Fermented Vegetables

So I decided to try to make some fermented vegetables and I'm following Mercola's method. He has some articles and videos about it. He takes celery juice, mixes in a culture starter, shreds some cabbage and carrots, mixes it together, puts it in a mason jar and smashes it down, loosely caps it and lets it sit at room temp for a week. I bought some beet, carrot and celery juice from Whole Foods because I don't have a juicer and some shredded cabbage and broccoli from Trader Joes. I took the juice and added 4 capsules of Mercola's probiotic to it along with 1/4 tsp. of Himalayan Salt. I guess the salt helps to prevent bad bacteria from growing but also slows the good bacteria from growing. I put the cabbage in the mason jar, smashed it down and added the juice, smashed it down again with my fingers/fist then loosely capped it. I'm kind of scared I'm going to get food poisoning from this. I had some bad salsa once and felt like I was going to die for a day and that was just in the refrigerator for too long, not sitting out. Does anyone have any experience with this? The jars of fermented veggies at whole foods are $20 and this jar cost me about $5 (the juice was $3). I don't think you would even need the vegetables, you could probably just add the culture starter to some vegetable juice and drink it after a week.

I watched this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05lVOmj1Pqg

I watched 40 minutes of this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkXT-XgyzkI

That guy isn't even for a culture starter. How does he not get sick?

I should probably listen to this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy87TnyNCPk

Please advise.

Thanks.

I'm no expert at fermenting foods - but i like to keep it simple:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i77hU3zR-fQ

used the above for sauerkraut and came it pretty good. Bought his book as well -

Yeah, that's the guy Mercola interviewed for over an hour. Mine looks like his but it's a lot more juicy and the juice is red from the beets. I didn't mash it up like he did. I also added the starter culture. I'm going to eat a tiny bit in a week to make sure I don't get sick. I'm not sure why you can get sick from bad salsa but not this.

I've been experimenting with fermentation and hands down a quality ceramic fermenting crock works best. I bought a harsch gairtopf crock on amazon and produced the best sauerkraut I've ever had in the US but it did take 6 weeks to fully ferment. Gut health is improving from eating about a half cup a day.

Danny Roddy does have me a bit concerned about the lactic acid content though. Oh we'll it's all about trade offs I guess.

turbojet wrote:I've been experimenting with fermentation and hands down a quality ceramic fermenting crock works best. I bought a harsch gairtopf crock on amazon and produced the best sauerkraut I've ever had in the US but it did take 6 weeks to fully ferment. Gut health is improving from eating about a half cup a day.

Danny Roddy does have me a bit concerned about the lactic acid content though. Oh we'll it's all about trade offs I guess.

I've been curious about this too as I also drink a lot of fermented yogurt +vegetables. Maybe CS can give us his take on the lactic acid content and any effects.

I've been doing this a while for vegetables and stuff that doesn't need oxygen(kombucha supposedly does)most cheap and fool proof way is a fido jar no mold on top ever and not even sumberged all way I've done it myself with sauerkraut/kimchi.
http://www.nourishingtreasures.com/index.php/2012/08/20/can-fido-jars-defy-science-can-they-provide-a-fail-safe-spoilage-free-ferment-with-no-brine-cover-find-out/

Balthier wrote:I've been doing this a while for vegetables and stuff that doesn't need oxygen(kombucha supposedly does)most cheap and fool proof way is a fido jar no mold on top ever and not even sumberged all way I've done it myself with sauerkraut/kimchi.
http://www.nourishingtreasures.com/index.php/2012/08/20/can-fido-jars-defy-science-can-they-provide-a-fail-safe-spoilage-free-ferment-with-no-brine-cover-find-out/

Doesn't the pressure build up with that jar? All of my veggies are floating to the top so I can't keep them covered with juice. There is about 1 inch of just juice on the bottom.

These look pretty good...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B2B98K4/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2L8EOGR2TD3R7

http://www.foodrenegade.com/3-biggest-fermenting-mistakes-youre-already-making/

Olive oil on top. Duh.

i just bought 6 bottles off here: http://www.immunitrition.com/Organic_Cultured_Veggies.html

i also made 6 bottles myself. since doing fermented veggies, my sleep has increased exponentially. this stuff has actually helped me a lot. i feel like i have way more energy and my other health issues are starting to clear up. cant comment on hair though.. but im goign to be doing this a lot. ive been eating one 32 oz thing of these veggies everyday. my digestion is severely screwed up.. this has been helping me more than anything ive tried inthe last 2 years these fermented veggies .

i used this to learn how to make them: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/12/15/caroline-barringer-interview.aspx

the ones i made on my own, i just manually ripped apart cabbage and added carrots and celery juice mixed with water. really nothing special. then i added pb8 i think its called acidolphilus and good belly probiotic from the store.

the celery juice stops the pathogens from forming from what i understand.

HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you guys give this try. amazing what it has done for me so far for my digestion

Probiotic Potency: Each 6 to 8 ounce serving of our veggies (all blends) contains at or above 10 TRILLION organisms (54 billion per gram)!
ONE JAR (32 oz.) of our veggies is equal to 5 FULL BOTTLES OF A HIGH POTENCY PROBIOTIC! SUPPLEMENT! A typical bottle of probiotic capsules (60 to 90 count) sells for $40 or more. You would have to spend over $200.00 to receive the same potency of probiotic organisms that are in just ONE JAR ($20.00 or less) of our organic cultured vegetables.
ONE CASE (SIX 32 oz. jars) is equal to 30 FULL BOTTLES OF A HIGH POTENCY PROBIOTIC SUPPLEMENT! You would have to purchase over $1200.00 of probiotic supplements to receive the same potency of probiotic organisms that are in just ONE CASE ($105.00 value) of our organic cultured vegetables.
Dr. Mercola states the following in an article on his website... "It's worth noting that each mouthful of fermented food can provide trillions of beneficial bacteria—far more than you can get from a probiotics supplement, which will typically provide you with colony-forming units in the billions. I thought this would be a good analysis, so I tested fermented vegetables produced with our probiotic starter culture to determine their probiotic potency and was astounded to discover they had 10 trillion colony-forming units of bacteria. Literally, one serving of vegetables was equal to an entire bottle of a high potency probiotic!"

I just ordered these...

http://www.pickl-it.com/

This website it pretty good. She outlines the different equipment you can use...

http://www.picklemetoo.com/articles-on-fermentation/

That pickle-it jar is the best along with the expensive crocks with weights. She says the valves on a mason jar are not air tight. The batch I made is floating to the top so I'm going to throw it out and use those jars. I think the celery juice acts like salt and keeps the bad bacteria from growing (if I remember correctly from the Sandor Katz-Mercola video). I'm not sure if you have to worry about this if everything is underwater and air tight.

ngb wrote:

Balthier wrote:I've been doing this a while for vegetables and stuff that doesn't need oxygen(kombucha supposedly does)most cheap and fool proof way is a fido jar no mold on top ever and not even sumberged all way I've done it myself with sauerkraut/kimchi.
http://www.nourishingtreasures.com/index.php/2012/08/20/can-fido-jars-defy-science-can-they-provide-a-fail-safe-spoilage-free-ferment-with-no-brine-cover-find-out/

Doesn't the pressure build up with that jar? All of my veggies are floating to the top so I can't keep them covered with juice. There is about 1 inch of just juice on the bottom.

yes it does to a degree then it gets released, but that's also what causes the vegetables to not mold. The gases create an oxygen barrier. If too much pressure build it lifts the lid almost like a natural airlock. You can read several other articles on that site above she's got some tests of air tightness of different types of jars about along with youtube videos showing that fidos let off gas etc.http://www.nourishingtreasures.com/index.php/2012/06/05/the-day-before-testing-the-seals-of-the-jars-seal-shocker/

Never tried using this method before. I'm somehow afraid how things would turn out since I'm not good on fermenting foods.

Balthier wrote:

ngb wrote:

Balthier wrote:I've been doing this a while for vegetables and stuff that doesn't need oxygen(kombucha supposedly does)most cheap and fool proof way is a fido jar no mold on top ever and not even sumberged all way I've done it myself with sauerkraut/kimchi.
http://www.nourishingtreasures.com/index.php/2012/08/20/can-fido-jars-defy-science-can-they-provide-a-fail-safe-spoilage-free-ferment-with-no-brine-cover-find-out/

Doesn't the pressure build up with that jar? All of my veggies are floating to the top so I can't keep them covered with juice. There is about 1 inch of just juice on the bottom.

yes it does to a degree then it gets released, but that's also what causes the vegetables to not mold. The gases create an oxygen barrier. If too much pressure build it lifts the lid almost like a natural airlock. You can read several other articles on that site above she's got some tests of air tightness of different types of jars about along with youtube videos showing that fidos let off gas etc.http://www.nourishingtreasures.com/index.php/2012/06/05/the-day-before-testing-the-seals-of-the-jars-seal-shocker/

Oxygen is what causes the problems so you don't want an "oxygen barrier". I bought those fido jars with the valve (pickl-it) because regular fido jars aren't really designed to let the CO2 escape. The weak point is obviously the seal and this will fail before the jar glass explodes I guess. The Harsch crock's look good too but they are big and expensive.

no I meant the Co2 will build up enough so it will not let any oxygen in. I've done sauerkraut in fido style jars more than once to test this out and there is never any mold no explosions yet either. Not designed to release CO2 you say?http://www.nourishingtreasures.com/index.php/2012/08/29/do-fido-jars-explode-do-they-off-gas-lets-find-out-video/

I liked this one

http://www.perfectpickler.com/categories/Perfect-Picklers/


SAnderson - I believe I had read somewhere on these forums about a rundown of the various probiotics and their benefits and if I'm not mistaken acidophilus was actually nto a very good one and responsible for low grade inflammation in people when taken in large doses. There was a list of really good ones on that thread too. I don't have time to find it myself, but I think you might benefit form finding it.

Duketronix wrote:I liked this one

http://www.perfectpickler.com/categories/Perfect-Picklers/


SAnderson - I believe I had read somewhere on these forums about a rundown of the various probiotics and their benefits and if I'm not mistaken acidophilus was actually nto a very good one and responsible for low grade inflammation in people when taken in large doses. There was a list of really good ones on that thread too. I don't have time to find it myself, but I think you might benefit form finding it.

thank you for letting me know this. i did not know this. here's a thread i have bookmarked that i will be purchasing some of these power strains. this may be of benefit to you as well:

https://immortalhair.forumotion.com/t1579-why-you-may-not-improve-while-on-probioticsand-what-to-do