Most people know that fermented foods build great gut health, but a growing body of research shows they also build strong immunity, brain health, heart health and more. As a result, there are more reasons than ever to eat more fermented foods. Check out my blogs 9 Reasons to Love Sauerkraut and The Surprising Foods that Alleviate Anxiety to discover several reasons.
But, if you’re like many people you may not know how to get more fermented foods into your diet, outside of yogurt with fruit or sauerkraut on your favorite hot dog.
Here are 25 of my favorite ways to get more fermented foods into your diet:
Using Yogurt or Kefir
1. Smoothies: Blend some yogurt or kefir (a fermented dairy or fruit juice beverage) with a handful or two of fruit for a delicious smoothie.
2. Frozen Yogurt: After making a fruit smoothie, pour it into popsicle molds for a frozen yogurt treat.
3. Yogurt Cheese: Pour yogurt into a cheesecloth-lined sieve and let it sit for at least a few hours for a soft yogurt cheese—simply add your favorite herbs for an unbeatable fresh cheese. Like all of the yogurt-based suggestions, these approaches work for vegan yogurt as well.
4. Yogurt Salad Dressing: Blend some yogurt with lemon juice or vinegar and some herbs and sea salt for a creamy salad dressing.
5. Save Yogurt to Make More: Save a few tablespoons of yogurt or the whey from yogurt-making as the starter culture to make even more.
6. Breakfast Cereal: Add a dollop or two of yogurt or kefir to your favorite breakfast cereal or oatmeal in place of milk.
Using Sauerkraut, Pickled Vegetables or Kimchi
7. Over Brown Rice or Quinoa for a Quick Meal: Simply adding sauerkraut or other fermented vegetable dish to cooked grains (after the grains have cooked) makes a quick, nutritious and delicious meal. Check out my blog “Make Your Own Probiotic-Rich Sauerkraut.”
8. Over Salad: I threw some sauerkraut on top of a homemade Caesar salad and it was delicious. You can add fermented veggies to almost any salad for a quick probiotic boost.
9. On Noodles: Tossing brown rice or other whole grain noodles with kimchi or pickled veggies makes mealtime a cinch.
10. Sandwiches: Adding pickled turnip, fermented onions, kimchi or sauerkraut to your favorite sandwich gives it a flavor and nutritional boost.
11. and 12. On Burgers and Hot Dogs: This one is fairly self-explanatory.
13. Lettuce Cups: Place freshly-grated vegetables, bean sprouts and fermented veggies or kimchi in a large leaf of lettuce and wrap it up for a simple snack or meal.
14. Salad Rolls: Soak rice paper wraps in hot water, pat dry and wrap them up with fermented and fresh veggies and kimchi.
15. Tacos: Top your favorite tacos with fermented vegetables like carrots or onions for a flavor boost.
16. Salad Dressing: Blend sauerkraut or kimchi with some two parts oil and one part vinegar for a quick and easy salad dressing.
17. Condiments: Add pickled vegetables or kimchi as a condiment to almost any meal.
18. Guacamole: I mix an El Salvadoran fermented salsa known as Curtido with mashed avocado for a simple and amazingly delicious guacamole in minutes.
19. Salsa and Chips: Mix fresh salsa ingredients: chopped tomatoes, onion, garlic, lemon juice and minced chilies with the contents of one probiotic capsule and let sit for at least a few hours but preferably overnight. Then serve your fermented salsa with chips for a great snack.
20. Hummus: Blend sauerkraut (or sauerkraut juice) and chickpeas with a little extra virgin olive oil for a quick and probiotic-rich hummus. The sauerkraut and sauerkraut juice adds flavor and replaces salt in this recipe.
Using Other Fermented Foods
21. Fermented Juice: Empty the contents of a probiotic capsule into your favorite fruit or vegetable juice, cover and leave at room temperature overnight or for a day. Not only will you get the probiotics found in the capsule, but the beneficial microbes will proliferate and actually reduce the amount of natural sugars present in the juice.
22. Choose Kombucha over Soda: Skip the sugar-laden soft drink and instead enjoy a naturally-sparkling kombucha (a probiotic-rich beverage).
