So often in nutrition I notice that everything old is new again and this definitely true of this recipe for Red Cabbage, Apple and Ginger Sauerkraut.
Preserving vegetables with salt is how my colonizer ancestors stored their home grown vegetables over the cold winter months right here on the prairie where I live. Their health throughout the winter would have depended on the bountifulness of your home garden and the time you dedicated to preserving the vegetables they grew.
The science of nutrition has moved on since these pioneer farmers first made their homes on the prairie across North America and there is now so much that we know about the vitamin content of fermented vegetables, our microbiome and the importance of vegetables and fibre in our diet.
Sadly in this same time we have seen our Western diet become eroded with the advent of fast food chains, processed foods, farming subsidies for wheat, soy and corn, chemical fertilization and the extensive use of glysophate in the farming and combining of crops We also live in a society where there is a general feeling that life is too busy to care for our own basic nutritional needs and we do not have time to cook. Our personal health has eroded over time in tandem.
So let’s bring these thoughts and timeline together and then jump into this incredibly easy recipe.
What have we discovered…
What our ancestors did not know, was the nutritional powerhouse that lay in the vegetables that they fermented to store through the winter. Science has told us that…
Vegetables that have been fermented increase their vitamin C content by 300%
Foods that have been fermented provide a powerful dose of probiotic friendly bacteria for our microbiome.
Our microbiome (the ecosystem of friendly bacteria that lives inside our digestive tract) is heavily involved in boosting our immune response, boosting our mood, promoting the health of our digestive tract, balancing our hormones and keeping us at our ideal weight.
So that is health benefits from easily prepared fermented foods that impact our immunity and resistance to bacteria and viruses, the joy that we feel life and the happiness we feel daily, the ability of our bodies to receive nourishment and digest foods without symptoms of gassiness and bloating and the impact of peri-menopause on our bodies in the shape of uncomfortable symptoms
What we have lost…
We have lost our collective palate for foods that are sour or acidic and crave the sweetness of corn syrup as it is an ingredient in most of our foods from the liquids we drink to our meat, breads and prepared meals.
We have eroded our microbiome as it has taken multiple hits from over use of antibiotics, from prescribed and over the counter medications, from excessive sugar and from the role of the digestive system disruptor, glysophate as a desiccant for grains on the stalk to improve yields for the combine, resulting in this chemical appears in our food in unhealthily large quantities.
The erosion of the nutritional content in general in the foods that we consume as our soil become depleted, as animals are raised in unhealthy systems and in general as we eat foods that impact our bodies in a negative nutritional fashion as they are so packed with chemicals and sugar that our bodies need a disproportionate amount of nutrition to cope.
And here we find ourselves in the middle of a global pandemic and needing to deeply nourish our bodies, especially with vitamin C, build our microbiomes, address chronic underlying health issues and fire up our immune response
At this point in time, everything old is new again and this recipe is practically a life line.
So let’s get our hands into a bowl of cabbage and salt and make like our wise ancestors!
Ingredients
1 small red or green cabbage or half of a large cabbage
3 tart apples
1 thumb sized piece of raw ginger
1 tbsp sea salt
Instructions
Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage and reserve on one side
Chop the cabbage finely removing the stalk and place into a large bowl.
Chop or grate in the apple and grate in the ginger
Add the salt and using your hands massage the salt into the vegetables and fruit until the cabbage become bright red or green and is beginning to release water. Keep massaging for another five minutes.
This process allows the healthy and friendly bacteria from your clean hands and present on the ‘bloom’ of the cabbage, that cloudy texture on the surface of the leaf, to come into contact with all of the cabbage and begin the fermentation process. These bacteria are more varied than any probiotic capsule you can buy in the store and will increase in number to become more powerful for your microbiome than a store bought probiotic.
Once the cabbage is beginning to run with released water pile all of the vegetable and fruit into a large clean mason jar and pour in the liquid.
Press a reserved cabbage leaf over the top of the vegetables and place a weight on top to press down the vegetables.
Put a lid on the mason jar and place in a dark warm place on your counter.
Check on your jar a couple of hours later and if the cabbage is not covered with liquid, make a brine with an 8oz glass of filtered water and 1 tbsp of salt and pour into your jar to cover.
Leave your sauerkraut out on the counter for 24 hours and then allow to mature for 5 days in your refrigerator.
Eat with cheese and crackers, as a side with meat dishes or served next to fried eggs for breakfast.
Try and eat a small portion of fermented foods daily to rebuild your gut health and microbiome. You will notice the inclusion of fermented foods in the softness of your skin and as the antidote to constipation.
If you are looking for other ways to boost immunity you can read about Kukicha Tea here.
