot of time preparing things, would it be okay to make the rejuvelac and then freeze it into ice cubes and use them as i need them, thus making the rejuvelac last longer? or will i have just defeated the purpose of making the rejuvelac in the first place?
Justine, that should work!
Hey Robyn,
I am trying to start this habit but I can’t seem to get past the “sprouting the wheat berries” step. I tried to sprout one cup of berries in a quart jar, rinsing them morning and night, but after a few days there weren’t any sprouts and there was a creamy, slimy goo around all the berries and I got grossed out and threw them away. Any advice?
Is it critical to use ionized or filtered water? If I only have tap water, will the chlorine in the water defeat the purpose and kill any probiotic property?
Filtered is critical, ionizers is just good.
Oh, it looks like I missed this one! I’m a little concerned about blending up the live enzymatic material that you have after soaking the quinoa. Since cultured foods are susceptible to going bad when the person making them is in a sour mood (I’ve heard others who’ve had this experience with ‘craut), I just think they’d also be negatively affected by being pulverized to death. I often soak quinoa or millet for a few days, until it gets bubbly and then the liquid is rich in probiotics. I hadn’t thought of adding the liquid to a smoothie though. I just cook it on low and add sea veggies to it. (Which I suppose cooking the enzymes probably isn’t the best idea either….?)
Hi Robin-
I’m not sure if you have answered this already, but where did you find the large glass jars? I’ve looked at Walmart and I didn’t see them in the home canning section, and I don’t know where else they would be, or if they are even at Walmart.
Thanks,
Breanne
Breanne – I got my half gallon jars at IFA. I’ve also seen them in the grocery stores – this is the end of the canning season so the jars may be a bit more elusive. The plastic lids are a bit more tricky – I finally ordered them from Azure Standard, but if someone knows a better place, let me know.