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Are the microbes in fermented foods safe? A microbiologist helps demystify live microbes in foods for consumers

/in Consumer Blog, ISAPP Science Blog /by KC

By Dr. Gabriel Vinderola, PhD,  Associate Professor of Microbiology at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering from the National University of Litoral and Principal Researcher from CONICET at the Dairy Products Institute (CONICET-UNL), Santa Fe, Argentina.

Since very early in my career I was drawn to science communication. I feel that rather than just producing my own results, silently in my lab, I can extend the reach of the science by amplifying other people’s work. At least in the southern cone where budgets for research have been always limited, science communication is a way to be active in science.

Before the pandemic I used my Instagram account mostly to share personal moments with my circle of family and friends. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I saw interest in fermented foods skyrocket. I started sharing tips about how to prepare fermented foods, telling the science behind them, separating myths from facts, making Instagram Live videos with fermentationists, nutritionists, pediatricians and gastroenterologists, and I turned my personal Instagram account into a public one with an outreach of more than 100,000 followers (@gvinde), from Mexico down to Argentina.

During the pandemic, people were largely homebound and concerned about staying healthy.  The idea of healthy food to keep a diverse gut microbiome that had the potential to enhance our gut and respiratory immune systems against coronavirus really resonated with people. I even had the chance to participate in several radio and TV programs discussing these topics as well as making yoghurt, kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut and sourdough bread at home. I saw that people had the time to devote part of their days at home to keep these communities of microbes “cooking” for them. But these activities revealed to me that more people than I realized did not know that we can eat microbes in a safe way and that they may actually be good for us.

In my encounters, I found much confusion about fermented dairy products. People believe that dairy products must be kept refrigerated, but at the same time they see ultrapasteurized milk, powdered milk or hard cheeses marketed at room temperature. People find it difficult to understand why pasteurized milk should go in the refrigerator but not unopened ultrapasteurized milk.

Some hesitancy around bacterial safety exists because Argentina leads the world in annual cases of Uremic Hemolitic Syndrome (UHS), a life-threatening condition for children, especially those under the age of 5 years, caused by shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli. Almost 400 children get sick in Argentina every year due to UHS. Among other recommendations, pediatricians tell parents not to offer their children unpasteurized dairy products. This leads to the the most common question I receive on Instagram from parents worried about yoghurt safety: Is yoghurt pasteurized?  “No!” I emphasize. “Yoghurt is not pasteurized, but it is made out of pasteurized milk. In fact, yoghurt has viable bacteria.” And this is when the panic begins.

“If yoghurt has live bacteria, then can’t any bacteria grow there, even the bacteria responsible for UHS? If I leave yoghurt outside the refrigerator or in my car too long, won’t this make it more likely that the UHS bacteria will grow?” This is where I try to use an army of arguments to communicate science in the simplest possible way, from more philosophical to more science-based facts.

The first thing I share is that fermentation was invented well before refrigerators. Fermentation was used by people to preserve foods, for periods well longer than the time it takes to take the yoghurt from the supermarket to make it home or than the time a yoghurt sits in the backpack of my child waiting for school lunchtime. I once posted that I ate a yoghurt that was left in my car for one whole day. That generated a lot of debate on social media!

Then I inform them that the fermentation process to make yoghurt causes the pH to drop well below values needed for pathogens to grow. That it is highly unlikely that a pathogen can enter a well-sealed yoghurt, and in the event that it would be possible, the acidic conditions would impair the pathogen from growing to a level that could be life-threating.

People not only worried about yoghurts bought in the supermarket, well-sealed and made under the strictest safety conditions in industry. In the pandemic many parents learned how to make yoghurt at home, and they wanted to know how safe it is. In these cases, I advised the following to assure their homemade yogurt was safe: use a yoghurt from the supermarket to launch your own fermentation, use pasteurized milk, use good quality water to wash your kitchen devices, and wash your hands properly. In addition you can use a domestic pHmeter or pH indicators to make sure pH dropped below 4.5. In a successful fermentation – after about 1 gallon sitting 8-12 hours at a warm temperature – the fluid milk will transform into a gel. If not, you should discard it.

If these arguments are not enough, then I draw their attention to the well-respected product milk kefir. At least in this region, kefir is surrounded by a halo of “something that is good, no matter what”. People are familiar with the process of fermenting milk kefir at room temperature for a full day. So I make this comparison: commercial yoghurt is fermented for 6 hours, then it is refrigerated and taken to the supermarket. If you are OK letting milk kefir ferment for a whole day, shouldn’t yogurt sitting without refrigeration for a few more hours be harmless enough? It likely would only get more acidic because bacteria will resume fermentation. This fermented food would not become a life-threatening food in just a couple of hours. If milk kefir does not in 24 hours, why should yoghurt?

