Vegetable Culture Starter

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Now there is a culture you may use for vegetables, whipped butter and sour cream.  Turn your favorite vegetables or cream into a healthy probiotic.  Cultured veggies are easier to digest than raw or even cooked vegetables. They have many more enzymes and enhance the nutrient value of your meals.   

Cultured Vegetables are made by shredding cabbage or a combination of cabbage and other vegetables, packing them tightly into an air-tight container, and leaving them at room temperature to ferment for 3-6 days.  In cooler homes it may take longer.  During the fermentation process the friendly bacteria grow, multiply, and thrive in their new environment.  They convert the sugars and starches to lactic acid and partially digest the veggies they are given.  Once they have done their job you simply place the culture in the refrigerator, which will slow down their activity.  Though the cold will slow down the fermentation process, it will not stop it completely.  However, because of the healthy culture of these bacteria, pathogenic bacteria and bacteria that spoils food will not be able to come in and take over.  So the culture will not spoil and should keep for at least 8 month once cooled.  The culture actually becomes more delicious as the time goes by.

Sally Fallon of the Weston A. Price foundation calls cultured food "super foods" because they are partially digested, so the nutrients are readily available with little work for your body and they actually add to the enzyme stores of your body.  Sour Kraut is possibly the only remaining cultured vegetable in America, though there does seem to be a trend of healthy people bring this almost lost art back into their diets.  

People by the scores have been going to naturopaths or nutritional counselors over the past few years and coming away taking digestive enzymes for the rest of their lives.  When I have talked to these health professionals they all seem to have taken the same classes and have been taught that once your enzyme stores are depleted there is not way of restoring those supplies.  In practice they have all found this to be true. They all  believe that their patients will be on the enzyme capsules the rest of their lives.  Unfortunately, they have missed something that Sally Fallon and the Weston A. Price people along with people like Donna Gates of Body Ecology have come to realize: that  cultured foods will actually  add back enzyme stores into the enzyme banks of the body.  Kefir, cultured cream, buttermilk, cultured vegetables, etc all add predigested food full of vitamins and minerals, normal flora, and enzymes to the body.  I believe these are valuable foods, part of all good traditional diets, that have become lost in the society of today.  And I believe bringing them back is essential for optimal health.

Cultured Vegetables are the perfect compliment to meats.  They contain the enzymes and bacteria necessary for complete protein digestion.  Most people, when having a live blood analysis have undigested protein found in their blood.  Most naturopaths then tell them that they need digestive enzymes.  Interestingly, if a person adds cultured vegetable to their meats at a meal this will also take care of the undigested protein.

Vegetable Culture Starter
6 packets	$22.95
1 individual packet	$4.25

 How to use the Culture Starter in Cream:

Use to make cultured whipped butter and sour cream. One pint of organic heavy cream makes about ½ pound of butter and 1 cup of buttermilk.

• Add one foil starter packet to one pint of pure, organic cream.  Shake or whisk together well.

• Let cream/starter sit for approximately 24 hours at room temperature.  Cream will be very thick.

• Shake well again.

• Flavor as desired.

Two special things to know from the beginning are that cultured or sour cream butter churns more quickly than unfermented, sweet cream butter but still may take as long as 30 minutes to churn.  It churns more quickly if it has been "aged" (left in the sour cream state) for 2-3 days in the refrigerator.  Cultured butter has a richer taste than sweet cream butter.  And secondly be sure to chill the mixing bowl, electric beater and the sour cream before you begin making your butter.

Whip or "churn" the cream to make the best tasting whipped butter you've ever tasted.

  You can use a hand held electric mixer.  Butter can also be made by shaking the cream in a covered glass jar.  Two special things to know from the beginning are that cultured or sour cream butter churns more quickly than unfermented, sweet cream butter but still may take as long as 30 minutes to churn.  It churns more quickly if it has been "aged" (left in the sour cream state) for 2-3 days in the refrigerator.  Cultured butter has a richer taste than sweet cream butter.  And secondly be sure to chill the mixing bowl, electric beater and the sour cream before you begin making your butter. Churn slowly at first and then gradually go up to high speed.  You will see the cream go through three stages: whipped cream, stiff whipped cream, and finally two separate products-buttermilk and butter.  During this last stage as the butter separates from the buttermilk, pay careful attention and turn the speed to low or it will splatter wildly.  Poor off the buttermilk and use it later in cooking or to drink.  Add very cold water to the butter, churn slowly for 1 minute and then pour off the water.  Remove the butter with a wooden spoon, and sprinkle with sea salt and if you want other herbs or seasonings. You can flavor the butter with garlic, herbs, sea salt or even stevia.  

To culture vegetables:

This recipe yields 2 quarts of cultured vegetables.

Method 1

• Place 2 cups of shredded cabbage into a blender with enough water to make a puree.

•  Add cultured vegetable starter to the puree and let sit for 15 minutes. (Starter will become active) 

• Place cabbage culture into jar or canister along with the rest of the green or red cabbage head cut into sections, and 1/2 cup or shredded hard root vegetables such as beets, carrot, daikon, sweet potatoes etc (optional).  Pack down well with your fist.  Leave about 2 inches of room on top for expansion.  Seal jar with airtight lid and place in a room temperature darkened corner until fermented.  This will be from 3 to 7 days.or perhaps longer.  (Some have left it for as long as 14 days)  A layer of harmless mold will often form on the top.  Simply scrape this off and or it will spoil the flavor of your cultured vegetables.  Place your vegetables into a airtight container and refrigerate.  The fermentation process will continue, but very slowly.  Over time they will "age" like wine does becoming softer and even more delicious.  Refrigerated, cultured vegetables keep for up to eight months

Method 2

Dissolve 1 or 2 packages of starter culture in 1/2 cup warm (90 degree F) water.  Add some form of sugar to feed the starter (try Rapadura, Sucanat, honey, agave, etc)  Let starter/sugar mixture sit for about 20 minutes or longer while the L. Plantarum and the other bacteria wake up and begin enjoying the sugar.  Add this starter culture to the brine (step 3 above.)  This procedure takes the place of the first two steps of method 1 above.  You do not need to worry about the sugar added here if you are on a sugar free diet because the bacteria will utilize these sugars and use them all up as they begin to grow and "culture" your vegetables.

Note:

Wash all vegetable well before using, and remove all outer leaves from the cabbage prior to grating or cutting.  It desired, you might want to add one teaspoon of mineral-rich natural sugar to the cultured puree.  The bacteria will feed off of the sugar and not cause a problem if you have candida.

Getting Fancy

You may have tasted some very fine cultured vegetables.   You may add other vegetables like asparagus, green beans, or spinach.  Once you have experimented, you will get bolder and bolder.  Try dark green leafy vegetables like kale and collards.  Soak, drain and chop up ocean vegetables like dulse, wakame, hijikii and arame.  Add either fresh or dried herbs such as dill, caraway, juniper berries, onion, ginger root or others

Try this recipe:

3 Cabbages, 3 inches of ginger, 6 carrots, and 6 cloves of garlic.  It is one of our customers favorites.

Try kohlrabi, celery, garlic, ginger, and a green apple in a cultured vegetable salad.  I have heard it is delicious.

Once you have recipes you like, make large amounts.  You can take these living salads with you when you travel because they keep so well.  You can pull one out of your fridge whenever you are hungry as your healthy "fast food" that requires little or no prep work.  And they keep a very, very long time.  They are one of the healthiest, and most economical foods you can eat.  Be sure to serve them when you have food that takes more work to digest.