Fermented Natural Chutneys?
Fermentation is an age-old technique of preservation, naturally pickling the fresh local produce by using salt and brine. Natural preservation also provides thee right pH levels to sustain the life good bacteria - that help our gut perform.
Why would I buy something that has a shorter shelf-life and is not so easily available everywhere?
Yes, it is true that naturally fermented foods have a shorter life as compared to a canned, ultra-processed tomato sauce or barbecue chutney. But these canned foods carry a lot of negatives as well.
Well – it all starts by understanding what you put in your body when you pick that processed, “regular” chutney or sauce from the mart.
Processing of foods to create shelf-stable, canned & bottled sauces requires the addition of sugars, oils & some not-so-kind chemicals.
To get long shelf-life & stability (making foods unreactive), manufacturers have to play a mysterious game of mixing chemicals, stabilisers, acid regulators, highly processed oils and refined sugars!
To add to this, they also have to get rid of all the bacteria present in natural foods to increase preservation – which removes all possibilities of probiotics & natural fibre. But at the same time, the lack of natural preserve-ators i.e. the microbes imply that the processing plant has to use emulsifiers & chemicals to keep that food from going stale. But the real food is pretty much dead by that point.
If you read labels and find terms such as emulsifiers, colouring agents, acid regulators in heavy amounts, you are better off avoiding such foods.
But are all preservatives bad?
Preservatives do just that – preserve food.
There are some naturally occurring preservatives such as salt, sugar, oil. These are antioxidants that delay the oxidisation of foods to preserve them, how pickles are kept fresh. These do no harm to our Gut, in small amounts.
Then there are some artificial preservatives such as emulsifiers, refined sugars and stabilisers. Studies have repeatedly shown the negative effects of these on animal studies, but recently human studies have linked artificial preservatives to onset of braincell decay, hormonal imbalances & loss of gut flora diversity. So avoiding these in heavy doses, such as our regular cooking bases & dips is an easy way to prevent the onset of dis-eases.
There are two kinds of mustards in this world - the fresh, natural, 4 ingredient fermented or the preservative-rich ones that taste a little meh.
What are fermented chutneys then?
Fermentation is an age-old technique of preservation, naturally pickling the fresh local produce by using salt and brine. At the same time, the naturally occurring bacteria flourish in this brine, breaking down the produce to reduce the digestive load of our digestive system, making food & nutrition more accessible.
When we say wild-fermentation, we mean using the microbes present on the farm fresh produce & the microbes available in the air to preserve & pickle. This increases the flavour, making cooking more fun. More importantly though, it means we do not have to depend on sugar rich processed foods that actually damage our insides. How you ask?
Well, to preserve processed foods the chemicals that are added are motivated to kill all bacteria. This kill-all protocol implies a very similar reaction inside our gut.
Our Gastroenterological system (the Gut) houses trillions of microbes – the good guy and some bad. But in a well-functioning gut, the balance of these microbes plays a vital role. Upon repeated attack by chemicals hiding in these processed foods, the balance of our gut flora takes a hit. This imbalance is linked to many diseases, building up over time to cause more than just stomach aches. But that is a topic for another post.
What we need to focus on is a slow transition away from highly processed foods. As we do that, one step at a time, we start compounding on the good bacteria – building up muscle by feeding diversity rich Natural Probiotics & Fibre (the food for the bacteria) via fermented chutneys, sauces & condiments.