Wild Fermentation

Associated Articles

Soft Drink for the 21st Century?

May 2007 | Healthy Living
By Jennifer Adler

Popping the cap off a bottle of Kombucha — or “mushroom tea” as it’s known by some — is a complete sensory experience. There’s the snap, crackle, fizz of carbonated bubbles, the mysterious slimy globules that slow-float like a psychedelic lava lamp throwback, and the sharp vinegary tang that hits the nose like a slap.

While fizzy, vinegary and slimy are not exactly the most tantalizing food descriptors, this trendy tea has a peculiar allure that’s winning devotees nationwide. At Google’s California corporate headquarters, the cafeteria slings upwards of 100 cups of homemade brew a day, and GT Kombucha, one of the most popular bottled brands on the market, reaps annual sales in the millions.

Kombucha may be the latest fad, but the stringy, tan-colored concoction has a lengthy history. Experts are divided on its cultural origins, but agree that Kombucha’s roots stretch back to ancient China, where, as early as 221 BC, a tea called “the remedy for immortality” was brewed from fungi said to have magical properties. Kombucha eventually made its way into the natural health world of Germany in the early 20th century, before debuting in the United States among the willing and health-thirsty flower children of the 1960s.

The Mother Sip

To clarify, Kombucha is not a mushroom at all, but a symbiotic colony of yeast and beneficial bacteria that grows in sugar-sweetened black tea. As in any yeast, a “mother” creates or buds a new “baby” with each new batch. Yeast budding makes it very convenient to share and “pass on” the Kombucha craze. Owners of the brown, pancake-sized Kombucha mother have the option to start their own colony by placing the newly budded babes in a mixture of black tea and sugar. Left to rest in a warm, peaceful place, the colony grows until the black tea liquid reaches its desired flavor, in a few days or weeks.

“I can see that Kombucha has live-culture benefits,” offers Sandor Ellix Katz, guru of fizz and author of Wild Fermentation. “But when you can ferment vegetables, milk, beans, honey and so many more wholesome foods, why focus your fermentation practice around sugar and tea?”

Maybe it’s the ancient folklore, maybe it’s the “mother” infatuation, or maybe it’s the name — Kom-Booo-cha. Whatever it is, this bubbly beverage is a certified craze, and even Katz admits to drinking and enjoying it.

“I do believe that Kombucha is full of beneficial live-cultures and enzymes,” he says. “But I am skeptical of the many miracle health claims that people make on its behalf.”

Magical Mystery Sour

Some of those miracle health claims include: detoxification, boosting metabolism, assisting digestion and even curing cancer. Advocates believe that Kombucha works by assisting the liver’s ability to detoxify the body. This hypothesis is due to early observations of increased glucuronic acid conjugates in the urine after Kombucha consumption, a signifier of increased detoxification by the liver. However, more recent analysis of Kombucha offers other explanations for its potential health benefits. First, Kombucha’s high levels of organic acids help maintain proper acid/alkaline balance in the body by promoting tissue and blood alkalinity. The fermented brew is also rich in antioxidants and amino acids, namely L-threonine, which supports healthy protein balance.

A Cornell University study on the tea’s anti-microbial activity found that Kombucha’s acetic acid composition rendered it helpful against a range of pathogenic bacteria. But beyond this sole study, no authoritative research has been performed to prove or disprove the anecdotal raves of Kombucha converts.

In addition to its potential properties as a liver-booster, Kombucha is loaded with enzymes and healthy bacteria thought to enhance the digestive process. Kombuchanados swear by the drink as a preventative for post-meal heartburn and acid reflux. Some rely on the fizzy bite of Kombucha as an energy boost to battle the dreaded mid-afternoon slump (the tea’s copious quantities of B-vitamins make it a great caffeine-free alternative).

If intrigued, start your own colony (recipe below), or try your luck with some readily available bottled Kombucha, and see if this magical elixir is a match for you.

Jennifer Adler MS, CN provides nutrition counseling at her private practice Realize Health, realize www.health.com. Her Kombucha colony grows in a mason jar atop her fridge.

God of Small Things

An interview with underground foodie hero Sandor Katz
By Tom Philpott
17 May 2007

Like a well-made batch of kefir, the ancient cultured milk drink, Sandor Katz has an effervescent quality. Spend time with him or read his classic Wild Fermentation, and you'll see your food in a new light. Bread, cheese, cured meats, chocolate, beer, wine, vinegar -- all are products of fermentation, he points out: "Virtually all of the compelling, strong flavors that people are passionate about -- they might passionately hate them, or they might passionately love them -- it's fermentation that creates those flavors."

Fermentation is the process of preserving food and transforming its flavor by subjecting it to beneficial bacteria, or microflora. For Katz, fermentation is an essential culinary technique, a health regimen, and a political act. "We humans are in a symbiotic relationship with single-cell organisms," he writes in Wild Fermentation. "Microflora ... digest food into nutrients our bodies can absorb, protect us from potentially dangerous organisms, and teach our immune systems to function." In a country almost clinically obsessed with sterilization -- with waging war on the trillions of dread germs that permeate air, land, water, and our bodies -- Katz reminds us of the forgotten benefits of living in harmony with our microbial relatives.

He also urges us to challenge our roles as unquestioning consumers of the food industry's dubious wares. His message: with everyday ingredients, you, too, can be a producer, not just a consumer -- of some of the most vibrantly flavorful, health-giving foods you've ever had. His critique of the food industry, and celebration of the myriad alternatives bubbling forth to challenge it all over the country, can be found in his new book The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America's Underground Food Movements.

Katz himself is a walking advertisement for the health benefits of foods that are alive with organisms. Since the 1980s, he has lived with HIV. Yet he bristles with energy, touring the nation to deliver fermentation workshops when he's not herding the goats at Short Mountain Sanctuary, the "queer intentional community deep in the wooded hills of Tennessee" where he lives.

Recently, over sips of delicate, profoundly alive-tasting kefir made from raw milk from those goats, we talked about fermentation, food politics, and how the two relate.

To read the article please visit www.grist.org.