(If memory serves correct, this photo is of a wort kettle fermenting its way to beer at New Belgium Brewery in Colorado. D or A- any help on this? (And I know, a proper story is long overdue.))

 This post is featured on Sustainable Table as this month’s Adventure in Fermentation.

As promised, this month’s Adventures in Fermentation has us discussing the basics. What is fermentation, specifically in food. To start the conversation, let’s clarify that I truly mean the basics. I am no expert on the subject, just a food loving individual that has been fervently fermenting away for about 1 year now. My mind cannot hold down the chemical makeup, compounds and  gases part of the process, so this is a primer with further reading listed at bottom.

In short, fermentation is the process of turning sugars (carbohydrates) into alcohol (think wine) or acid (think vinegar). The final result depends on the bacteria present.

Something I find fascinating is that some bacterias are specific to a region. For instance, the beloved sourdough bread of San Francisco is specific to the lovely city, which is why sourdough bread in other regions rarely has that same tangy flavor as San Francisco sourdough. It’s so specific it is named after the city: Lactobacillus sanfrancisco. You can even purchase this bacteria online to inoculate your own starter with the culture. If you live in San Francisco you are lucky enough to simply leave a bread starter in your windowsill and Lactobacillus sanfrancisco will likely join the party.

Here’s another example: Ever wandered into a strawberry patch a few days after heavy rains and the field smells ever so slightly of wine? The fruit has begun the natural process of fermentation.

Many items you don’t think of as fermented foods are in fact, fermented. They come to us from an ancient tradition of fermentation, most often for food storage (when people are involved). Today, instead of relying on fermentation, we tend to rely on nuking all bacteria out of our food to create a dead zone, then refrigerate to keep growth away as long as possible. Most of us know wine and beer is fermented, even if we don’t know the process. Yogurt, cheese, miso, sourdough bread, kimchi, pickles, sauerkraut, soy sauce, salami, kombucha and more also arrive on our plate after fermentation has occurred.

In fact, without fermentation, it’s safe to say we probably wouldn’t be here today– or at least habitation in a large part of the world would have occurred after the invention of the refrigerator in the early 1900’s. That’s all well and good, you say, but you mention bacteria and that’s bad!

Oh sweet bacteria! Whether you like it or not, bacteria is present in our everyday lives. We breathe it, we walk on it, we touch it, we live it. In fact, without bacteria, digestion in our bodies would not be possible. It’s up to you to choose to fight it with the use of modern anti-bacterial soaps, scrubs, chemicals and pills, or live in harmony with it, making both you and the planet stronger.

I choose to live with bacteria. I’m not saying I walk around New York City licking subway poles, or if I get cut I don’t clean out the wound, but I might not wash my hands before I eat something. Since I made this decision, putting food that is alive and rich in bacteria into my body, I am sick less often, feel more awake, I digest food better, and in general feel healthier. In other words, I have created a thriving colony of bacteria in my stomach that are able to fight off infection more readily. Bad bacteria enters my system, good bacteria, already present in excess, attacks.

The following is summed from the great fermentor Sandor Katz’s book, Wild Fermentation.

Fermentation can produce alcohol (as in wine), lactic acid (cheese/yogurt), and acetic acid (vinegar). Fermentation preserves high amounts of nutrients in foods. It also begins breaking food down, making it not only easier to digest, but nutrients easier to absorb. Fermentation also transforms the food, producing new nutrients and removing toxins from foods (which is why some believe fermented soy is the only way this legume should be consumed).

Milk, especially when we pasteurize it, is indigestible for many people. By turning lactose into lactic acid, dairy products are not only easier to digest, they’re delicious and highly nutritious (which is why some producers are making big bucks selling “probiotic” filled products. Guess what– those probiotics, as in positive (or good) bacteria, should already be in the product if it is in fact real yogurt, not pasteurized after cultures were added!).

As we realize more and more, just like mono-cultures in our agriculture system are bad, mono-cultures in our eating habits are bad. By eating a diversity of foods helps a body receive a large range of nutrients. The same goes for fermented foods, and exposing your body to a wide range of microorganisms (bacteria).

