Canned Food and Lacto-fermentation

Most everyone who studies nutrition knows that canned food has lost a good share of it's nutritional value, some foods more than others. Enzymes are lost with heat and friendly microbes are killed off and some vitamins are destroyed. Sally Fallon calls this loss, "denatured". Be that as it may, we still need to store food, due to today's uncertainties.

I still "can" food, not much and mostly from my own garden and neighbor's gardens. I can some apricot and peach jams, some tomatoes and this season, apple juice. I mean by "can" that food is heated up enough to kill microbes and then sealed in clean, sterilized jars and stored in my basement. I also sun dry cherries. I buy dehydrated and freeze dried fruits and vegetables for storage. I've been canning since my mother and grandmother used me and my sisters when we were little but old enough to hold a paring knife without cutting ourselves. I did a lot of canning when my children were growing up but I've cut back now because I don't consume sugar anymore and I don't have children living with us but more importantly I use exclusively fresh produce for our meals. I grow a few vegetables myself and there are vegetable and fruit stands close by

I buy commercially canned food. Mostly beans, great northern, navy and other white beans and a few select vegetables. The problem is how to increase the nutrition of canned food?




I have discovered a tasty way to do that; Lacto-fermentation. Open a can of beans, and blend them with some seasonings and fresh onions, herbs and garlic and add a couple tablespoons of yogurt whey with the live lacto-bacillus microbes into the bean puree. Let the mixture stand at room temperature for 3-4 days and the microbes start to eat the sugars/starches of the beans and produce lactic acid which tastes really good and they metabolize other bio-enzymes, acids and some vitamins like C and the Bs. Once the microbes are introduced, do not heat the beans above 116 degrees, or it will kill off the microbes.

1 15 oz can beans, drained
2-3 cloves garlic
1 TBS chopped onion or less
juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp. Real Salt
1 tsp. drid basil or fresh
1 TBS or more virgin olive oil
2 TBS whey with live microbes
sprinkle a little cayenne pepper



That's my Tuscan White Bean Ferment dip with some parmesan cheese crackers.

You can do this with home canned salsa and canned beets. It really improves the taste of the salsa and beets and makes them more nutritious. It should work on about all canned foods that you can eat cold or room temperature. I would not try this on fruit as there is too much sugar and the microbes love the sugars but they produce more alcohol than lactic acid.

So, How do you get living microbes? (I have an earlier blog called Lacto-Fermentation) It is simple; just drain yogurt, plain yogurt preferably your own yogurt or a commercial one without thickeners like gelatin and gums. I like goat milk yogurt best. I love the tartness of the goat milk yogurt and the lactose of goat yogurt is mostly consumed by the microbes. This is the same whey that I use for the vegetable ferments I make. (also in that same blog). I sell a cloth strainer for this purpose that is polyester silk screen fabric measuring 11"x 14" that is perfect for separating yogurt solids from the whey. I cleans up easily and dries very fast. It's $5.00....just email me. The yogurt solids taste like sour cream and is creamy in texture and delicious and the whey is sour and full of living microbes. Both keep in the fridge for 3 weeks or more.

Low Carb?

Yes! I practice a low carb diet and support most others. There are many and I think most are very helpful. I am aware of the SCD ( Specific Carbohydrate Diet) which appears to be life changing and healing for many people. I got onto low-carb eating through the Blood Type Diet introduced in 1997 by Peter J. Dadamo with his book, "Eat Right for Your Type". I have talked about this in an older blog and it still directs most of my food choices. Essentially, it got me off all starchy carbs and of course the bad sugars of high fructose corn syrup and it's many derivatives and refined white sugar and all processed, package and, conveince foods.

For a blood type O, carbs are particularly problematic. Our digestive systems were not designed to digest starches really well or often. And no body's system should handle as much sugar as is common in the American diet. Os seem to have the most primitive diet (hunter/gatherer) of the 4 blood types. Hunter/gatherer diets are promoted by a lot of health enthusiasts lately and if you ponder it, hunters and gathers had very little carbs in their natural diet. Sweets and starches were considered a rare treat to be shared and eaten quickly. Ancient hunters/gatherers got most of their nutrition from animals; meat, milk and fish. My O body responds very well to meat and vegetables with fruits, yams and squash for carbs I started blood type diet 6 years ago and I continue to thrive.

