Probiotics, bacteria that help instead of hurt, are a key ingredient of a healthy diet and a key component of many health remedies. Many of today's common health problems can be traced to lack of good bacteria.
Diet is the primary method for introducing good bacteria where they belong. Good bacteria is found on raw fresh produce as well as in many traditional preservation methods. A steady intake of probiotic rich foods can provide a vast array of health benefits.
Here is as great article explaining the background of probiotics in our food and th e many health benefits :
Food from small organic farms is a prime way to add probiotics to our lives. Produce from a local organic farm is naturally rich in probiotics. Organic produce from the store, while better than poisoned conventional produce, is often cleaned so well that the probiotics are gone. This looses much of the benefit of fresh raw produce.
We have compared making naturally cultured (fermented) veggies from store bought organic with fresh home grown produce and found an astounding difference. The fresh home grown veggies ferment much faster (days sooner) than storebought. I suspect this is due to the abundance of natural probiotics in the home grown and relative lack of life in storebought organic veggies.
Our own family has used probiotics extensively to overcome some normally incurable health issues. It has been a long intensive learning experience! Now strive to share these magic benefits of these traditional foods with our customers. The list of foods we offer from time to time is:
- Kombucha (fermented sweet tea)
- Water kefir (fermented fruit water)
- Dairy kefir (fermented goats milk)
- Yogurt
- Cultured garden veggies
- Pickled eggs (in live vinegar)
- Beet kvass (fermented beet juice)
- Saurkraut
- Honey (fermented pollen)
And the list of growing!
Natural fermenting used to be main method of food preservation. We wish to bring back the many benefits to those who may not have time or knowledge to do this at home. It is incredibly difficult to find good actually fermented foods in the store today, because this method of food preservation does not fit as well with large scale production. Small organic farms are uniquely positioned to positively affect the health of our nation. At little sprouts we are going what we can towards this goal.
I encourage you to try some of our fermented and cultured goodies as they are available!