Live bacteria are where these nutrients lie. Unfortunately, we bake bread before we eat it, and we pasteurize many products (like wine) killing any live bacteria that could help us. You can get your live bacteria rush by seeking out items that mention they are “unpasteurized,” “raw,” or contain “live cultures.” Or, you can ferment food yourself. The benefit of fermenting your own foods is that you harness your local bacteria, raising your resistance to allergies and bad bacteria in your own home or neighborhood.

Last month we discussed how to make our own yogurt. Next month we’ll explore another fermented food- any suggestions?

For further reading, check out:
Sandor Katz, Wild Fermentation
Wikipedia’s Fermentation (biochemistry) page
Microbial Fermentation

If you are looking for some light (milky) reading, head over to Sustainable Table. I revamped the Dairy Page (http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/dairy/) a while back and its finally posted. (Sadly, the last line was altered– raw milk and raw milk products are illegal in most states.)

I also edited their page on RBGH, you can find by following this link: http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/rbgh/ 

The other night D and I were at Cooper Union’s Great Hall to hear a group of activists discuss today’s food crisis. Sponsored by World Hunger Year, Step up to the Plate: Ending the Food Crisis, brought together a panel of speakers to discuss, what else, our world food crisis. The forum could have been a day-long event, packed into 3 short hours, provided speakers roughly 15 short minutes of talk time. It’s worth a listen to the sound bites below.

The first video is Gerardo Reyes Chavez, leader of the Immokalee worker movement, fighting for rights of tomato pickers in Florida. A very powerful speaker who has already done so much and is sure to keep strong. The second link is to author Raj Patel, who recently published a great book, Stuffed and Starved. Others follow, including Alice Waters.

The event was video taped by Philanthromedia and clips of the evening can be viewed on their blog – www.philanthromedia.org, or on You Tube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT-CIr16G-8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Mldx3r2rQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu_c5jJ0P6M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu_c5jJ0P6M

I’m guest blogging over at Sustainable Table. My first post is all about vermicomposting (worm composting). Truly, not as disgusting as it sounds (or looks). Since picking up my worms I have swayed many unbelievers– including D who first thought my worms totally gross and now gets extremely mad if we forget to feed them or throw something out that could be destined for the worms.

So many have changed their tune that at our last party I had a group of 8 friends standing around our worm bin asking questions and participating in a feeding (I kid you not and swear most parties do not resort to worms for entertainment or conversation).

Composting is a great solution to stamp out our dependency on synthetic fertilizers, especially petroleum-based ones. It is easy to accomplish in any space– from small scale apartments to large farms. What to do with the compost? Your houseplants and garden will love the rich compost you provide for them. Not much of a planter? Donate your harvested compost to a community garden, neighbor or friend who does plant. You’ll have a friend for life (and maybe some veggies out of the deal!).

Vermicomposting is ideal indoors in a small apartment or house. You can find these, dare I say, fashionable, cedar worm bins on ebay (my friend L has one and loves how it blends into her decor). I have a basic plastic bin with a lid I bought at a discount store for about $10. A bin that will fit under the kitchen sink is a perfect size for a small family.

There are no noticeable bad smells associated with vermicomposting. The only smell will be a sweet Earthiness, and only noticeable when the bin is open, during feeding time. You can still go on vacation when you have your worms and they are not nearly as difficult to care for as a cat, dog, or even fish!

Head over to my post on Sustainable Table: Vermicomposting 101 to read the ins and outs of vermicomposting.

Over the past few weeks I updated Sustainable Table’s Dairy pages. The research taught me a lot about the U.S. Dairy Industry and I’m happy to finally share it with you, my readers. My pages are slowly going live and I’ll post each new one as it goes up.

Thought you knew everything about milk? Think again. This first page is all about Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, or rBGH. Ponder this: We are outraged when athletes voluntarily inject themselves with performance enhancing growth hormones (we don’t drink our athletes’ milk), but the dairy industry pumps cows full of growth hormones and we guzzle the poison up, without knowledge or outrage.

The result of rBGH is that cows produce more milk, which equals the cash cow shown above (my rendering). RBGH turns dairy cattle into milk machines, wearing them down and out faster than pastured cows, it destroys cows’ health leading to a slew of horrible and painful conditions, leading to a regiment of antibiotics and more. And humans? Increased risk of cancers.

