Sauerkraut, anyone????

[Polly]

Hi All!

I wonder how many of us eat sauerkraut regularly? It is a tradition here in my area to have it on Thanksgiving (lots of Germans settled in this area), and I grew up having it everytime we had mashed potatoes, too. We would mix them all together!

Anyway, there have been some recent studies showing it to be incredibly beneficial for good health. Sauerkraut and other fermented foods (like Kim Chee) apparently have a positive effect on the gut and have been found to kill pathogenic (illness-causing) bacteria like salmonella, E. coli, etc. It has been found to be helpful in treating food poisoning, too, which is often due to staphycoccus bacteria. I even heard that it may kill the bird flu virus too! And it is heart-healthy i.e. reduces the risk of heart attacks.

I don't know if everyone here can tolerate it. It IS cabbage, after all, which often poses a problem for those with active MC. But since I have been in remission now for going-on 4 years, I find that I can tolerate it just fine. We probably have it at least 2 times a week. I doctor it up with brown sugar, chopped apples, caraway seeds, and sometimes a little pure maple syrup.

Love,

Polly

P.S. Marsha was making some homemade sauerkraut recently. I wonder how it turned out???

[artteacher]

Dear Polly,
Yes, I did make some. I let it ferment for about a week, and tasted a little, and it tasted just like sourkraut!. But I was too chicken to eat a lot of it, because, well, it's rotting cabbage on the kitchen counter! I've made yogurt, and made bread for years, but somehow this just seemed different, you know? I think I'm just being a weenie. I'll probably try it again if Joanna tells me she does it all the time. . .

Marsha

[Mars]

I absolutely LOVE sauerkraut!!! I also like it mixed with mashed potatoes (my mother's side is German and my great-grandfather migrated here from Germany)!

I do eat it occasionally but it is a "natural clean out" for me and always has been. It also gives me cramps.

It is a tradition to have it on New Year's Eve to bring "good luck" per my great-grandfather. I usually fix it with bratworst until the meat falls apart and then smother my taters with it! YUM YUM I'm making myself hungry for it now! LOL

[harvest_table]

Sauerkraut Lover Here!

I can eat it, no problems with the stuff I make however I've not purchased it from a store. What brand does anyone buy? Never have tried the Kim Chee but would like to.

You mentioned the bird flu/sauerkraut thing Polly. A friend of mine who's a physican mentioned that to me this weekend. I think they are feeding infected birds with it and it's making them recover? Isn't that crazy?

Marsha, you crack me up! I told you, you have to carefully scrape the mold off the top before you eat it! (ROTF) I'll bet, if you had been able to do that the kraut would have tasted good. Why don't you just go out and buy a jar? Or try again. Your funny.

Love,
Joanna

[artteacher]

Dear Joanna,
I have been known to drink saurkraut juice straight. I crave vinegar for some strange reason.

About the batch I made, there wasn't any mold on the top, just some slightly browned cabbage that wasn't completely under liquid. I took that off and tasted some that was under liquid, and it tasted great. Milder, not as vinegary as storebought. One reason I wanted to make my own is that storebought has sulfites added to it, I guess to help preserve and keep it from turning color. Sourkraut liquid is supposed to be one of the highest sources there is. And sulfite doesn't have to be listed on the label as long as it's less than 10 parts per million (don't quote me on that exact figure, though). You would be amazed at the things sulfites are in, and you'd never know it from reading labels.
Anyway, I don't need to be extreme about avoiding sulfites, but there is a limit for me, or I'll get really bad D. (Like I don't have enough triggers already.)
So, you'd say it's okay to eat a bunch and not get tomaine or botulism or any other ism? If you eat it without boiling or anything it must be ok . . .
Love, Marsha

[JJ]

OK...I confess that one of my family's favorite meals when I was a kid, was pig hocks and sauerkraut.....of course we ate it over mashed potatoes. Yum! I think it's great German immigrant food!

[Matthew]

Aaahh, Sauerkraut. I can’t think of any other food that is like Sauerkraut or Kimchi. If you are looking for some “Zing” in your diet it is a good place to start looking.