To further argue, I comment that kombucha is fermented at room temperature for 10 days, sauerkraut for 2 weeks and kimchi for several months. And they are all consumed with their microbes alive. They key is that the microbes that flourish make the environment inhospitable to pathogens.

Still I feel that there is a lot of uncertainty among consumers about the safety of fermented foods and this is may be an obstacle to making them more popular. Scientists must meet the challenge to communicate to lay audiences about how to make fermented foods safely at home and how to store them so they are safe. Nothing is ever 100% safe, but the small risks associated with fermented foods are greatly outweighed by the enjoyment of making and consuming fermented foods.

 

Additional reading:

Suggestions for Making Safe Fermented Foods at Home

2022 TEDx talk

2021 Teaching how to make kefir on TV during the pandemic

2019 participation in Argentina’s most famous TV show, featuring the same host for more than 50 years non-stop

Food of the future: Fermented and sustainable

/in ISAPP Science Blog /by KC

By Dr. Mary Ellen Sanders, ISAPP Executive Science Officer

An exciting research initiative at the crossroads of fermented foods and sustainable diets is underway. Funded by the EU and Switzerland, and coordinated by KU Leuven in Belgium, HealthFerm is a 4-year, 13.1 MM € project involving 23 partners from 10 countries. Prof. Christophe Courtin, KU Leuven, serves as the overall project coordinator.

HealthFerm seeks to understand how to transition toward more sustainable, healthy diets through leveraging fermented foods and technologies. Its overall aim is to understand the interaction between food fermentation microbiomes, fermented plant-based foods, the human gut microbiome and human health. Many information gaps will be addressed by the project, which is organized around six work projects that are designed to integrate basic research, intervention studies, fermentation technology, consumer behavior and communication strategies.

Scientific perspectives on fermented food is at the heart of HealthFerm. Fermented foods were defined in an ISAPP consensus paper as ‘foods made through desired microbial growth and enzymatic conversions of food components’. Predating ancient Egyptian society, fermented foods and beverages are thought to have originated over 8000 years ago, and today over 5000 varieties are enjoyed around the globe, contributing substantially to human nutrition. Fermented foods have many advantages over the raw materials from which they are made, including improved sensory characteristics, safety and stability as well as potential health benefits. How the live microbial components of fermented foods may drive the health benefits of fermented foods is an active area of research.

Prof. Courtin shares some of his thoughts about HealthFerm.

Why focus on fermentation as a means of attaining more sustainable diets?

Courtin: When considering a sustainable diet, we automatically look at replacing part of our animal-based foods with plant-based foods. But plant biomass is often less functional and more recalcitrant than animal-based materials. Look for example at the whipping behavior of egg proteins or the availability of iron. Getting more out of plant fiber through fermentation is also a point of attention. In short, we believe that fermentation can help us functionalize plant materials and make it more nutritious.

 

Fermented foods have been around a long time. Why do you think now is the time to leverage their benefits?

Courtin: Societies are increasingly interested in fermented foods for a large number of reasons. We want to leverage that. From a scientific point of view, state-of-the-art omics-technologies coupled with bioinformatics allow us to look in depth into food microbiomes better than ever before and use them in a targeted way to functionalize plant materials. In addition, they also allow performing human intervention trials and doing relevant analyses to understand if and how fermented foods can improve human health, focusing on the gut microbiome and cardiometabolic health.

 

Looking ahead, what is your greatest hope for the project?

Courtin: I hope we can come to a rational design of new fermentation processes and products for the crops we target (faba bean, yellow pea, wheat, oats), using microbial resources we mobilize in collaboration with citizens and companies through community science projects. I also hope we get clear results and mechanistic insights from the intervention trials on the effects of consuming fermented foods and diets.

 

ISAPP is represented on the HealthFerm Stakeholder Board, which convened its first meeting January 20, 2023.

 

Creating a scientific definition of ‘fermented foods’

/in Consumer Blog, ISAPP Science Blog /by KC

By Prof. Maria Marco, Department of Food Science and Technology, University of California Davis, USA

A panel of scientific experts was recently convened by ISAPP to discuss the state of knowledge on fermented foods. While there was much agreement on the underlying microbiological processes and health-related properties of those foods and beverages, our conversation on definitions led to sustained debate. So what exactly is a fermented food?