Can it get worse? Of course. Monsanto, producer of Posilac, the number one selling rBGH, is fighting rBGH-free labeling currently taking place around the country. Out of consumer fear of what’s in the milk, dairies are beginning to label when their products do not contain rBGH. Monsanto claims it’s libel and misleading to say something is rBGH-free, implying that the synthetic hormones are bad. (Aren’t they?) What about all those “Fat-Free,” “Low-Carb,” “High Fiber,” “Low-Sodium” labeling that is smacked on just about every box, can and bag at the grocery? Aren’t those misleading? Implying they are healthy (or more healthy), when in fact they are still packed with so much other junk they’re horrible for you.

But no worries, there is hope. Head over to Sustainable Table’s Issues pages on rBGH, www.sustainabletable.org/issues/rbgh to learn more and find out what you can do to take action.

Keep posted for information when my pages on the U.S. Dairy Industry, Raw Milk and Hormone go live!
Sincerely,

Stacey, NYC Milkmaid

When I was young I had a book by Steven Kroll called, That Makes Me Mad! about a young girl, Nina, enraged with the world around her. You follow Nina through her pains: when she’s told “something delicious” is for dinner and it turns out to be her least favorite dish, it makes her mad. When her newborn brother gets more attention, it makes her mad. When adults ignore her wonderful attempts at attention, it makes her mad.

Basically, none of us want to be lied to or ignored. It’s something I think many of us have forgotten today.

I remember this book was one of my favorites and I distinctly remember toting it around in the car on trips. To this day when things make me mad I think of little angry Nina. I have mentioned the book to others, but no one else seems to have read it. Sometimes I think I should make the grown up version of this book, but maybe that would be too depressing.

If I did write it, a few pages of my adult That Makes Me Mad! would cover rising food prices, global warming/ the environmental crisis, and other current chatter– That Makes Me Mad!

D forwarded me this article from CounterPunch about rice shortages in Haiti and how the country could once feed itself– before the U.S. stepped in to “help.” It’s happened in other countries and well, That Makes Me Mad! The scenario often goes something like this:

Open trade borders
Artificially low-priced U.S. crops filter into country
Local farmers are driven out of business and move to cities
City populations grow
Joblessness and poverty increases and quality of life is reduced
Corporations move in to “make use” of once used farmland; Build polluting industry; Pollute the land and hire unskilled workers on the cheap (ie ex-farmers– who more often than not are not allowed to unionize)
Countries become “civilized” through industrialization
Land is destroyed and made toxic and we once again distance our understanding of sustainable land use

When is the U.S. going to stop subsidizing mono-cultures, ultimately artificially lowering prices on single commodities, like sugar, rice and corn, and put their money where it actually helps?! Subsidize items like corn and you create a huge surplus. (Because hey, if I’m a struggling farmer trying to make it, I’m going to grow whatever the government is paying big bucks for.) What to do with a huge corn surplus? Export it at prices other countries cannot compete with, turn it into high fructose corn syrup, figure out how to feed it to livestock, put more oil into it than it actually produces to make ethanol, and in general filter it into just about every processed food made, creating obesity throughout the land and making the health care industry (with funding from big Ag) a happy camper.

All of this make me very, very mad!

How about sustainable agriculture methods? Make organic fruits and vegetables more affordable for people– not corn syrup! But as so many people say, I guess the poor broccoli has no multi-million dollar spending lobbyist in Washington fighting for it, huh? I created this one, above right, for the purpose.

So it all seems really big and unbearable, right? Rather than change a light bulb, why not support a local sustainable farmer? Join a Community Supported Agriculture program (their prices are often less than non-organic prices at conventional supermarkets). Or here is another option: Don’t support Big Ag (not because you don’t want to support farmers, but you want to change where subsidies go!)! Read labels on products you buy, stay away from high fructose corn syrup, and in general, ingredients you can’t pronounce or don’t know how they are grown or produced– soy lecithin, not a soybean.

Bravo to the Charlotte Observer for their current multi-level six-part series on the horrors of industrial poultry plants and the many injustices workers there face.

I mentioned this back in December after seeing the film, Mississippi Chicken, less about Mississippi chicken facilities and more about the people that bring us our food. While the horrors of industrial beef and pork plants are coming more into light, the chicken industry often gets overlooked. I think films and exposes like these are all too important to highlight a subject that few people want to look into. As is often said, ignorance is bliss.