They both have lots of bacilli like yogurt and kefir but none of the milk protein so it is a great way to get good bacteria into your gut if you can’t handle milk. You don’t have to eat a lot of it . Starting out with just a spoon full a day for a few weeks would be much more beneficial than large amounts right away and having problems .

Eating an apple ,like a sweet Brabern, with a little bit of sauerkraut is like a party in your mouth.

Brown a Pork roast and then plaster the outside with sauerkraut, finish cooking it in the oven. . It keeps the roast from drying out and is delicious. Don’t leave the window open or you will have guests for dinner. LOL

Many of the grocery store sauerkraut are pasteurized in order to give them shelf life so that is kind of the end of the good bacteria. It might be best to find one at a health food store that still has the bacteria intact.

I like Bubbies, check it out at-

http://www.bubbies.com/prod_sauerkraut.shtml

Matthew

[Lucy]

Then, Bubbies is OK, right? I thought it a bit strong, but perhaps I could just have a little with these good suggestions for things to eat it with, and that would be a great benefit.

Would like to be able to eat the sausage behind the counter at Whole Foods to go with something like this, but doggone stuff's got soy oil as an ingredient nowadays.

Do have some ground pork on hand. Is there something that I could do with that to make up a tasty treat if not able to do the sauerkraut straight just yet?

Thanks. Luce

[harvest_table]

Since we were not able to make sauerkraut this fall because our crop failed I will be looking for Bubbies. I hope they have it at a health food store in Anchorage.

Marsha, I don't make this all the time just every fall after harvesting our garden. We make a BIG batch and after the kraut does it's thing fermenting we do process it into jars. In a good season we use 50 pounds of cabbage and only add pickling salt. When the mold is on the top- it's ready. Pretty gross, but good.

I'll post a recipe tommorrow for it, out of the Blue Ball canning book.

Love,
Joanna

[MaggieRedwings]

Morning All,

Dear Frank is a big proponent of sauerkraut and uses it for natural clean out with a day of fast following it. I absolutely love it and would love to be able to eat it again but have tried and it tears me up. It and the MC just don't go together.

Polly, I love it with caraway in it and apples.

Maybe someday it will be back in the diet.

Love, Maggie

[Liz]

Used to like a bit of saurkraut myself but that is unfortunately off the agenda along with other forms of cabbage, and most anything else that is green. Only vegs I am permitted now are cauliflower tips, asparagus tips onions, potatoes (without skin) potatoes, carrots & Pumpkin. All the lovely salad stuff is off the menu, except cucumber, minus skin & seeds.

Love

Liz

[Peggy]

I'm the same as Mags and Liz - my system just can't tolerate it...sadly

Peg

[Lucy]

Mags,

Do you think it's the mold itself that bothers you? Do you happen to know if yeast bothers you, particularly the dietary variety (in brewer's/baker's yeast, and on many fruits and veggies naturally)?

Also, I've often read that a person with internal yeast overgrowth (i.e., Candida) would be best not to eat any foods in this category to the extent possible. Think they include any fermented foods as well as even mushrooms. I'm not on a diet for this, but I do try to limit the amount of these that I consume in close proximity, time-wise, to each other.

Welp, got a bit off track. Did look for Buddies at this nearby grocery tonight, but didn't see any. Only time I've bought that was at WF's. Hope they still have it.

Which store-bought sausage would be free of gluten, dairy casein, egg whites, dietary yeast, and soy, by the way? Would this be good with the sauerkraut? Perhaps I could disguise the sauer taste with some good mashed potatoes. Which potatoes do you guys like to make yours out of, btw?

Thanks, Luce

[tex]

Luce,

You'll find the Bubbies at most health food stores, in the refrigerator. It comes in a glass jar.

Tex

[artteacher]

Anyone who has trouble with sourkraut, and also has problems with marachino cherries, coconut, shrimp, beer, wine, concentrated lemon juice, or dried fruits should suspect sulfites.
And thanks for the Bubbies report: I'll look into that, too.

Love, Marsha