The word “ferment” originates from fervere, which in Latin means to boil. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the verb ferment is defined as “to undergo fermentation or to be in a state of agitation or intense activity”. Fermentation is defined as both a chemical change with effervescence and as an enzymatically controlled anaerobic breakdown of energy-rich compounds (such as a carbohydrate to carbon dioxide and alcohol or to an organic acid). In biochemistry, fermentation is understood as an ATP-generating process in which organic compounds act as both electron donors and acceptors. In industry, fermentation means the intentional use of bacteria and eukaryotic cells to make useful products such as drugs or antibiotics. As you can see, there are clearly many meanings implied in “ferment” and “fermentation”. We add onto this by defining how those words apply to foods.

As our ISAPP panel began to deliberate the definition of fermented foods, it quickly became clear how difficult reaching consensus can be! Even though many panel members shared similar academic backgrounds and scientific expertise, finding agreement on the definition required several rounds of debate and some consuming of fermented foods and beverages along the way. Finally, we defined fermented foods and beverages as being “foods made through desired microbial growth and enzymatic conversions of food components” (see the published consensus paper here).

Find ISAPP’s infographic on fermented foods here.

This definition is very specific by requiring microbial growth and enzymatic processes for the making of those foods. Activity of the endogenous enzymes from the food components or enzymes added to the food is not enough for a food to be regarded as fermented. Similarly, foods made by only adding vinegar or “pickling” should not be called fermented. The definition acknowledges the essential roles of microorganisms for making fermented foods but does not require their presence or viability at the time of consumption.

On the other hand, our definition does not restrict fermented foods to only those foods and beverages made using microorganisms using metabolic pathways implicit in the strict biochemical definition. Yogurt and kimchi made using lactic acid bacteria relying on fermentative energy metabolism are included as much as koji and vinegar, foods made using fermentation processes that employ fungi and bacteria that perform aerobic respiratory metabolism.

Each word in a definition needs to be carefully calibrated. The best example of this in our definition of fermented foods is the word “desired”. Unlike a food that is spoiled as a result of microbial growth and enzymatic activity, food fermentations generate wanted attributes. Other words such as “intentional”, “desirable”, or “controlled” may also be used to describe this meaning. However, those words also have caveats that not all fermented foods are made “intentionally”, at least in the way that they were first prepared thousands of years ago. Qualities of fermented foods may be “desirable’ in some cultures but not others. While some fermentations are “controlled”, others are spontaneous, requiring little human input.

The process of discussing the definition with a group of scientific experts was enlightening because it required us to deconstruct our individual assumptions of the term in order to reach agreement on descriptions and meaning. With a definition in hand, we can use a shared language to study fermented foods and to communicate on the significance of these foods and beverages in our diets. There will also certainly be more “fermenting” of these concepts to improve our knowledge on the production and health impacting properties of fermented foods for years to come.

Find the ISAPP press release on this paper here.

Read about another ISAPP-led publication on fermented foods here.

Learn more in a webinar on the science of fermented foods here.

New Spanish-language e-book about fermented foods now available for download

/in News, Consumer Blog /by KC

By Dr. Gabriel Vinderola, PhD,  Associate Professor of Microbiology at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering from the National University of Litoral and Principal Researcher from CONICET at Dairy Products Institute (CONICET-UNL), Santa Fe, Argentina

Fermented foods and beverages such as yogurt, wine, beer, kefir, kombucha, kimchi, and miso are created with the help of microbes. After more than 10,000 years of practice around the globe, fermentation has finally caught massive attention from a general public interested in knowing more about the fascinating, invisible world of microbes. In essence, the act of fermentation places food in a unique place between raw and cooked. The flavours, tastes, textures and potential health benefits of fermented foods, made possible through the presence of viable or non-viable microbes and their metabolites, are achieved through this set of ancestral food processing techniques. Today’s science allows us to see the functions of fermentation microbes that can make certain nutrients more bioavailable in foods. Fermentation can also reduce certain anti-nutrients and generate a large number of potentially beneficial microorganisms.

To help people learn about fermented foods, I was pleased to collaborate on an e-book with Ricardo Weill, an Argentinian dairy industry expert who first introduced Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG in Argentinian fermented milks in the 1990s, and Alejandro Ferrari, a biologist and scientific communications expert. The book is titled ‘Fermented Foods: microbiology, nutrition, health and culture’, and is currently available only in Spanish.

