A cofounder of the Canadian Fermented Foods Initiative says, while the use of food fermentation has typically been used for food preservation, people like the taste of fermented foods and are now discovering the heath benefits of fermented food. Benefits, Uses and Recipes for Fermented Foods will be the focus of a webinar set for 2:00 PM eastern time tomorrow hosted by Canadian Food Focus and the Canadian Fermented Foods Initiative.
Dr. Jeremy Burton, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Western University and a cofounder of the Canadian Fermented Foods Initiative, explains fermentation occurs as microbes consume the sugars or proteins in the food and produce substances such as acids and other compounds which transform the food, and how that transformation occurs depends on the microbes.
Quote-Dr. Jeremy Burton-Canadian Fermented Foods Initiative:
Every culture has a history of fermentation, primarily to preserve food. Fresh food typically has a limited shelf life and if you preserve something that is available in abundance at a particular time of year, then you can enjoy that and give you nutrition at other times of year when maybe other types of food aren't available. If you look at our survey results from the Canadian Fermented Food Initiative, people really like fermented food because of the taste.
Health is more of a recent addition to why people eat fermented foods.
It's becoming clear that in large populations studies that people who consume more fermented foods seem to have less chronic diseases than those that don't.
In saying that, you might have heard of Metchnikoff. He was given the Nobel Prize for the discovery of part of the immune system.He actually promoted fermented food and when on to become the father of probiotics.Fermented foods and probiotics aren't exactly the same thing but that started around 100 years ago so people had been starting to become aware of the benefits of consuming food containing some live microbes.
To learn more about fermented foods or to register for tomorrow's webinar visit fermentedfoods.ca or canadianfoodfocus.org.
Source : Farmscape.ca