Lacto-Fermented Foods
We have been playing around with fermentation behind the scenes at HPS for quite a while now. With the growing popularity and discovery of the benefits of fermented foods for humans, we thought why not. We love fermented products for our pets. They provide a plethora of beneficial bacteria for good gut health, readily available nutrients, naturally occurring enzymes and so much more. They are the perfect delivery system for many of the food world’s finest nutrients, most of which dogs and cats cannot utilize well. The fermentation process unlocks much of the nutritive and non-nutritive benefits of these food items and makes them incredibly bio-available.
What is Fermentation?
Fermentation is a chemical process that many food items can undergo to change their composition. They can convert sugars to acids, gases, or alcohol. They can also convert alcohol into acids, like in acetic fermentation. There are many naturally occurring fermentation processes where microorganisms present on the foods begin fermentation as well as ones where cultures are introduced into the foods for fermentation. Lacto-fermentation in particular is due to Lactobacillus or other species of lactic acid producing bacteria (LAB). The bacterium breaks down complex carbohydrates our pets cannot and converts them into lactic acid!
Process of Fermentation
The fermentation processes we use are based on the Noma Guide to Fermentation (1). Here they lay out many different ways to produce fermented foods, but the main one we utilize is a brine fermentation. This entails submerging foods into a brine of salt to produce an uninhabitable environment for bad bacteria, allowing LAB to thrive. Water rich fruits and veggies can simply be salted and they will release their water to make that oxygen free environment. We will review how to build your brine in any individual recipe we post, but the simple rules are:
Fit your intended fermented foods into a canning jar
Cover with water
Take weight of ferment and water: (veggies + water)-weight of jar
Do some math to get a 2-3% brine solution: (weight of ferment + water) x 0.02
Dump out water
Add the 2% weight in salt to your water and stir to combine
Cover with a fermentation weight (or ziplock with some water in it) to push down all veggies
Lightly close can lid to allow pressure to escape
Wait anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks or really as long as you want
The longer you wait, the more acidic the product will be. For most ferments for my pet, I typically allow to ferment a week. During fermentation, a webby white substance may form. This is called Kham yeast and is totally safe, just skim it off. If you notice any discoloration or fuzzy stuff (i.e. mold) toss it out. Once complete you can keep in the fridge basically indefinitely. For certain recipes we recommend pureeing, while others you can feed whole. As for day to day use, I generally go for a teaspoon per 50lb. This can vary depending on recipe and isn’t hard and fast.
Fermented benefits
Gut health has become the topic on everyone’s mind and fermented foods is a huge part of this. A healthy gut contains a wide variety of beneficial bacteria (and small colonies of not so healthy). The more beneficial bacteria, the less likely these nasty bacterium have to colonize the gut and make us sick. Optimal gut health has also shown to be a crucial part in our immune system (2) as well as our mental health (3). A randomized study in humans found that a variety of fermented foods increased microbiome diversity and decreased inflammation (4). Fermentation also breaks down and “pre-digests” veggies for optimum digestion and nutrient absorption. The process can also decrease anti-nutrients found in seeds and nuts (5). Fermented foods are hugely beneficial for humans and animals alike and would have been a natural part of our diet and we are happy to see it getting a come back in popularity.