The book aimed to reach the general public, with scientific concepts but in easy-to-follow language for people with little or no previous knowledge of microbiology, nutrition or food technology. It tells the stories of many types of fermented foods around the world and adds a scientific perspective on their health benefits. The book brings together information from 38 authors from Argentina, Colombia, Japan, Spain and Finland, including ISAPP President Prof. Seppo Salminen, and Martin Russo, a professional chef in Argentina who specializes in fermentation. The book includes the following sections:

Fermentation: An anthropological view

Variety of fermented foods in Japan and other East Asian countries, and the microorganisms involved in their fermentation

Introduction to the intestinal microbiota: its role in health and the disease

Consumption of probiotic fermented milk and its impact on the immune system

Fermented milks, yogurts and probiotics

Kefir and artisanal fermented foods

Fermented meat sausages: Contribution of lactic bacteria in global quality

Lactic fermentation of cereals and Andean ancestral grains

Fermented vegetables and legumes

Fermentation of fruit drinks and drinks

Yeasts in beer and baked goods

Role of fermented foods in diet

Role of lactic acid in the beneficial effects of fermented foods

Microbiological safety of fermented foods

Fermented foods and chronic non-communicable diseases: A narrative review of the literature

Fermentation and gastronomy: A cook among scientists, a scientist among cooks

This e-book initiative started in October 2019, when a symposium about fermented food was organized by the Danone Institute of the Southern Cone (DISC).

The Danone Institute of the Southern Cone (DISC) was founded in 2008, and it is the local chapter for Argentina, Chile and Uruguay of the Danone Institute International network, which gathers 14 Danone Institutes (13 local Institutes and 1 International) in 15 countries. All Danone Institutes are non-profit organizations, dedicated to non-commercial activities and promotion of science.

Since its foundation, the DISC has collaborated with more than 200 experts taking part in different projects, and has served as a collaborative meeting place to reflect with their peers—all of them remarkable scientists coming from different and complementary specialties, focusing on key aspects of public health linked to food.

See the link to our book here:

Fermented Food: Microbiology, Nutrition, Health & Culture. (2020)

See the ISAPP press release about this book in English and en español.

Some previously-produced nutrition books that are freely available in Spanish on the DISC website are:

  • Impact of Growth and Early Development on the Population’s Health and Wellbeing. Perspectives and Reflections from the Southern Cone. (2009)
  • Healthy Growth. Between Malnutrition and Obesity in the Southern Cone. (2011)
  • The Role of Calcium and Vitamin D in Bone Health and Beyond. Perspective from the Southern Cone. (2013)
  • Methodologies Employed in Food Evaluation. An Ibero-American Vision. (2015)
  • Their Impact in Nutrition and Health. A Vision from the Southern Cone. (2018)

Bulgarian yogurt: An old tradition, alive and well

/in Consumer Blog, ISAPP Science Blog /by KC

By Mariya Petrova, PhD, Microbiome insights and Probiotics Consultancy, Karlovo, Bulgaria

Family and family traditions are very important to me. Some of you may have seen my previous blog post on fermented food and my father’s tradition of making fermented cabbage and vegetables every autumn. Of course, this is not limited to my family – in Bulgaria, it is our culture and our country’s tradition. But despite the fact that I wrote about fermented vegetables first, Bulgarians are much more proud of another fermented product – yogurt.

I still remember waking up every morning when I was a kid and having a healthy homemade yogurt to start the day. I still do when I am back at home, because my father continues to make yogurt at home. Here, I’ll take you on a new adventure and tell you all about Bulgarian yogurt, an old tradition still alive in every home.

Élie Metchnikoff and his work are well familiar to anyone involved in probiotic research. In short, Metchnikoff observed in 1907 that Bulgarian peasants lived longer lives and he attributed this to their daily consumption of yogurt.

Thanks to Metchnikoff, research on Bulgaria and Bulgarian yogurt was put on the map because of our healthy way of living and eating fermented foods. You may know this part of the story. Still, few actually know that Metchnikoff was intrigued by the work of the Bulgarian researcher Stamen Grigorov a few years earlier. In fact, it was because of Stamen Grigorov’s work that we now know ‘who’ (i.e. which microbes) live in our yogurt and how essential those tiny bacteria are. In 1905 Stamen Grigorov actually discovered and isolated for the first time Lactobacillus bulgaricus (now known as Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus) from homemade yogurt. That’s why we are so proud of Bulgarian yogurt. Not only do we love to eat it, but the probiotic research was partially initiated in our country, and an entire Lactobacillus species is named after our country. There is even a small museum dedicated to Bulgarian yogurt and to the work of Stamen Grigorov, located in the house where he was born. In the museum, if you are visiting Bulgaria, you can learn how to make yogurt at home and a bit more about the history of Grigorov’s discoveries.

We are so proud of our yogurt that many Bulgarians will tell you that ancient Bulgarian tribes were the ones who discovered yogurt by accident. Since Bulgarian tribes were nomadic, they carried the milk in animal skins, which created an environment for bacteria to grow and produce yogurt. This is indeed the way people learned to make yogurt, but it most likely happened in many places independently. Of course, I know many countries make yogurt but I remain proud of all the discoveries that happened in my country (I am saying this because at times I have been judged when I tried to say how important we find the yogurt in Bulgaria and how proud we are).

