Hello,

I'd like your opinion on femented food. I know that paleo's would have gotten soil organisms into the gut. But the other good bacterias would have come from ferments. Wouldn't early humans have eaten fermented meats or fish? I just imagine that besides raw meat, there would have been the dried meat but also buried fermented meat. As animals do bury their kills to protect and it would be in varying states of decompostion, to say nothing of stealing from other kills. Also what vegetable matter gathered could have been fermented also --I've found nothing to support this though, just my own thought.


I believe that vegetable ferments, sauerkraut, is an important addition to the diet. I don't believe that ferment is an agricultural invention.

Could someone tell me how the gut bacteria changes from a Paleo diet that the strains of bacteria in ferments aren't necessary/optimum? Any research done on this?

I'd think the larger part of "healthy dairy" is not due to the milk proteins or sugars but to the raw ferments (in indigineous cultures eating dairy).

May I say hello to you all here. I'm here for optimum health diet. I am 5'5'' 118 pounds but am 30% body fat. I've had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for around 15 years, and will do anything to be rid of it and gain back muscle, (very sedentary, unable to work). I have been, and can follow the Neanderthin diet, but am questioning ferments. Oh, and I live in Florida and am awaiting out 4th Hurricane Jeanne. Although every Hurricane I go way off diet, but aint blaming myself, EVENTUALLY these Hurricanes shall end. Talk about pressure while trying to follow a brand new way of eating. And I've never dieted to lose weight, only switching up % of macronutrients (Zone, mcrobiotics, raw vegetarian for awhile, etc etc etc over the years) and for the past year following Nourishing Traditions eating. So most of Paleo has already been in my fridge (buffalo, ostrich, kippers salmon, dha eggs, coconut oil) so all I need do is cut sourdough bread, Lurpac butter, raw cheese, potatoes etc.) I've been around 80-90 Neanderthin but now want to commit to 100% except for really debating the sauerkraut (as a percentage of calories sauerkraut would be negligible)

Thank you,
Linda

I am pretty sure that the author of Neanderthin is against the consumption of vinegar, which would probably mean he would not agree with eating sauerkraut. I not sure of the reasons for this. Maybe someone else will know. I know I would not turn a plate of it down, though

There is one well known paleo 'ferment' which was eaten until about the beginning of the 20th century in Australia. There are stands of Bunya Pines growing in the mountains about 150 km inland from the Queensland coast. They produce huge crops of nuts about the size of a chestnut. Every 2 years, Aboriginal clans would meet for a huge feast (not unlike the bean feasts of native mid-western americans). The uneaten nuts would be mixed with clay and buried in pits to ferment for a year or so, and were prized, but described as quite disgusting by European settlers!
Whether the fermented nuts had any nutritional value, I don't know, but I often wonder why we are supposed to take "good" bacterial supplements - where did we get them from before acidophilus factories were built?

My Dad had a theory about the dairy industry. Why sell milk to the public when you can diversify it into all sorts of other products such as yogurt, cream, powdered skim milk, and sell it to the public at four times the original price? I reckon the acidophilus thing is just an extension of the diary industry wringing the last penny from the public. I bet the next big thing will be some sort of fermented alcoholic milk thing like the huns used to drink!

cheers
Michael Gardner
Australia

just another point, when mentioning fermentation, it could be easy to immediataly think "ah! jars or bowls would be needed, so fermentation must be Neolithic at the latest" , however when I was in Turkey I noticed that the yogurt sold by local grandma's at the markets was made inside the skin of a whole goat, with the legs and forelegs sewn up to make a big goat-sized and quite alarming looking bag!! So containers of various types would surely have been available long before clay pots were invented.

Michael

My parents made home-made sauerkraut and they never used vinegar, they used coarse salt and the sauerkraut was fabulous.

Also, my mother would place raw milk in the cupboard overnight and we would have sour milk. That's how we got our good bacteria.

How this affects NeanderThin and the original question is that if you made your own sauerkraut using coarse unrefined salt, you could try it out and if no adverse effects took place, then why not if you enjoy it.

Why do you want to abandon "Nourishing Traditions"? I am thinking of possibly incorporating some of the fermented foods for health reasons? I love butter, cream etc.

I just attended a Weston Price Harvest festival in my area and it was great, picked up lots of literature from local farmers, and attended a seminar by Tom Cowan. I want to buy his book, "Four Fold Path to Healing".

What I meant was if Neanderthin is against vinegar it should be against sauerkraut because after it ferments it contains vinegar, right? I'm not even sure Ray Audette is against it, I just think I remember reading it somewhere. Maybe TwilightZ or someone else will read soon and let us know. I am really unsure! I've been using it anyway, though

By the way, don't think I am being all self-righteous about Neanderthin here or anything, I just wasn't sure what the book said. Personally, I eat about any low-carb food that I don't consider overly processed, as long as it doesn't affect me. This mainly consists of high-fat cheese and heavy cream. It doesn't seem to affect me, so why not enjoy it? At least it isn't a protein bar or some Atkins crap masquerading as caveman food

Thank you for all your replies.

I suppose my question is more in this vein...if Alaskans eat fermented meat and the native Australians ferment, I was wondering if fermentation is actually necessary? Meaning if there have been ferments for ages then a diet would not be optimum without it. Not that I would be fermenting meats any too soon, but surely fermented vegetables like sauerkraut. I wonder about those healthy little bacterias in the gut and that we have always eaten fermented food? I loved hearing about the goat carcass yogurt bladder!

When I think about dairy and early peoples magic/spiritual/nature drive, I can just imagine the idea of drinking the milk of animals having a sort of power, or taking the animals spirit in you know? I'm sure it wasn't a daily diet sort of thing but I wonder if it didn't happen sorta regular way before the keeping of animals. Especially with lactating females killed in the hunt?

Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Westin Price are incredibly good books. But Neanderthin is about pre-agricultural and so because I have this nonsense illness, I thought I could only get rid of it by going pre-agricultural. Even though there are very healthy peoples generationally post-agricultural, the proper preparation of beans/grains/potatoes/dairy have done nothing to improve my condition after a years time. And so I have embarked on this diet.

Thank you,
Linda

Linda,

I don't know for sure, but my guess is that fermentation falls into that category of post-agricultural practices to process foods to make them healthier/edible. This would fall into the same category as soaking beans and grains, alkalizing corn, etc. I think stone age people just ate what they hunted and gathered when they got it.

CFS can be tricky and fermented foods can cause or worsen health problems--I have severe itching due to yeast/fungal problems and fermented foods make it worse. So do aged cheeses. I'd start by avoiding them, then if you're successful, try adding them and see what happens.

The Weston A Price gang are certainly a valuable resource and definitely on the right track, but given that the noted beginnings of diseases as we know them occurred after agriculture, it just makes logical sense that pre-agriculture is the the logical starting point of a diet--then tweak to the degree that you are comfortable with deviating.