The carbs I avoid are; white potatoes and all of it's variations, corn and all of it's variations, wheat and all of it's variations and white rice. I don't eat prepared breakfast cereal at all and don't eat bread, except my own sourdough spelt bread (the recipe of which is also an older blog). I have become familiar with some alternative grains like quinoa, millet, spelt, amaranth and brown rice and of course oats, but even these I eat very sparingly. My own sourdough spelt bread is made into 4 small loaves and of that I eat no more than 2 slices a day. When I do eat grain and when I prepare oats for my husband's breakfast, I always soak the grains at least 8 hours or more before cooking. My recipes on this blog will all include soaking directions when grains are used. Grains should be soaked, sprouted or fermented(soured) to make them more digestible and nutritionally available. The fast,high heat,high pressure practices that our undisclosed foods use, make grain products a detriment to health not an asset. Sally Fallon of "Nourishing Traditions" espouses soaking grains before cooking. Her book contains many recipes for sprouted, soaked and fermented grains. Her contribution to my diet is immense.

Restaurant eating becomes a real adventure when all those carbs are removed. Most fast food and moderately priced restaurants depend on those kinds of carbs to fill up their customers. Breads of various types, a big baked potato, a plate of hot pasta and some steaming rice all look good, smell good and taste really good and they are filling but they are difficult to digest and if you aren't really, really active they turn to stored fat. Take those carbs away from your typical restaurant meal and see what is left of just meat or fish and vegetables.....not much. If people ate out only once or twice a month on this kind of food maybe it wouldn't be causing the kind of harm it does but Americans, more specifically Utahns, also eat these kinds of foods at home. Carb overdose, I call it. It's everywhere especially in my Ward's Relief Society gatherings or Ward parties. And, I haven't even mentioned the desserts; the cookies, cakes, sweet breads, puddings, pies, brownies, etc. a list that is endless....an endless list of nothing but carbs... all the wrong kind of carbs. To state that this list is bad for you, is nothing new...everybody knows it......but....they just can't help themselves. It's carb addiction pure and simple. Carb overdose pure and simple and it is very real and very dangerous.

I know how powerful it is and how hard to quit. I was making my own whole wheat bread by grinding my own flour and it tasted so good I sometimes made 2 3 slices a meal. I practiced vegetarianism in my 50s at least my version of it with lots of homemade bread, pasta, baked potatoes,rice and homemade bean soups. I made fruit and vegetable salads and ate very little meat, only chicken and some fish. Those were my worst years of health. I went through a brutal menopause, I was gaining weight fast, my knees and finger joints were swollen and stiff in the mornings and I had a hard time climbing the stairs to my school room every day, I had IBS and didn't know what a normal poo was and I was loosing my hair and my complexion was a mess. But I thought I was doing all I could for my health and thought my troubles were just due to aging. I was wrong, and as soon as the carbs were discarded, I began to heal and get back my health.

It's that simple and that hard. One more thing to mention; being low-carb does not enhance your sociality. Our social events are so centered around delightful carbs that to restrain from eating them is tantamount to being a social outcast. Many of my friends and neighbors are good cooks but they hang their self esteem, sense of accomplishment and neighborliness on recipes of sweet treats and desserts. Not partaking and complimenting the baker or cook is to cast yourself to the outer fringes of society. Not and easy role for women especially Mormon women.

So beware, going low-carb will improve your health but not necessarily your social standing. It's a price to pay for better health. Of course, I think it worth it. But then what do you eat? That's for another blog.

Crustless Pumpkin Custard

I love pumpkin pie, but cannot eat the wheat crust, so I came up with the idea of just making the custard part. I bake it in a glass pan and thus I get the goodness of the pie without the problem of wheat( I am blood type O with wheat as strong avoid).
This recipe can be used as a dessert or quick breakfast, it depends on how much sweetness you use. This recipe is moderate sweetness with honey but you can use agave and I suppose you can use an organic, granulated cane sugar also. I've tried Stevia and don't like it. Stevia is fine if you don't cook or bake it. Another problem for Os is milk. Os do not digest lactose past infancy and even then some O babies don't. Milk proteins can also be problematic. When I say milk, I mean regular commercial, pasturized milk. Over the years I have experimented lots of different "milks" trying to find something that agrees with me. Nothing with lactose agrees with me even raw milk (which I buy for my husband, a B) or goat milk which has finer proteins. Rice milk and almond were OK, but I found that I can tolerate cream. I mix cream with pure water, yogurt or goat's milk. Cream has very little lactose left so a little doesn't trouble me. I don't buy the ultra-pasturized. My best dairy products are raw cow milk and goat milk in either in Kefir or yogurt form. I make my own kefir and yogurts.