Yogurt is a tradition in Bulgaria. I don’t know a Bulgarian who does not eat yogurt on a daily basis, up to a few pots per day. And I am not talking about those sweet yogurt products that are made by adding jam or vanilla. I am talking about real, natural yogurt, slightly sourer than most of the products that can be found in the Western world. We add yogurt to almost everything, it is just the perfect addition. It is even the basis of a traditional Bulgarian cold summer soup called “tarator,” made of yogurt, water, cucumber, garlic, and dill. We also make a salad with it called “snezhanka”, and it contains yogurt, cucumbers, garlic, and walnuts. (Recipes can be found below if you want to try something new during the lockdown.) In fact, I am so “addicted” to our yogurt that in every country I go to, the first thing I have do is to find a good yogurt. It took me years to find a good one in Belgium when I lived there (even though one product was labelled ‘Bulgarian yogurt’, it was not the same for sure). In Canada, it was somehow easier. After trying a few different products, it was even faster to find something that I like in the Netherlands, but they have many kinds of milk products. Yet none of them are truly comparable with what you can find in Bulgarian shops. Even the smallest shops have at least 3 to 4 different types because we have a lot of yogurt factories. Every product is different, it has a unique taste and can be made of different kinds of milk.

But honestly, nothing is the same as the homemade yogurt. Many people still make yogurt at home, including my father. I don’t quite remember a time when there was no homemade yogurt on the table at home. It was initially my grandmother making the yogurt and the white Bulgarian cheese (it is nothing to do with Feta but that’s the closest way to explain what it is). So it was somehow logical that my father started making yogurt as well. He knows the technique from his grandmother and grew up with fresh homemade yogurt. My grandparents had a lot of cows, sheep, and goats, so we always had plenty of milk to ferment. Making yogurt at home is so very simple that more and more young people dare to do it. In fact, making yogurt is so easy, I wonder why I am not doing it myself during the lockdown.

How to make it, you may ask?

So you need fresh milk, which my family in Bulgaria currently gets from a local farm. The milk is carefully boiled, and while it is still warm, transferred to a preferable container where you want to make the yogurt. We use old yogurt jars that were very popular before. For some time, my father also used Tupperware, so you can choose anything that you find handy. Before transferring the milk, my father also separates the cream from the milk in a separate jar and uses it to make homemade butter by constantly shaking the jar for around 10 minutes (it is an intensive workout, I tried it a few times!). The biggest problem these days is having a good starter culture so you can begin the milk fermentation. As a starter culture, most of the people, including my father, use a spoon or two of the previous batch of yogurt. So my father never finishes all the yogurt; he always makes sure that there are some leftovers so he can start a new fermentation. He usually adds one tablespoon of the old yogurt to 500 ml warm milk (around 45 C). Of course if the milk is too hot, the bacteria present in the starter culture will die, and nothing will happen. There is also the case that the milk is too cold, and then it will most likely still ferment, but it will have a strange consistency, something between milk and yogurt. If my father is out of old yogurt to start a new fermentation, he usually buys his favorite yogurt from the shop and uses this as starter. Once the jars are filled, he packs blankets all around them to keep the environment warm so the fermentation will begin. From here, you need around 4h to 5h to have a nice homemade yogurt. Simple and straightforward. The next morning you can have a great family breakfast, remembering the old traditions, talking about old memories, passing on the torch to the new generation, and enjoying a healthy start to the day.

The next time you have yogurt, I hope you enjoy it and remember the Bulgarian traditions!

 

Tarator soup recipe:

What you need: 1 cucumber, 250 -300 g yogurt, 1-2 cloves crushed garlic, salt, oil, water, fresh chopped dill. (Most of the ingredients depend on your taste so feel free to add more or less of certain ingredients. Some people also add parsley and walnuts, but it is up to your taste.)

How to make it: Peel and cut the cucumbers into cubes and put them in a preferred bowl; add the crushed garlic, and the minced dill. Beat the yogurt until it turns to liquid and mix it with the rest of the ingredients. Add salt and oil to taste. Add water to make the soup as liquid as you like. Put into the refrigerator to cool it. You can also make it with cold yogurt and cold water. It is perfect for the hot summer days.

Snezhanka (which means “Snow White” in Bulgarian) salad recipe:

What you need: 1 cucumber, 500 g yogurt, 1-2 cloves crushed garlic, 2-3 spoons ground walnuts, salt, oil, fresh chopped dill. (Again, it depends on your taste, if you like more cucumber or yogurt just add more.)

