What is fermented veg and why are we being encouraged to eat it? How can we maximise health benefits of all the lovely vegetables we grow? Can they really improve our digestion by creating beneficial enzymes, B-vitamins, Omega-3 fatty acids and assorted strains of probiotics? New research suggests that improved gut health means better sleep too.
Fermented foods have even made it onto The Archers with Tom Archer experimenting to get his goats milk kefir acceptable to a suspicious public! (Dartington Dairy are selling goats milk kefir at the garden festival)
Luckily we have Katie Venner, adviser on that fermenting story for the BBC, and Jo Webster to explain all and demonstrate just how you too can simply and easily make kimchi, kefir and kombucha.
Katie Venner – Katie is a fermented foods enthusiast and teacher. She and her husband run Tracebridge Sourdough, a tiny bakery and fermenteria outside Wellington, Somerset. They teach classes and run a community pizza night through the Summer. Katie makes tangy sauerkrauts and kimchis, kefir and Kombucha in small batches using organic fruit and veg which she sells at Frome Independent market every first Sunday. Katie and Jo Webster are staging the first attempt at a world record for sauerkraut making at Wells Food Festival on 14 October. She and Jo believe we all need to learn these ancient food preservation techniques as they reward us with good bacteria for healthy minds and bodies.
Jo Webster – Jo set up the website www.wondergut.com in order to spread straightforward information to the public about the gut microbiome, its influence on our health and what we can do to better care for it. She blogs with insight and humour on the topic through the website as well as through Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. She also runs fermenting classes in the hope of inspiring as many humans as possible to show their microbes some love by feeding them fermented vegetables and drinks.
Most importantly though, based on what she is learning, she is putting theory into practice by gradually changing her behaviour and the behaviour of her 4 children and her husband.
Come and see Katie and Jo in the Sow, Grow, Cook Tipi on Friday 27th April. Free entry with festival ticket.
