Category: fermented food

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts3 Comments

Thanks to John Batzel.

Fermented Dairy Intake Negatively Associated with Diabetes

Seth Roberts8 Comments

A new epidemiological study followed about 16,000 people in Europe for about 12 years and focused on their dairy intake. Did the ones who came down with diabetes eat differently from those who didn’t?

The paper begins:

Current dietary guidelines for prevention of diabetes aim at substituting SFAs [saturated fatty acids] with unsaturated fatty acids. However, conventionally held notions that all SFAs, including those from dairy products, are detrimental to health have recently been challenged.

The shift of evidence (dairy less bad than previously believed) supports my view that what’s good for the brain (I found butter was good for my brain) is likely to be good for the rest of the body. The paper’s main conclusion is the possible protective value of cheese and yogurt:

This large prospective study found no association between total dairy product intake and diabetes risk. An inverse association of cheese intake and combined fermented dairy product [= cheese, yogurt, and “thick fermented milk”] intake with diabetes is suggested.

The combined fermented dairy association was not large in size (a risk reduction of 12%) but was significant (barely). When your main finding is barely significant you have no hope of using your data to explain it so the new information essentially stops there. The results support my view that fermented foods are unusually healthy.

In response to these findings, the director of research at Diabetes UK said, “This study gives us no reason to believe that people should change their dairy intake in an attempt to avoid [diabetes].” Wow. It is as if a prominent physicist said the earth was flat.

Thanks to Elizabeth Molin.

Where to Buy Miso in Tokyo

Seth Roberts5 Comments

In Tokyo I went to a shop that specialized in miso. It sold about thirty varieties, several of which I liked very much. There is a choice of packaging: hard or soft. The hard packages could be used for gifts. The phone number of the shop is 03(3841)7116, which you can use to google it. It is in the Hanakawado district, between Kototoi Dori and Edo Dori, near the Senso-ji Temple and the Amuse Museum. It is open 9 am to 6 pm. Maybe closed Sunday.

Address: 2 – 8 2-chome, Taito-ku, Tokyo Hanakawado 〒 111-0033, which 0.23 km from the Asakusa Station.

Incidentally, nowadays I tend to eat miso with a poached egg. Boil 0.8 cup water, add egg, cook until poached, add the miso which has been mixed with 0.1 cup water.

The Power of Blog (Fermented Foods Division)

Seth Roberts3 Comments

A few weeks ago I posted a short note about Yakult, a probiotic dairy drink popular in Asia. Yesterday, I came across someone who had read that note. He wrote about it in a post categorized as Learning Koanic Soul.

To test whether I did indeed now possess Melonhead powers, I attempted to manifest the thing I wanted most, and had been striving to attain the longest: a cure for the adverse side effects of the Accutane I’d taken 8 years ago.

Here’s a brief list of the side effects I suffered:

  • chronic diarrhea
  • chronic fatigue
  • inability to eat almost every food, including pills
  • insomnia
  • additional symptoms, increasing exponentially when I eat forbidden foods or miss sleep

Over the last 8 years I’d painstakingly developed a coping regimen that worked in theory, as long as I did it perfectly. But it was so strict that holding down a job or traveling were almost impractical. And any error meant days if not weeks of down time. I rarely achieved better than than 50% functionality. And my diet was so limited that I ate only one meal continuously – lean steamed meat with rice, scallops and shrimp.

All attempts at a cure had failed, and not only failed, but proven that I couldn’t even digest the pills that might make me better. Instead, the difficulty of digesting the pills induced a failure cascade, a reinforcing feedback loop of insomnia, stress, fatigue and diarrhea. After years of fighting this illness, I had learned a great deal but was running out of things to try.

So, for my first manifestation attempt, I decided to demand an INSTANT cure.

Not a regimen for coping with symptoms… Actual, immediate, damage reversal. . . .The experiment began as I wrapped up a Skype conversation with a Melonhead. He’d just finished describing his “powers” to me. I got the idea for the experiment, and told him what I’d try to manifest. Immediately I experienced a boost in energy – I’d been feeling sick. I was shocked – it appeared to be already working.

I finished talking to the Melonhead, and flicked open my RSS reader while deciding what to do next. Up popped an article by Seth Roberts mentioning the GI healing properties of Yakult, a fermented yoghurt drink common in Asia. Accompanied with link to scientific paper and news report.

This startled me, because I’d been planning to try fermenting my own yoghurt next, although I had low expectations for success. I was planning on getting a yoghurt making machine, yada yada. I began reading with interest. Could this be the sign I’d requested?