How to make it: First strain the yogurt for a couple of hours, so that all unnecessary water is drained away. Peel and cut the cucumbers into cubes and put them in the bowl. Add the strained yogurt. Add the fresh dill, salt and oil to taste. Sprinkle the walnuts on top of the salad. Perfect for all seasons. If you don’t have a fresh cucumber, you can also use pickles — the final result is also very delicious.

ISAPP discussion group leads to new review paper providing a global perspective on the science of fermented foods and beverages

/in Consumer Blog, ISAPP Science Blog, News /by KC

By Kristina Campbell, MSc, Science & Medical Writer

Despite the huge variety of fermented foods that have originated in countries all over the world, there are relatively few published studies describing the microbiological similarities and differences between these very diverse foods and beverages. But in recent years, thanks to the availability of high throughput sequencing and other molecular technologies combined with new computational tools, analyses of the microbes that transform fresh substrates into fermented foods are becoming more frequent.

A group of researchers from North America, Europe, and Asia gathered at the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) 2018 conference in Singapore to discuss the science of fermented foods. Their goal was to provide a global perspective on fermented foods to account for the many  cultural, technological, and microbiological differences between east and west. This expert panel discussion culminated in a new review paper, published in Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, entitled Fermented foods in a global age: East meets West.

Prof. Robert Hutkins, the paper’s lead author, says the diversity of panelists in the discussion group was an important aspect of this work. “Although we were all connected by our shared interests in fermented foods, each panelist brought a particular expertise along with different cultural backgrounds to our discussions,” he says. “Thus, one of the important outcomes, as noted in the published review paper, was how greatly historical and cultural factors, apart from microbiology, influence the types of fermented foods and beverages consumed around the world.”

The review captures the current state of knowledge on the variety of microbes that create fermented foods: whether these are starter cultures or microbes already present in the surrounding environment (i.e. the ‘authochthonous’ or ‘indigenous’ microbiota). The paper identifies general region-specific differences in the preparation of fermented foods, and the contrast between traditional and modern production of fermented foods—including the trade-offs between local and larger-scale manufacturing.

The authors of the article also took on the painstaking work of cataloging dozens of fermented foods from all over the world, including fermented milk products, fermented cereal foods, fermented vegetable products, fermented legume foods, fermented root crop foods, fermented meat foods, fermented fish products, and alcoholic beverages.

The expert panel discussions held every year at the ISAPP annual meeting provide a much-anticipated opportunity for globally leading scientists to come together to discuss issues relevant to scientific innovation and the direction of the field. This paper is an example of a concrete outcome of one of these discussion groups.

For more on fermented foods, see this ISAPP infographic or this educational video.

Maintaining a family tradition: Bulgarian whole fermented cabbage

/in Consumer Blog, ISAPP Science Blog /by KC

By Mariya Petrova, PhD, Microbiome insights and Probiotics Consultancy, Karlovo, Bulgaria

Dr. Mariya Petrova with her father

November and December mark a wonderful time of the year when the cold weather makes you want to stay at home and enjoy homemade foods and drinks. However, the heavy food during the holidays makes all of us think about healthier alternatives and how to keep our gut microbiomes in check. That’s why it can be great idea to supplement your festive menu with fermented foods.

Cabbage ready to be fermented

Partly to have healthier food options at home and partly to engage in longstanding traditions, at this time of the year, millions of people in Eastern Europe roll up their sleeves, get out their knives, salt and large containers, and make fermented vegetables at home. While Western cultures are seeing fermented foods as a trendy health food option, Eastern Europeans have never forgotten how to preserve food by using natural fermentation. In my country of Bulgaria, fermented foods are simply a part of our life. Our most popular fermented foods include whole sour cabbage, pickles and pickled vegetables, yogurt, boza (a special fermented beverage), and fermented apple cider vinegar. We do not take shortcuts by pickling our vegetables with vinegar. Ours is a traditional fermentation process – add salt and then let the natural lactic acid bacteria perform their magic.

Although all of these products are interesting and delicious, the winter season brings to my mind my father’s whole cabbage fermentation. My father is busy with it every year from the beginning of November until mid-December. Whole sour cabbage is a fermented food popular not only in Bulgaria but in many of our neighboring countries such as Serbia, Macedonia, and Romania. Although similar to sauerkraut, Bulgarian whole fermented cabbage ferments the entire cabbage head, not separate cut or shredded leaves. Using whole cabbage requires both an extended period of fermentation time (around 30 to 40 days) and extra care in handling.

Preparing for fermentation

I have pictures etched in my mind of a busy local Saturday vegetable market where people would buy between 30-50 kilograms (sometimes even more) of cabbages for fermentation – depending on the size of their families. These come to life every time I hear “fermented foods” at a conference!