you will need;

1 large can of pumpkin
4 eggs
1 cup milk type liquid
2/3 cup honey or agave
1 tsp Real Salt or other natural high mineral salt
spices; 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, pinch cloves, pinch nutmeg
1 TBS flaxseed meal
1 TBS millet flour
1 TBS brn rice flour
handful of soaked walnuts
handful of raisins
9x9 or 9x13 glass pan

Mix the eggs, flaxseed meal, millet and brn rice flours and milk together and let set about 8 hours or more. Soaking the grains neutralizes the phytic acids on them. Soaking walnuts or any nuts does the same thing. Walnuts can have a bitter tsste for some people and soaking, takes that taste away.
After a few hours mix the pumpkin and other ingredients and pour into a greased baking dish. I grease with ghee or coconut oil. Bake 350 for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Pumpkin Seed Ferment

This food is my favorite. I invented it while fermenting some other seeds and nuts and this by far was my favorite. I make it about once a month and have a hard time sharing it. Luckily, my husband doesn't like it. This process doesn't add microbes, the pumpkin seeds, if raw and untreated, come naturally gifted with their own lacto-bacillus, as does most of the food from the earth. This food is only for the really adventurous. Some of my seminar attendees say it is an acquired taste but with me it was love at first bite.

You will need...

• about a pint (2 cups) of dried, raw, shelled, pumpkin seeds, or pepitas. Not roasted, salted or oiled....just RAW.
  
  


• about 3 cups of pure water (chlorine-free)
  
  


• 1 or more TBS ghee
  
  


• 1/2 to 3/4 tsp. Real Salt or other high mineral salt or some sprinkles of Eden brand Ume Plum Vinegar ( a huge condiment favorite of mine)
  
  


• a food processor

The process is to combine the water and pumpkin seeds in a clean wide-mouth quart jar and cover with a cheese cloth or paper napkin.....something that can "breathe" and secure with an elastic. Set this on a kitchen counter at room temperature for 3 days.

This is the hard part.....it will bubble and stink! Yes, stink. The water activates the bacteria and they get all happy and start to ingest the sugars on the seeds and in the seeds and they stink. It is perfectly OK. My husband hates that smell and thinks something is dead. He tried to throw them out once when I wasn't home thinking one of my experiments had gone bad. And the first time I invented this, I thought so too but when I tasted it, wow! I loved it.




At 2 days you should see lots of bubbles and white foamy stuff on top. That's normal and the stink is normal too! Some seeds will be floating.




After 3 days, drain the seeds and rinse under tap water in a strainer. Immediately dump some in a processor with part of the ghee ( also at room temperature) and some salt and start processing. This is another hard part. I have to frequently stop the machine and with a spatula, push down the sides. My processor is kinda small and I use both hands lift it and shake it at the same time I am processing. Add more ghee if needed. It is a thick, textured paste when I think it is done. I scoop the light green paste and put it into a covered jar and put in cold storage. I don't eat it with anything, just by itself with a tiny spoon. It's an in between snack; a great treat with good fat for energy.


A variation of this idea is to just spread some of the rinsed and sticky seeds out on a plate and sprinkle with salt and let them dry. The flavor of the activated bacillus enhances the flavor of the seeds and with some salt is just delicious.

Ghee; Clarified Butter

Clarified butter is just the oil, that rich, beautiful sweet smelling oil.....without the water and the proteins or milk solids. The picture above is from my basement storage; it has been there since the first of June this year and it has that creamy, opaque look.

When I dropped carbs and took on the diet of an O Gatherer, I also dropped the bad fats and restored to my diet good old butter. And as my yearly blood tests show, it doesn't raise my LDL cholesterol's at all and my good one, HDL is high.

My mother used butter when I was a child in the 50's and bacon fat. She kept the bacon fat on the back of the stove in a can and that's what she cooked with. But I remember her buying the first packages of margarine because as she was convinced that margarine was good and bacon fat/butter was bad. She like millions of other housewives bought into the then current campaign that the shortening companies were promoting; vegetable fat and hydrogenated vegetable fats were modern and superior food to the old natural fats. Having a "share" of the fat market wasn't enough so they found some likely "scientists" that loosely correlated heart disease and high blood cholesterol with animal or natural fats. If they could "demonize" the natural fats, then the public would buy more of their "unnatural fats" and they would get more of the market share. It worked. So for over 40 years, we have been using vegetable fats over natural and have paid the price with all kinds of health issues. Now, thank goodness and more thorough research, natural fats are in, butter is back and wouldn't Julia Child be happy.