As I finished reading, my girlfriend arrived home. I told her I wanted to buy some of this “Yakult” stuff tomorrow, figuring the grocery stores were closed tonight. She replied that she had some in the refrigerator.

This got my attention. I’d requested an instant cure… and the cure, if it was one, had been sitting IN MY REFRIGERATOR before I requested it.

The main problem was the massive sugar content of Yakult. I knew that I had sugar malabsorption issues – I can’t eat fruit. There was an excellent chance that if I tried the Yakult, I would become sick for at least 3 days, and endure excruciating pain. For the record, torture by several consecutive days of gut cramps is one of the few things I am afraid of, being a subset of torture in general. Nevertheless, I elected to drink two (disgustingly sweet) Yakult bottles that night.

Over the next couple of days I continued to ramp up my Yakult dosage. My body rebelled some at the radical change, but it also showed signs of improvement. The expected disaster failed to materialize.

Day two was the worst. I felt as if I might be becoming genuinely sick. Given the amount I’d drunk, this meant a solid three days of agony were kicking off. That night I endured some physical pain, but I was also strangely energized, so that I had the mental reserves to face it out. Normally the illness saps all capacity for resistance.

That night I received a “message” (or had a thought, whichever you prefer) that “it would take three days.” Sure enough, on day 3 I knew was better, significantly so, instead of worse. There could be no further doubt that it was working. For me, something had finally changed.

Note that I would expect a full gut healing to take place over 3-6 months. It’s not simply a matter of fixing diet or finding the right pill, but 1. rebuilding bacterial colonies and 2. regrowing and healing intestinal lining damaged or eaten away by inflammation and acidity. While these results are not instant, they are screamingly fast in GI terms.

Impressed by this initial success, over the next few days I began to let manifestation guide my behavior intuitively, rather than using logic to determine my actions. An image of a key supplement appeared in my head – I went and bought it at the precise store I remembered seeing it. When I arrived I discovered it was on sale: 2 for 1.

At the grocery store, I simply wandered, letting manifestation dictate my purchases. I grew disgusted with the excessive sweetness of Yakult: lo and behold, I found a bulk yoghurt with a lower sugar content. I tested a few key supplements I had lying around, and found I could now digest pills. So I started taking everything I’d stored up but been unable to use. This resulted in a major improvement. At the same time, I gradually began eating a more diverse collection of foods, letting intuition guide me. No disaster ensued.

Once it was clear that I was cured, I wanted to know my new limits. And I didn’t intend to wait 6 months to find out. Among other things, I’ve tested a half block of cheese (lactose and fat intolerance), modest amounts of fruit (fructose and insoluble fiber intolerance), and the finisher, a greasy-spoon restaurant meal.

None of these could induce a return of the diarrhea that has plagued me for the last 8 years. However, the first and third did make me tired and give me gas for a couple of days. So I’m not invincible. The former was probably a matter of trying too much fat too soon (I have liver damage impairing fat digestion), and the latter was simply unfit for human consumption.

All this took about two weeks to transpire, from June 15 to June 28 [2012], and brings us to the present. I am eating a varied and delicious diet, and enjoying good energy and good health. My 8 year torment is at an end.

Conclusion: His girlfriend is Asian, he isn’t. More seriously, it really does show the power of fermented foods, in this case Yakult and yogurt.

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts3 Comments

Thanks to David Cramer.

The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz

Seth Roberts6 Comments

The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz was published two weeks and I got a copy from the publisher. It has a few conceptual chapters (“fermentation as a coevolutionary force”, health benefits, small business) but most of it is DIY, how to ferment X, Y, and Z. Unlike a set of recipes, he includes background with each food so the result is a cross between an encyclopedia and a cookbook. There are also several pages of color photographs, cute marginal drawings, and excellent lists of references and sources. It covers lots of stuff I rarely see. For example, there is one page on fermenting eggs. When I’m in China, I eat lots of fermented eggs. The book doesn’t mention the controversy in China about heavy metals in the fermented eggs.

The author’s enthusiasm is contagious and I’m sure the book will encourage me to ferment more stuff. Nowadays I just make yogurt, kefir, and kombucha — not even sauerkraut. I once got a book called something like The Book of Yogurt that consisted of 30 different yogurt recipes — which differed from each other by only about 5%. Page after page the same with only minor differences. Talk about cut and paste! I got rid of it (“this is useless!”) but now I wish I had saved it because it was so funny.