Cabbage and brine

But how do you ferment such a spectacular amount of cabbage? Well, first you need some rather large barrels, of course. Then you remove the outer leaves from the cabbage, core the cabbage heads, and stick them in the barrel. This is not unlike putting together a jigsaw puzzle. The cabbage heads have to be very dense without leaving to much space between them or the fermentation will not work well. The cabbage is then covered with a brine of around 2-4% salt. Finally, something heavy is placed on top of the cabbage. Many people place a heavy rock (clean of course), to keep the cabbage heads under the salty water and to allow them to ferment properly. Packing the cabbage densely and pressing it down is done to reduce oxygen to a minimum, creating an anaerobic environment for the fermentation. For better taste some people optionally add apple, quince, horseradish, and/or beetroot (which also makes the salty water more pink).

Finished fermented cabbage

Every day the salty water has to be inverted which is achieved by flushing it from the bottom of the barrel by using connected vessels and then adding it onto the top. Day-to-day shuffling of the salty water ensures a uniform distribution of microorganisms in the barrel so that all cabbage heads ferment. The best quality fermented cabbage is produced at 12-18°C temperature for around 30 days. This is why the fermentation

is done only in November – to maintain these low temperatures. Temperature from 7.5 to 18°C favors the growth and metabolism of Leuconostoc mesenteroides, while temperatures higher than 20°C favor the growth of Lactobacillus species. At higher temperatures the fermentation process takes shorter time (around 10 days), but the quality of the fermented cabbage is lower. Leuconostoc mesenteroides is essential to start the first fermentation that produces lactic acid, acetic acid, ethyl alcohol, carbon dioxide, and mannitol. All these acids, in combination with aromatic ester alcohol, contribute to the characteristic taste of high-quality sour cabbage.

Following Leuconostoc mesenteroides fermentation, Lactobacillus plantarum takes over lactic acid production, which gives a sour taste to the fermented cabbage. At the end of this Lactobacillus fermentation the cabbage is ready to enjoy as part of traditional Bulgarian cuisine. Like a special gift left by St. Nick, many people use the salted water in which the cabbage was fermenting as a drink, rich in lactic acid bacteria, and said to help digestive health.

Acknowledgment: I thank my father for showing me how to make the fermented cabbage and taking some pictures of the process this year!

Fermented foods on the holiday dinner table

Bacteria illustration

Suggestions for Making Safe Fermented Foods at Home

/in Consumer Blog, featured, ISAPP Science Blog /by Mary Ellen Sanders

September 2017 – By Drs. Bruno Pot and Frédéric Leroy, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Brussels, Belgium.

The impact of lifestyle on the composition and diversity of the human gut microbiota over the last five decades has been tremendous. This is thought to be mainly the result of a cumulative effect ascribed to the increased use of antibiotics and other drugs as well as dietary changes, including consuming less fermented foods that contain live microorganisms.

Fermented foods are important for a healthy diet, as they have the potential to improve the microbiota quality and diversity, are related with reduced disease risk, and can provide essential nutrients.  Consumers are constantly being informed about these benefits, leading to pleas for a return to home-made fermented foods. However, there is rarely mention of the risks that home-made natural fermentations can entail. While making fermented foods at home can be a good idea and help you consume more beneficial microbes, we should realize that the empirical knowhow, skills and equipment to make safe food fermentations may have disappeared over time. This blog is a gentle warning about the possible risks of non-controlled fermentations.

