From sauerkraut to kimchi, probiotic foods are both good for you and delicious

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      When you mention the word culture to Barbara Schellenberg, she tends to think Lactobacillus rather than Liszt. Most days, she’s got beneficial bacteria on the brain as she serves her regular customers at Ethical Kitchen in North Vancouver (1600 Mackay Avenue).

      One recent morning, moving around her cozy restaurant, Schellenberg explains that the ceramic plate she’s holding is alive with microorganisms—healthy bacterial cultures of a kind that humans have been consuming for over a million years. The little mounds of house-made sauerkraut, smoked chipotle kimchi, and preserved lemon peel on the plate have all been created through fermentation, a food preservation technique that lets naturally present lactic-acid bacteria act on the food to create a tasty sourness.

      “Traditional diets all over the world had fermented foods,” she says as she smoothes her apron and sits down in a wooden rocking chair. “It’s all built from there.”

      Ethical Kitchen is the candy store of fermentation, with a glass case displaying charming, squat jars full of the coarse-cut sauerkraut and green-studded kimchi, as well as kombucha-soaked pickles and dilly carrots for sale ($9 each, plus $2 jar deposit; selection varies by season).

      Foods alive with friendly bacteria—so-called probiotic foods—are starting to gather a lot of local fans. For one thing, natural-health professionals often cite the benefits of topping up the populations of good bacteria that naturally live in the human digestive tract.

      “People think of probiotics as just being good for digestion,” says Schellenberg, who has studied herbal medicine and holistic nutrition. “But there’s literally not a process in your body that happens without [the enzymes they help produce]. So having those fermented foods is really important.”

      Another person who was attracted to fermented foods for health reasons is Andrea Potter, a chef and registered holistic nutritionist who runs DIY fermentation workshops through her company, Rooted Nutrition.

      “As a result of having great digestion, immunity also increases,” she explains over a cup of tea in a Robson coffee shop. “So my clients and I are finding we get sick way less when we’re eating lots of probiotic foods. They give us this extra protection.”

      Potter says that she has come to value fermentation for a slew of reasons, including food security and economic practicality. Always game to share her creations, she produces a jar of asparagus spears and a fork and sets them on the table of the coffee shop. The asparagus, she says, was a five-to-six-day fermentation she made with only salt brine, tarragon, garlic, and serrano chiles. They turned out to have a brightness, a tang, unmatched by anything in most people’s experience.

      “So there’s yeast and bacteria both acting in here,” she says. “The bacteria makes the souring, and the yeast makes it kind of fizzy.” Potter notes that the high acidity of the fermentation makes it extremely unlikely that sickness-causing bacteria will grow there.

      Potter sells her ruby-red “rainbow sauerkraut” at Eternal Abundance (1025 Commercial Drive) for $8 plus $1 jar deposit, but she prefers to spend her time coaching others to start their own probiotic pet projects. For a schedule of her classes, see the Rooted Nutrition website.

      Chef Jonathan Chovancek of Kale & Nori Culinary Arts, a new boutique catering company, says he started fermenting by “approaching it from the health angle, and then making it delicious.” Reached by phone, Chovancek says his fermented creations from local ingredients have included a hot-and-crunchy wild-ramp kimchi, a peach-and-almond kimchi, and a spicy West Coast bull kelp. He and his business partner, Lauren Mote, create unique menus with their clients that often include some form of probiotic food or beverage.

      One probiotic food is a staple in restaurants all over Vancouver: kimchi. Many Korean restaurants make their signature spicy condiment in-house. James Yang, for example, chef at Seoul House Royal Korean Restaurant (1215 West Broadway), makes a new batch every week using su choy cabbage, salt, and a spicy paste that includes garlic, ginger, and hot-pepper powder.

      You have to hunt around to find a regular cucumber probiotic pickle, though. Gone are the days when the average deli stocked a barrel of Jewish-style sour pickles behind the counter. Yet Kaplan’s Star Deli (5775 Oak Street) sells jars of its zippy house-brand probiotic pickles that fizz satisfyingly when you pop off the top.

      The refrigerator sections of certain grocery and health-food stores around the city also carry probiotic pickles ($10.75) and sauerkraut. Any unpasteurized product that does not have vinegar on the list of ingredients is a good culture candidate.

      Comments

      3 Comments

      Edward

      Oct 20, 2011 at 12:48pm

      Be careful that your kimchi doesn't have too much salt. Some kimchis have a lot of salt that cancels out its probiotic benefits.

      orchid

      Oct 27, 2011 at 7:41pm

      Edward, makes a good point. Just like my mother now doesn't have hardly any soy sauce in her food: high salt not good for her high blood pressure. She is 78. Doctor's instructions.

      I forgot: I'm Chinese-Canadian. :)

      Clive Ashworth

      Oct 30, 2011 at 10:48am

      A bowl of kimchi on a cold November morning is just like heaven