I buy butter from all sources and especially when it is on sale and freeze it. This is perfectly OK but I want just the oil. Once I tasted Ghee, it was love at first bite! I have developed my own process by watching videos online. I put ghee into clean jars and the lids seal and I can keep it in my food storage for long periods. I make a batch ( 5-6 pounds) about every 4 months.

I want to share this idea because it is such a wonderful fat and makes everything; steamed vegetables, muffins, pancakes, toast, cooked cereal, sourdough bread, everything taste so much better. The picture below shows melted butter and some foam on top. The oil is not clear yet.




There are a number of processes for turning butter into ghee and I have tried two of them; one is the oven method and the other the one for this blog is stove top. For both you will need a large stainless steel pot. Mine holds 5-6 pounds of butter. You will also need a few clean glass jars with rubber lined lids and a large stainless steel wire mesh splatter catcher.

I set my oven to 325 degrees or 350. I put a paper towel over the pot and place the splatter catcher over that to hold it in place. It takes about an hour for the butter to melt down, separate and the water to boil off. Don't use a lid, the steam from the water will blow the lid off and splatter grease all over your oven. The paper towel with mesh screen holding it, will allow steam to escape and catch the grease splatters. I change the paper towel at least once during the hour. Check on it from time to time.

For stove top, I melt the butter and keep the tempt. around med. high. I use the mesh catcher, but again no lid. I am there to keep an eye on it and skim milk solids and salt off the top. Because the temp is lower on stove top, it takes about an hour and 20 minutes for the oil to clear and the solids to separate.
Skim some of the brown particles off the top of the ghee and use a small dipping tool and start pouring the hot oil into the jars. Secure the clean, dry lids and put aside to cool. The clear yellow color changes to creamy opaque when they cool and you should hear the pop sound of the lids sealing.

Clean, hot jars with warm, rubber lined lids should seal the clarified butter. These jars are then labeled and put downstairs in storage. From frozen storage to cool storage. I don't know how long they last....don't know what the shelf life is. So far, the longest I have kept a jar is 6 months in the basement and that ghee was perfect, no rancid, no mold....just perfect. A jar of ghee keeps on the counter at room temperature without molding, until it is gone....even in the summer. I prefer rendering ghee to keeping butter frozen because it saves room in the freezer for meats and other important items.

When you get most of the oil out of the pot, you should see some crusty, brown stuff at the bottom that looks like this. Once, I burned the ghee! It seemed like a flash, the oil turned brown...from golden to brown and I thought I had lost the whole batch. I let it cool and tasted it. Wow! was it good. It tasted like Carmel. I bottled it and we used it all. It added a really rich taste to everything. Only problem is, I don't trust the nutritional content of "burnt" or caramelized ghee. It tasted wonderful, but I wonder if the oil vitamins were lost or the nutritious fatty acids changed or corrupted. So, if it happens again, I will keep it, but it's not something I will plan to do.

The brown stuff at the bottom tastes good, salty and oily, but it is waste and I throw it away. If there is a little clear oil left over I pour it into a small container and use that first

This batch of 6 pounds of butter yielded 8 jars of ghee with a combined yield of approx. 75 ounces. I spent about $24. on this butter and got 8 jars of ghee. Purity Farms brand sells ghee in 11 or 10 ounce jars for about $1 an ounce or $9.99 a jar. I got my ghee for about $3.00 a jar. Not bad!

Tomato Salsa; Fermented

A new recipe, one that I got from Barb at Nourishing Gourmet (see link)

My friend Mona, and I tried this out Saturday and it was a lot fun. I tried two different fermentations; one with lacto-bacillus whey from Drake's Goat Milk Yogurt, and the other was my own Kombucha. The Kombucha quart was so active it bent the lid upward after only 2 days and I had to open it before before the jar exploded. I took out half of the salsa put back the other half into the fridge with a Kombucha mushroom to keep it aerobic. We ate the fresh, fermented salsa and really enjoyed it. It was fizzy, and had a punch to it..... very satisfying. there seemed to be a lot of lactic acid. I guess Kombucha microbes must love tomatoes. In this picture you can see the Kombucha "scooby" or mushroom that will allow some flexibility during cold storage fermenting and keep the microbes safe. I've used this Kombucha mushroom with my sauerkraut also. ( see my first blog)