  • Use a starter culture: The use of specific starter cultures at sufficiently high concentration is recommended to properly initiate the fermentation of specific foods and to obtain sufficient control over the process. Relying on spontaneous fermentation (i.e., hoping that environmental bacteria or yeasts initiate the fermentation) increases the risk that uncontrolled fermentations by unsuitable bacteria, yeasts and molds will result in bad or variable quality. In the worst case, dangerous end-products will be obtained.
  • Twice is nice: Starters should not be used repeatedly. Because bacteria multiply several times per hour, their genetic material is changing continuously and the quality of the starter will change over time. It is therefore not a good idea to re-use your ‘old’ product to restart a ‘new’ fermentation all too often, although some fermented food ecosystems such as sourdough or water kefir may usually be ‘backslopped’ frequently. The risks are that off-flavours will be formed or that acidification, which protects your food against the growth of spoilage or pathogenic bacteria, will be too slow.
  • Choose wisely: Not all starters are necessarily safe, although commercially available ones should in principle have been checked for safety (See Helpful Information links below for guidance on findings the right starter). Some yeasts and lactic acid bacteria (LAB) can form compounds (for example, biogenic amines from amino acids) that can result in many health troubles like headache, blood pressure drops, diarrhoea, and even heart problems. You can avoid the production of biogenic amines by using selected starters that do not have the metabolic machinery to make them.
  • To breathe or not to breathe: Some fermentations, like the production of water kefir (usually using dried figs), should be performed in the absence of air and thus require a rubber sealing. For other fermentations, a complete submerging in brine or a covering with oil is necessary. Kombucha, on the contrary, needs a wide opening covered by a cloth that allows oxygen into the vessel. Uncontrolled anaerobic conditions can increase the risk for the growth of clostridia. In cheese making they can be the cause of cheese blowing up, in other conditions they may produce the deadly botulin toxin.
  • Avoid Moulds. Moulds are another problem linked to (too much) oxygen. Moulds can make mycotoxins which can make one very sick and any visible contamination should ring bells! It is not wise to scrape them off, as often they have produced toxins already, left spores or will remain present through their ‘roots’ which most of the time are not visible.
  • Hold the alcohol: During fermentation, sugars are converted to lactic and acetic acids, but also to ethanol. Therefore, the concentration of sugar added may impact the final alcohol levels of the end-product.
  • Pass the gas: In the case of water kefir, the use of a water lock can be necessary, as the CO2 gas which is formed during the fermentation may increase the pressure in the vessel, leading to potential breaking or surprises during opening. Therefore, blown fermented foods products should never be consumed.
  • Party crashers and acid balance: Not all bacteria are your friends. Some undesirables can be present on fresh vegetable products and can in themselves lead to spontaneous fermentation. Therefore, it is important to not let your fermentation be hijacked by these bacteria. The good bacteria should grow and produce acid quickly for a safe fermentation. Pathogens generally cannot grow in high acid environments (below pH 4 is a safe target). This acidity should be reached as quickly as possible during fermentation to avoid the growth of bacteria which can produce toxins or off flavours.
  • Nothing lasts forever: While high acid is essential, it does not protect the food indefinitely. Some yeasts and fungi can grow in high acid. As they grow, some can reduce acidity locally so that (mainly at the surface) other (potentially pathogenic) bacteria can develop
  • Use good quality raw materials. Use only good quality and fresh ingredients when deciding to ferment. While fermentation helps to preserve your fresh foods longer, it will not rescue (almost) spoiled products!
  • Summer and winter milk. If you use milk in your fermentation, it is also possible that the quality of the end product will be different along with the season, as summer milk, harvested from cows in the field, has a different composition from milk harvested from cows fed winterfeed.
  • Temperature. Temperature control is important. While for sauerkraut room temperature 18-22 (65-72°F) is fine, yoghurt fermentation is much better at 37°C (100°F). You, therefore, can expect differences in summer and winter if you do not control the temperature. Find the right spot in the house for both summer and winter.
  • Water activity. In addition to acidification, microbial control is often achieved by reduction of the water activity, generally by sufficient salting and/or drying. This is of major importance to produce fermented sausages. It is important to point out that raw meat is a particularly hazardous matrix, requiring even more care and attention when performed at home.
  • Salt and acetic acid (vinegar) concentration. Both ingredients help keep the pathogens at bay. Stick to recipes that have proven to be reliable.
  • Fermentation time. This is an important factor which can vary a lot and, in turn, impact the quality of your end product. Its critical nature is well known from wine making, in which the duration of the primary and secondary fermentation is well known to be crucial to the quality of the result. While in wine the primary fermentation usually takes between 3 to 7 days, the secondary fermentation can take much longer and will depend on the vial, the alcohol concentration and the yeast used. The fermentation of sauerkraut goes in three stages. ALL three are essential for a safe and tasteful product; a minimum of three to four weeks is necessary. Industrially produced yoghurt can be made in 8 hours, but at home it may take a few hours more. How much more again depends on the milk quality, the starter and the temperature.
  • Do’s and don’t’s: Do invest in a kitchen weighing scale and a thermometer that goes from 0 – 100 °C. Don’t even think about home-made sausage.  Don’t even think about raw-milk cheese.  Do start with simple foods like yogurt or kefir.  There are fool-proof kits for making beer (although they require some hardware).  Sauerkraut and kimchi are relatively easy to make.

Being aware of these simple concepts can help ensure the production of a healthy, tasty fermented food. Consumers should expect that the quality of the resulting fermented food will vary from lot to lot and they should be able to judge when a product is still safe for consumption and when it is not. Consumers should also be aware of the risk factors above and know how to select and handle equipment and execute procedures that will yield safe and nutritious end products.

For additional information:

Fermented Foods on the www.ISAPPscience.org website.

Preparing Fermented Foods and Pickled Vegetables

The University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, the National Center for Home Food Preservation

Safe Preserving: Fermented Foods From the University of Wisconsin Extension