We are more often concerned about the welfare of the animals in these industrial food facilities (which truly are horrendous), but there are people that work in these places that face very real injustices that are overlooked. It is all too easy to say these folks can find other jobs, but blaming the victim never gets us anywhere. The people are not the problem, it is the system that employs them that is.

One line that is particularly hilarious to me and just rings of doubling safety books in the industry and corruption:

They [Critics] point to one government measure showing that employees in toy stores are more likely than poultry workers to develop musculoskeletal disorders.

The most common musculoskeletal disorder, according to the piece, is carpal tunnel. I worked for a toy store for over 5 years, while in high school and on college breaks. I never felt my life, hands or safety at all endangered (oh wait, I did consume a lot of candy), but to compare these two occupations is absurd!

Take action against the FDA’s decision to fast-track cloned meat and dairy products to consumers by heading to the OCA.

Opted out of a regular ol’ diet this New Year? How about trying a low-carbon diet? You’ll sound way cooler saying something like, “I just lost 25,000 pounds.” Find out how here.

I have an indoor worm compost bin (vermicompost) that I love. There is no smell and the worms have reduced my garbage by about 2/3 (not to mention most of my junk mail). The best part is that I have pounds of rich compost ready for my house plants (or to donate to friends or community gardens). Composting is a great way to get rid of food scraps. Try reducing your waste by composting in ‘08. If you have space, purchase an outdoor bin or some worms for an indoor bin. Here’s a great city guide to getting started or an article by a friend of mine.

I have been looking into industry Agribusiness and Health donations for Presidential candidates. You can even break it down within a sector (where the sugar, food processing and pharmaceutical industries provide top funding may surprise you). See where your candidates are receiving money from, and where they might stand on the issues they don’t discuss by heading to Open Secrets.

My friend passed this cool website my way. Similar to Environmental Defense’s safe seafood guide, the site brings sustainable fish options to the palm of your hands via cell phone text messaging. Now I only wish my cell phone wasn’t so old I could actually receive text messages! Check out the Blue Ocean Fishphone.

The Green Guide, presented by National Geographic offers some interesting looks into common products.

A friend forwarded the video, The Story of Stuff, the other week, linked below. It moves a little slow (if you already know the info) but there are some good scary factoids in there. I figured in our post-holiday haze of stuff, it would be an informative little clip. What is your reaction after watching the video.

The Story of Stuff

It does not directly mention food, but many similarities exist.

A few days ago I saw the film Mississippi Chicken. It is an interesting look into the lives of immigrant workers in chicken factories. It explores how mistreatment in their lives seeps into other domains of life, from housing to simply driving down the street. I renamed the film Pecking Order. A much more fitting title I think, as the film is less about the chicken industry in Mississippi specifically, and more about the lives it touches.

I would have loved a camera inside the factory, or more on the conditions inside, but this is nearly impossible. As an aside, doesn’t it frighten you when someone refuses to show you how your food is produced? Are conditions so horrible you would gag the next time you put a conventional chicken in your mouth? (Yes.)

This film sets aside our usual understanding of industrial farming and the mistreatment of animals (cut off beaks, pens too small to move in, body sores, and breasts so large the animals cannot stand) and focuses more on the people that bring us our food.

The film takes us into the lives of workers who risked their life to come to this country, and continue to risk it daily to bring us our food. It is by no means a feel-good-save-the-world film, but can be seen as a step towards uncovering a part of industrial farming so rarely looked into (chicken factories) and highlights a controversial subject without becoming preachy (immigrant labor).

The film is in a similar vein of Fast Food Nation and King Corn.

In a slightly related topic, D and I have been discussing mistreatment of immigrant workers lately. Here is a recent story from Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation) about immigrant pay wages on tomato farms for companies like McDonald’s, Burger King and others in the fast food world. More interesting though, is the treatment of laborers on organic farms. People so readily eat and praise organic food these days because it is healthier for the environment and our bodies. But all this do-good attitude is still often at the expense of others’. Treatment of workers on organic farms (especially industrial organic) are often just as bad as they are on conventional farms. Just something to think about.

On a random, interesting note, I was at a food conference the other week and Aaron Woolf, director and producer of King Corn was a speaker. He mentioned being so appalled by his findings during the film, he is setting aside film making for a bit to open a grocery store in Brooklyn, stocked with food found within a 100-mile radius of New York City.