23. Cultured Cream: Soak raw, unsalted nuts like cashews, pine nuts or macadamias in enough water to cover and the contents of one probiotic capsule. Let sit for eight hours or overnight. Blend. Use over fruit in place of cream. Use only as much of the soak water as needed for a thick vegan sour cream.
24. Vegan Cheese: Follow the instructions under 23 but use only enough water to cover the nuts and allow them to ferment with the probiotic powder for at least 24 hours or longer for a sharper cheese flavor. Blend until smooth and creamy for a quick and probiotic-rich soft cheese.
25. Vegan Pudding or Cheesecake: Follow the instructions for vegan cheese but add some fruit and sweetener (if you wish), along with a couple tablespoons of a thickening agent like ground chia or flax seeds. For a cheesecake, crumble some graham crackers or cookies with a small amount of coconut oil and press into a small cheesecake mold. Pour the fruit-cashew mixture over the crust. Refrigerate until firm, et voila! Enjoy a simple, raw, probiotic-rich pudding or cheesecake.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
9 Steps to Detox Your Body and How it Can Help You Lose Weight
8 Health Benefits From Drinking Kombucha Tea
6 Powerful Ways to Improve Mental Health
13 Vegan Chia Seed Recipes Guaranteed to Superfood Your Diet
"Now that we are spending more time at home, we are noticing the large number of delivery vans and lorries driving through cities," said Netherlands environment minister Stientje van Veldhoven, announcing plans to ban all but zero-emission deliveries in 14 cities.
"The agreements we are setting down will ensure that it will be a matter of course that within a few years, supermarket shelves will be stocked, waste will be collected, and packages will arrive on time, yet without any exhaust fumes and CO2 emissions," she added.
She expects 30 cities to announce zero emission urban logistics by this summer. City councils must give four years' notice before imposing bans as part of government plans for emission-free road traffic by 2050. The city bans aim to save 1 megaton of CO2 each year by 2030.
Help to Change
To encourage transport organizations to go carbon-free, the government is offering grants of more than US$5,900 to help businesses buy or lease electric vehicles. There will be additional measures to help small businesses make the change.
The Netherlands claims it is the first country in the world to give its cities the freedom to implement zero-emission zones. Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht already have "milieuzones" where some types of vehicles are banned.
Tilburg, one of the first wave of cities imposing the Dutch ban, will not allow fossil-fuelled vehicles on streets within its outer ring road and plans to roll out a network of city-wide electric vehicle charging stations before the ban comes into effect in 2025.
"Such initiatives are imperative to improve air quality. The transport of the future must be emission-free, sustainable, and clean," said Tilburg city alderman Oscar Dusschooten.
Europe Takes Action
Research by Renault shows that many other European cities are heading in the same direction as the Netherlands, starting with Low Emission Zones of which Germany's "Umweltzone" were pioneers. More than 100 communes in Italy have introduced "Zonas a traffico limitato."
Madrid's "zona de baja emisión" bans diesel vehicles built before 2006 and petrol vehicles from before 2000 from central areas of the city. Barcelona has similar restrictions and the law will require all towns of more than 50,000 inhabitants to follow suit.
Perhaps the most stringent restrictions apply in London's Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), which charges trucks and large vehicles up to US$137 a day to enter the central area if they do not comply with Euro 6 emissions standards. From October, the ULEZ is being expanded.
Cities are responsible for around 75% of CO2 emissions from global final energy use, according to the green thinktank REN21 - and much of these come from transport. Globally, transport accounts for 24% of world CO2 emissions.
The Rise of Online Shopping
Part of the reason for traffic in urban areas is the increase in delivery vehicles, as online shopping continues to grow. Retailer ecommerce sales are expected to pass $5billion in 2022, according to eMarketer.
The World Economic Forum's report The Future of the Last-Mile Ecosystem, published in January 2020, estimates that e-commerce will increase the number of delivery vehicles on the roads of the world's 100 largest cities by 36% by 2030.
If all those vehicles burn fossil fuels, the report says emissions will increase by 32%. But switching to all-electric delivery vehicles would cut emissions by 30% from current levels as well as reducing costs by 25%, the report says.
Other solutions explored in the report include introducing goods trams to handle deliveries alongside their passenger-carrying counterparts and increased use of parcel lockers to reduce the number of doorstep deliveries.
Reposted with permission from the World Economic Forum.