You will need for 1 or 2 quarts;

8-10 ripe tomatoes preferably from your garden, various kinds

3 mild peppers, big to med size and to your taste for hotness

5-6 cloves of garlic

1 yellow onion med size

1 bunch of cilantro

1 TBS Real Salt per quart

Cumin powder.... 1/4 tsp per quart

3-4 TBS live whey per quart

The most important thing about salsa and (perhaps the hardest part) is getting the skins off the tomatoes and peppers. There are two ways to do it relatively easily. One is to roast the halved tomatoes and peppers close to the heat unit in an oven on broil (the picture below shows our vegetables before going under the broiler) another way is to grill the vegetables over open flame and yet another way is to drop tomatoes into boiling water for a minute or two. I believe this is called par-boiling. I haven't par-boiled peppers, just tomatoes. It is best to roast peppers in broiler or open flame or grill.

When the tomatoes split their skins remove and let cool enough to peel. When the peppers get brown and blistered rotate until at least 3 sides are blistered. Remove those and place in a zip-lock bag and let steam. When they cool, their skins will come off fairly easy.

The peeled tomatoes goes into a food processor and blended to desired texture and the peeled peppers, onion and peeled garlic I chop by hand to desired texture. If peppers are the hot kind, please wear rubber or latex gloves. These peppers were not that hot and we chopped by hand but maybe the capsicum oils were not fully developed yet. ( I am showing my ignorance of peppers.)

We combined the onion, garlic, peppers and cilantro together and it didn't taste very hot, so Mona went to her garden and got about 5 or 6 little round green chili peppers and chopped those and added them.

We alternated layers of tomato pulp and green pepper mix between 3 quart jars and then last added the 1 TBS salt and 3-4 TBS of lacto-bacillus whey. I put Kombucha in one of the jars and that is the one that almost exploded. The liquid should be within 1 inch of the top. We tightened the lids, labeled the date and whey and set to ferment for 3 days at room temperature. The liquids in the picture are whey on the left and Kombucha on the right.

The salsa I opened for fear of exploding, tasted just exactly hot enough for us. A couple days of fermenting brought about the hotness we wanted. The rest of it is still in cold storage.

Lamb and Portobello Mushrooms

This is a favorite dish of ours. We are carnivores (blood type O and B) and lamb is one of the best, tastiest meats around. The tenderest meat parts are lamb chops. Shoulder meat is tougher but cheaper. I will sometimes combine a few chops with some shoulder pieces.
Lamb, bison and elk need to be cooked fast and hot. If cooked too much, they taste kinda metallic (high iron content in these meats) and can get tough. It is best to cook hot and fast leaving the center warm but raw. ( According to Weston A. Price research, some raw meat is very healthy and nutritious)


We had this last night and it was wonderful. I fixed this dish for some friends several weeks ago who were sure that they didn't like lamb but they liked this.

You will need;



1-1 1/2 pound of lamb chops (6-7) or some chops and maybe a shoulder cut


6-8 med size portobello mushrooms

half an onion

1/4 to 1/3 heavy cream or more

4 cloves of garlic

1 TBS or so of refined coconut oil or ghee

iron skillet or stainless

Real Salt

The hardest part of this recipe is the cutting and trimming of fat. Use a very sharp knife and trim off most of the fat and connective tissue. You can salt the lamb chops and fry them fast on both sides and I have done that and it is good if you like gnawing on bones, but cutting off the meat makes it easier to eat and less primitive for company.

I salt the meat chunks and rub finely chopped garlic into the meat, if not using fresh garlic, some dried, powdered garlic will do.

Slice and saute the onion and mushrooms first, in ghee or refined coconut oil and push to side of skillet or remove. Add the meat chunks and brown on all sides ( I use med. high heat) Don't over cook!

Place meat in a shallow bowl, put the sauteed mushrooms and onions on top and last, drizzle some cream over all. Adjust seasoning and serve hot.

I do not suggest serving any grain with red meat. I find as an "O" that my body will digest the meat and fat with some vegetables just fine without the starches, but add bread, pasta, rice even quinoa and everything slows down and the meat doesn't get digested properly. Non-starch vegetables fresh or steamed, go very well with meat, not grain.

This recipe is good with ground turkey, bison and beef as well.