Fermented Foods Make Me Feel Fabulous

**This post has been entered in Works for Me Wednesdays at We Are THAT Family!**

Try saying that 3 times fast!

I’ve shared with you before about water kefir, and I’ve mentioned kombucha (post on that tomorrow).  But I want to share with you how much including fermented foods in my diet has helped.  Not only me, but my kids!

When I first heard about fermented foods, I thought…ugh.  It sounded dirty to me.  Many fermented foods are cultured with some type of obvious bacteria, yeast, or something else.  And like most people, I’m just not used to bacteria in my food being a good thing.  Plus a lot of the common foods that people ferment just sounded…weird to me.  Sauerkraut, ginger carrots, kombucha…I didn’t even know what kombucha was, let alone did I want to try it.

But I kept hearing about how great fermented foods are for your health.  They are full of probiotics, so they can aid digestion, boost your immune system, and lots more.  And you don’t need to eat a ton of them to get the benefits.  Many are considered condiments and a few teaspoons may be enough (in fact, some people can’t handle too much because if your body is toxic from poor diet, environmental stresses, etc. it will cause your body to detox).  I decided I should go ahead and try some…just to see.

Water kefir was the most palatable sounding thing for me.  So I decided to give it a go.  It was…okay.  Somedays it tasted pretty good to me.  Somedays, eh.  But sometimes we didn’t make it very well.    Then I decided to try pickles, which went moldy on me before they finished fermenting, so I didn’t really try them. 

Then I decided to try kombucha.  At first…yuck.  Weird.  Felt and tasted like drinking alcohol.  I waited several months before trying it again, and when I did, it was…okay.  Decent.  Good enough to take a second taste a couple days later.  That was…good.  So I kept drinking it and quickly became obsessed.  I LOVE kombucha now!!  It makes me feel so good.  Light, warm, happy.  Kind of like drinking alcohol without the loss of inhibition or motor control.  Others have reported this same feeling, so I’m not crazy.  (Gosh, just writing this makes me want to get some, and I’ve already had some today!)

Then I decided to try yogurt.  We finally got our hands on some raw milk, so I bought a yogurt starter and let it ferment for about 8 hours.  I tasted a little on a spoon, plain, and didn’t really like it.  Very tart and not much other flavor.  So I added it to a smoothie with some berries.  FABULOUS!  And after finishing the smoothie I just felt…so great.  Just happy and energetic and amazing.

I gave some to Bekah and Daniel too and they did so well with it.  Their reactions to foods have been slowly clearing.  It’s been such a big help to us, really.  The probiotics in the foods are so well assimilated into the body (there is controversy over this, but I believe all naturally-occuring nutrients in foods are well-assimilated in the body and a little can go a long way).  In fact, we rarely note reactions in them at all, unless they eat grains (and the reaction to sprouted grains is slowly disappearing).  Dairy is no longer a problem.

Fermented foods are just so amazing!  Tomorrow, read all about how to make kombucha!