Which is only to say that food writing is either incredibly difficult or incredibly awful. I used to subscribe to Saveur. Some of their recipes were very good. The writing was awful, however — like something from a tourist guide. Please, don’t tell me how beautiful the country, how friendly the cook, or how tasty the food! Katz does better than that, especially when he is describing what he has actually done. But about half of the book reminds me of my first piece of extended writing — a “state report” about Maine that I did when I was in fifth grade. I went to several encyclopedias and copied the interesting stuff. Katz has gone to quite a few books and copied the interesting stuff.

In at least one case, he has copied too much. I have made yogurt hundreds of times. Only in the beginning did I do something like what practically everyone in America, including Katz, advocates: heat the milk up, let it cool, put in the culture. Now I just take the milk from the refrigerator, put in a tiny amount of culture, surround the milk with hot water (using a Chinese yogurt-making machine that keeps the water warm), and wait. So much easier. The final product is better (smoother, thicker) than the old hard way, especially when I learned that tiny amounts of culture work better than large amounts. “In my experience, cultures from commercial yogurts never maintain their viability beyond a few generations,” Katz writes. My experience is different: I’ve never had a problem using them.

In contrast to Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, The Art of Fermentation is more personal, more hands-on, and less scientific, all of which are improvements, in my opinion. It is also more opinionated, which since the opinions are commonplace, is bad. “I too love the beer they are usually thinking of . . . However I define beer more broadly than the famous 1516 Bavarian beer purity law . . . I define beer as a fermented alcoholic beverage in which . . . ” At another point, to my surprise, he mentions Jane Jacobs and her theory that agriculture began in cities. “If Jacobs’s theory is correct, then fermentation practices must also have had urban roots,” writes Katz. This is not interesting. The small business chapter is interesting whenever Katz is telling the story of a small business and uninteresting the rest of the time (“Consistency is not necessarily important to the home experimentalist”).

Oh well. I am glad to have a book that will encourage me to ferment more stuff and from which I can learn a lot about fermentation. The book is obviously a labor of love and there are not many of those.

No Mention of Fermented Foods in Article about Importance of Bacteria

Seth Roberts4 Comments

A new article in the New York Times by Carl Zimmer is about the importance of the bacteria inside of us. Several studies are described. Then it comes to the practical use of the knowledge. Here’s what we can do to improve our inner bacterial ecology:

To ward off dangerous skin pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus, for instance, Dr. Segre envisions applying a cream infused with nutrients [Treatment 1] for harmless skin bacteria to feed on. . . . Adding the bacteria directly may also help. Unfortunately, the science of so-called probiotics [Treatment 2] lags far behind their growth in sales. In 2011, people bought $28 billion of probiotic foods and supplements. . . A growing number of doctors are treating C. difficile with fecal transplants [Treatment 3]: Stool from a healthy donor is delivered like a suppository to an infected patient. The idea is that the good bacteria in the stool establish themselves in the gut and begin to compete with C. difficile. This year, researchers at the University of Alberta reviewed 124 fecal transplants and concluded that the procedure is safe and effective.

No mention of fermented foods. The obvious difference between fermented foods and Treatments 1-3, besides pleasure (fermented foods more pleasurable), is that Treatments 1-3 can be sold for high prices. Fermented foods cannot. (Except wine.) The omission is curious. Just because the people that Zimmer interviews have tunnel vision doesn’t mean that Zimmer must.

 

 

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts7 Comments
  • New study shows that a Yakult probiotic drink helps people with lactose intolerance and the benefits persist 3 months after one month of drinking it. Yakult is common in Chinese and Japanese supermarkets but rare in American ones. Until I read this article, I didn’t realize that people drink it because of lactose intolerance, which is much more common in Asia than America. Via Cooling Inflammation.
  • news from the Human Microbiome Project. “To the scientists’ surprise, they also found genetic signatures of disease-causing bacteria lurking in everyone’s microbiome. But instead of making people ill, or even infectious, these disease-causing microbes simply live peacefully among their neighbors.” You may recall that a Nobel Prize was given for the discovery that ulcers are caused by a certain species of bacteria. However, almost everyone with the “disease-causing” bacteria does not get ulcers. Apparently the “surprise[d]” scientists studying the human microbiome did not know that. If it were better known that you don’t need to kill bacteria to make them harmless, antibiotic usage would be less attractive.
  • Air pollution epidemiologist fired from UCLA after his research contradicts claims about the danger of air pollution.
  • How to conduct a personal experiment: biphasic sleeping

Thanks to Melissa McEwen, Peter Spero, Tim Beneke, Dave Lull and Bryan Castañeda.

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts2 Comments

Thanks to Craig Fratrik and Bryan Castañeda.